What a Woman Wants
By Louis B. Hobson
Kelly Preston’s love affair with Maine is a vital part of the most important love affair of her life. When John Travolta began courting her in 1990, he would often bring her to Maine to visit Kirstie Alley and Alley’s then-husband Parker Stevenson, who had a home on the island of Islesboro in Maine’s Penobscot Bay.

“I love being outdoors. I love being close to nature,” says Preston,39, who was born in Honolulu, then lived in Australia for 14 years before returning to Hawaii.

The mansion Kelly, John, and their children Jett and Ella Bleu call home each summer and for other special occasions like Christmas and birthdays was originally built for Philadelphia industrialist George Drexel at the tum of the 20th century.

It is a 42-room, three-and-a-half story building with 20 bedrooms.

Preston enthuses about the beautiful views, especially from her rooms overlooking Sabbathday Harbor.

The house is situated on a rocky precipice and is shrouded in evergreens.

“It’s wonderful because we’re so secluded,” says Preston.

Both Preston and Travolta make themselves available to the press whenever they are promoting one of their films or trumpeting a cause near to their hearts.

At such times, they are generous almost to a fault, something rare for celebrities of their status.

Between films and causes, they are private people and Islesboro is the ideal retreat. Preston explains that the only drawback to being married to one of the most beloved and high-profile actors in Hollywood is that when they are in public she and Travolta “are always on view.

“It never gets easy to share the person you love with the public. I remember one time in France, I was nearly trampled by people wanting to get to John.” She says her neighbors in Maine “are far more respectful of our privacy,” and they have very few casual star-gazers on Islesboro.

“You reach our island by ferry. It’s a retreat. It’s so private and pristine,” says Preston, possibly referring to the deer that graze in the forested areas.

When the water is too rough to navigate, the Travoltas check into the Samoset Inn in Rockport to wait out the storm.

In addition to their mansion on Islesboro, the couple has homes in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Hawaii, and their main residence in Ocala, Florida.

“Our time in Maine is special because it is a very Norman Rockwell existence. It’s our retreat in the summers. I arrive and become inspired to bake pies and make jam.” You can bet a lot of those pies and jams are made from blueberries.

Travolta’s 80-acre estate is part of a far more sprawling estate that at one time encompassed nearly 200 acres. Neighbors recall that in its glory that estate used to harvest more than 20,000 pounds of blueberries each summer.

Travolta and Preston [then married to actor Kevin Gage] first met in Toronto on the set of their film The Experts. They met again in 1990 in Vancouver, when he was filming Look Who’s Talking Too with Kirstie Alley, and she was filming Run with Patrick Dempsey.

“John was thrilled to learn I was single. He said he’d been in love with me from that first time we met and had waited those years. “We got engaged within six months and were married the following year in Paris.” According to an interview Kirstie Alley did in 1991 with Woman’s Day magazine in Australia, the marriage almost didn’t happen.

Alley says Preston broke off the engagement and a devastated Travolta flew to Maine to ask her to intercede on his behalf

Alley made a phone call.

Preston flew out to join her, Stevenson, and Travolta on Isleboro and the fairytale had its happy ending.

Travolta bought the Islesboro mansion as an engagement and wedding present for Kelly just a few coves over from the house Alley and Stevenson occupied.

“John and I have such an exciting, blessed life. To be happily married is miraculous. I know because I was married before and it didn’t work.” She says that Travolta is “the most lovable, goofy, wonderful person I have ever met. He is also the most amazing human being because he is so positive and upbeat about everything.” She adds if people want to know what Travolta is like in private they should check out his movie Phenomenon.

“That is the closest he has ever come to playing himself on screen. Johnny absolutely loves people and yet he still has so much love left over to shower on me and Jett and Ella.” Preston says if her movie fans wonder what she is like off camera they could check out her little 1998 holiday movie Jack Frost.

“I loved Jack Frost because I got to play a wife and mom who is not really that far from me. Christmas is one of my favorite times because I am a fanatic about decorating.

“I decorate all our houses to death. There are trees in every room.

“As soon as Christmas approaches I can hardly wait to get to Maine so I can start stringing up lights on the 22 trees around our house.” As much as she loves Travolta, Preston explains that her children are her first priority.

“I am a mother, wife, and actress.

