Ellen Travolta

Ellen Travolta is an American actress and singer born on October 6, 1939, in Englewood, New Jersey, to Salvatore ("Sam") Travolta and Helen Cecilia (née Burke) Travolta. Her father played semi-professional football before working as a tire salesman and co-owner of a Firestone franchise called Travolta Tires. She is one of six siblings, with five younger brothers and sisters: Joey, Margaret, Sam, Ann, and John, who became a Hollywood star. Travolta pursued her education at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Her performing career began in radio as a member of a vocal group called The Sunshine Sisters. She went on to work as a drama coach, actress, and director of student productions before making her Broadway debut in 1961 in the musical Gypsy.

Travolta built an extensive television career across several decades. She is perhaps most recognized for her recurring role as Louisa Arcola Delvecchio, the aunt of Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and mother of Chachi Arcola (Scott Baio), which she played in five episodes of the 1950s-set sitcom Happy Days during the 1980s and in episodes of its spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi. She also portrayed the mother of Scott Baio's character on the syndicated comedy series Charles in Charge from 1987 to 1990, and played Gloria Cerullo on the daytime drama General Hospital, a role she originated in 1994 and reprised in 2023 and 2024. Earlier in her television career, she appeared in three episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter as Mrs. Horshack-O'Hara, a series in which her brother John Travolta starred as Vinnie Barbarino. She also played Dorothy Manucci in the short-lived series Makin' It and portrayed Jimmy Baio's mother in a 1978 episode of The Love Boat.

On film, Travolta appeared alongside her brother John in the 1978 summer blockbuster Grease, in which she played a waitress. Her additional film credits span several decades and include roles in Human Experiments (1979), Lonely Hearts (2006), and Haul out the Holly (2022) and its sequel Haul out the Holly: Lit Up (2023), in both of which she played a character named Mary Louise.

In her personal life, Travolta married James Fridley in May 1964. The couple had two children, a son, actor Tom Fridley, and a daughter, Molly Allen Ritter. They divorced in 1977. She subsequently married actor Jack Bannon on April 9, 1983, and the two relocated to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 1994, remaining together until Bannon's death in 2017.

Travolta has maintained a long association with the Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre, where she appeared in productions of Hello, Dolly! in both 2000 and 2012, playing the lead role opposite her husband's portrayal of Horace Vandergelder. The theatre is the beneficiary of the Helen Burke Travolta Memorial Fund, established in honor of her mother.