An iconic film role which changed the career trajectory of John Travolta is all thanks to Paul McCartney. The Pulp Fiction star would find an early career break with Grease and went from strength to strength following that appearance. But it’s The Beatles and Wings member who brought it together in unlikely circumstances for Travolta. McCartney opted to put money into a music publishing house organised and run by Linda McCartney’s father, Lee Eastman.
It was Eastman who prompted McCartney to get into the publishing business, with the Let It Be hitmaker acquiring the rights to Buddy Holly’s back catalogue. Once the company was up and running, McCartney found it hard to say no to projects and ended up greenlighting the likes of Annie and Grease. Those approvals meant long-term successes for Eastman’s purchase of Edwin H. Morris, which “owned everything” according to McCartney.
Breaking down the finances of his work, McCartney said his own recordings and music publishing were “about equal” in how much money they provided. He told Playboy: “The music publishing I own is fabulous. Beautiful. I owe it all to Linda’s dad Lee Eastman and her brother John. Lee got on to the man who owned Buddy Holly’s stuff and bought that for me. So I was into publishing now. The strange thing is, we never owned our own publishing; it was always getting bought and sold. Someone else owns ‘Yesterday,’ not me. So it is a kind of compensation, really, for that.”
The publishing company grew and McCartney ended up owning the rights to smaller shows which were in need of investors. McCartney didn’t have the heart to pull the plug on some of these shows and it ended up developing into massive hits like Annie and Grease. He said: “There’s a thing in the business they call Eastman Luck, or maybe a little McCartney luck thrown in, too, but we just suddenly got very, very lucky.
“There was a show that needed investors and Lee said, ‘Do you want to let the show run or should we can it? We have the power to can it.’ I said, ‘No, keep it going… it’s an artistic venture, we don’t want to can that.’ It was Annie. It was at a small theatre before it got to Broadway, a little show, and we published the music. A Chorus Line happened too, and we published that. La Cage aux Folles has happened since, and that’s been lunatic, insane. Many, many more. Grease too. John Travolta was looking for something to do, and we owned the publishing rights to that.”
Grease was initially produced in Chicago in 1971 before making its Broadway and West End debuts in 1972 and 1973 respectively. A film adaptation was released in 1978, prompting a West End revival in 1979. Travolta would star in Grease alongside Olivia Newton-John, but had also been a part of the original stage production in different roles.
Had McCartney pulled the plug on Grease then Travolta may have missed out on the career he had.
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