John Travolta was a big star in the 1970s after appearing in lead roles in hit films like Grease (1978) and Saturday Night Fever (1977). The 1980's were less kind to Travolta and his star began to fade and the offers stopped coming in. He still had a huge fan in Tarantino, mind, who loved Travolta's performance in Brian De Palma's vastly underrated thriller Blow Out (1981) and cast him in the role of Vincent in Pulp Fiction. Now we all know that famous actors who appear in popular films usually go home with a decent chunk of change for their efforts. Pulp Fiction was an independent film and only cost $8m to make, $5m of which was spent on actors' salaries. Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken and Uma Thurman were taken care of. John Travolta, on the other hand, earned a relatively tiny $140,000 for his work on the film, ten grand less than was spent creating the set for Jack Rabbit Slims Still, Travolta was hardly complaining when he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and found himself back in the Hollywood good books.
