<\/p>\n
In 1976, John Travolta<\/strong> was best known as the breakout star on Welcome Back, Kotter. The actor played Vinnie Barbarino on the ABC<\/a>sitcom<\/a>, which aired from 1975 to 1979. But by the show\u2019s fourth and final season, Barbarino was seen less and less, and that\u2019s because Travolta was on his way to becoming a major movie star.<\/p>\n The change came in 1976, when Travolta released a pop-rock single titled \u201cLet Her In.\u201d<\/a> The song appeared on the star\u2019s self-titled album that year and became a hit. \u201cLet Her In\u201d peaked at<\/a> No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100<\/a> in July 1976 and remained on the charts for 20 weeks.<\/p>\n Buzz for the song came after Travolta\u2019s April 1976 appearance on <\/a>American Bandstand<\/a>. Host Dick Clark<\/strong> introduced the young actor as\u00a0someone fans would recognize \u201cfrom Welcome Back, Kotter as the man who plays Barbarino.” “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. John Travolta!” he announced, as the actor appeared onstage wearing an orange turtle neck and black jeans.<\/p>\n After performing the song on TV for the first time, Travolta said, \u201cI want to thank everybody for giving me that response because this is the first time. \u2026 It’s nice to sing when there’s a lot of affinity going on in the air, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n After Clark asked him about his musical background, Travolta replied, \u201dWell, I’m from New Jersey\u2026 and in order to survive in New York City as an actor, you had to learn how to sing\u00a0 and dance. …I took voice lessons for like two or three years,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n While he was still known as a TV star at the time, Travolta dished that he had landed an exciting big-screen role. \u201cI’m working on a movie now called Carrie,\u201d he told Clark. \u201cAnd I’m very excited about it because it’s the first time in a movie I’ve been able to act, and it’s a serious, dramatic role. And I’ve done a lot of comedy, and I think I’d like to get into that area a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: 1970 No. 1 Hit Ranked One of\u00a0 the \u2018Top Love Songs of All Time\u2019 Was by a Made-for-TV Band<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n After Carrie, Travolta starred in the film Saturday<\/a> Night Fever, where he showed off his dancing skills as Tony Manero. One year later, Travolta\u2019s career skyrocketed when he starred as Danny Zuko in the film version of Grease. The actor recorded multiple Top 10\u00a0hits for the soundtrack with co-star Olivia Newton-John<\/strong>, including \u201cSummer Nights\u201d and \u201cYou\u2019re the One That I Want.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview posted by Blackfilm<\/a>, Travolta credited “Let Her In” for helping to pave the way for his singing role in Grease.<\/p>\n \u201cThe good news about that is that it allowed me to do something like Grease, which I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t done that song,\u201d he shared. \u201cBecause that’s what stirred them on saying, \u2019Oh, he can sing, too. Let’s pull him into this.\u2019”<\/p>\n During an interview with celebrity.land\u2019s Larry King<\/a>, Travolta noted that while he had a few hits in the \u201870s, the first big one was \u201cLet Her In.\u201d<\/p>\n Travolta also admitted that he was encouraged to continue on as a rock star, but he followed his bigger passion. \u201cI was much more attracted to acting by nature, because that was what I grew up doing,\u201d the Oscar nominee explained. \u201cBut I didn’t mind every once in a while, you know, doing that as well, singing.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac <\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a> \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Mar 1, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1976, John Travolta was best known as the breakout star on Welcome Back, Kotter. The actor played Vinnie Barbarino on the ABCsitcom, which aired from 1975 to 1979. But by the show\u2019s fourth and final season, Barbarino was seen less and less, and that\u2019s because Travolta was on his way to becoming a major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2308068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[410090,353687,375957,344335,375956],"class_list":["post-2308067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-dick-clark","tag-john-travolta","tag-kotter","tag-major-movie-star","tag-welcome-back"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/John-Travoltas-1976-Top-10-Hit-Song-Led-Star-to.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2308067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2308069,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308067\/revisions\/2308069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2308068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2308067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2308067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2308067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A push from \u2018American Bandstand\u2019<\/h2>\n
More movies–and more songs<\/h2>\n