“John doesn’t just give me incredible love, he has given me two beautiful children who are the center of my life.” Jett was born April 13, 1992, and Ella Bleu on April 3, 2000.

In 1994, when Jett was barely two years old, he was hospitalized for inhaling fumes from carpet cleaning agents.

Almost immediately Preston vowed to make homes safer for her family and for children everywhere.

She became and remains an active spokesperson for the Children’s Health Environment Coalition (CHEC).

“We must start in our own homes and do whatever we can to protect members of our own family plus friends and people who come to our homes.” As a result of that scare and her every-growing knowledge, Preston has changed the way her family lives in all their homes and in the homes, apartments and hotels they inhabit when she or Travolta is making movies.

“This new lifestyle is definitely a passion of mine.

“We eat organically now. We don’t have any chemicals or pesticides in our homes.” Danger still lurks where Preston least expects it.

“Johnny is making a new film about firemen called Ladder 49 and had to do some intensive training with (his costar) Joaquin Phoenix.

“One day they went into a building where the smoke was so thick they couldn’t immediately find the door. It was really scary. It gave John an enormous sense of compassion for people who choose this ever-present danger as part of their everyday life.” Ladder 49 is going to restrict the amount of time Preston and her family will be able to spend at Isleboro until later in the summer.

“The children and I will be living with Johnny in Baltimore while he films Ladder 49.

“We’re a very fortunate family because Johnny is a pilot. That means no matter where he’s filming he can always fly to us on weekends or he can fly us to his sets to join him.”

She admits Travolta is a big kid when it comes to his enthusiasm over flying.

He caused a little bit of a stir in Islesboro in July of 1997 when he circled his mansion three times in his jet.

They were used to him flying overhead in his small planes but not in a jet. Until a petition stopped him, Travolta would even land his Gulf Stream Jet II on the runway of his home.

Preston says the incidents were blown out of proportion and should never have become headlines in papers around the nation.

“Johnny just wanted to show Jett and me that he was at the controls of a real jet. He meant no harm to anyone.” She talked to many people on the island and insists “most people were thrilled by the experience. They certainly didn’t tell us they were terrified as it was reported.

“Johnny and I were always under the impression that it was only one or two people who complained.” No charges were ever laid against Travolta for his impromptu air shows.

Preston is excited that her career is flying high these days.

This year alone she played a stewardess opposite Gwyneth Paltrow and Christina Applegate in A View From the Top and she plays teen sensation Amanda Bynes’s mother in the modern Cinderella tale
What a Girl Wants.

Daddy and Them, a dark comedy she made with Billy Bob Thornton, Laura
Dern, and Andy Griffith two years ago, is coming out on video this summer.

She has already filmed roles in the much-anticipated holiday movie The Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers and Alec Baldwin and wrapped up a supporting role in the ensemble comedy Eulogy with Debra Winger, Ray Romano, and Famke Janssen.

“When I married Johnny, I immediately put my acting career on hold because he desperately wanted children.

“I didn’t have a great career but I worked steadily.

“When I finally decided to resume my career, I was suddenly Mrs. Travolta and had to prove myself all over again. It was difficult at first, but then I got the role in Jerry Maguire and things turned around.

“I have a wonderful, rewarding career now.

“I get great offers and I have more confidence.” She has enough confidence that she is even thinking of taking a hiatus to have a third child.

“Another child is definitely something we’re considering.” For her family film What a Girl Wants, Preston got to sing on camera for the first time.

She plays a single mother who supports herself and her daughter as a singer.

”I’m primarily a shower singer. I’ve done some karaoke with my girlfriends, but I would never call myself a singer. When I laid down those tracks I thought they were rehearsal tapes, but they ended up in the film.” Again, she doesn’t even presume to be in the same league as her husband, who is famous for his musicals.

“He is the most incredible dancer. He moves with such ease that he makes his partner look as good as he really is.

“He’s taken me dancing on my birthdays and people just watch us in amazement. People say it gives them a glow just to watch him dance or to hear him sing.

“I don’t know about him giving me a fever but Johnny just needs to smile to raise my temperature.” Preston stops, considers for a moment and then concludes, “I have a wonderful husband, two incredible children, a special life, and a great career.

“A girl couldn’t ask for anything more.”