Getty John Travolta and Ellen Travolta accept the 35th Anniversary Award for “Welcome Back, Kotter” at the 9th Annual TV Land Awards in 2011
Ellen Travolta has her world-famous little brother, John Travolta, to thank for helping her land a role in the 2022 Hallmark Channel Christmas movie “Haul Out the Holly,” starring Lacey Chabert and Wes Brown. The 83-year-old actress says watching the network and landing the role gave her something to feel joyful about after losing her husband of 34 years. Here’s how it all unfolded…
Ellen Travolta’s Heartwarming Story of Landing Role on the Hallmark Channel
HallmarkEllen Travolta appears in Hallmark Channel’s “Haul Out the Holly”
The story of how Ellen, who’s the oldest of six siblings in the Travolta family, found her way into a Hallmark movie sounds a lot like…well, the plot of a Hallmark movie. According to the Spokesman-Review, Ellen was heartbroken after losing her husband of 34 years, Jack Bannon, on October 25, 2017, and living alone in the home they shared together in Lake Coeur d’Alene, Washington.
She told the paper that she turned on the Hallmark Channel, hoping to find something to watch that would ease her grief, when she heard a “meow” at the door. Ellen and her husband had many feral cats that roamed around their land, and he had named them all.
But none of the cats had ever come to the door, practically begging to come in. Ellen recognized the cat at her door as one her husband had named “O.”
“For half a minute I thought, ‘Is Jack back as a cat? I can’t ignore this,’” she recalled. “So I let him in. He came up on the couch and we watched Hallmark. And that was the beginning of the rest of that year. From Oct. 25 on through, O and I watched Hallmark movies and I fell in love with them.”
Ellen says all those movies not only uplifted her, but also inspired her to want to act on TV again, specifically in a film on the network. Ellen has had a rich career as an actress; starting out in New York, she was part of the “Gypsy” cast with Ethel Merman, which opened on Broadway in 1959. Her featured roles on the stage included famed shows like “Anything Goes,” “Hello Dolly!,” and even “The Full Monty.”
According to Hallmark, her television credits include “The Love Boat,” “Happy Days” and “Welcome Back Kotter,” starring her brother John, the youngest of her siblings. But after watching and loving so many Hallmark movies to help her through her grief, she set her sights on a new goal.
“I wanted to be part of it because they’re hopeful, and sometimes not so realistic, but I didn’t care,” she told the Spokesman-Review.
Ellen started asking everyone she knew who might have a connection to the Hallmark Channel, from her agent to friends in the industry who’d appeared on the network in the past. Time passed, but Ellen’s dream of being on the network didn’t fade. Eventually, it was her brother John who heard her talk so many times about her new dream that he stepped in to help.
“I was away with John in Austria and all I did was talk about being on Hallmark,” she laughed. “So when we got back, he called his agent and asked, ‘What do we have to do to get Ellen in a Hallmark movie? All she wants is one line.’”
