SOUTHERN COMFORT JOHN TRAVOLTA REVELS IN HIS OVERFED AND OVER-READ 'LONG SONG' CURMUDGEON.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

John Travolta turned 50 last February.

And he looks terrible. White-haired and stubble-faced, out of shape and limping.

Of course, we're talking about the actor as he appears in his latest movie release, ``A Love Song for Bobby Long.'' In real life, Travolta's hair is still dark, his sometimes fluctuating weight is on the well-balanced side, and as far as we can tell all limbs are healthy. But the one-time teen heartthrob of ``Saturday Night Fever,'' ``Grease'' and TV's ``Welcome Back, Kotter'' admits that the landmark birthday was more than a little traumatic.

``It wasn't easy for me, I'll be candid with you,'' Travolta says. ``Although I had a magnificent party and there was a lot of validating going on, you could also view it as, 'Are they worried I'm going?' (laughs) See, at 40 I could pretend I was an old guy, knowing that I really wasn't. I was like, 'Oh, you don't wanna kiss an old man,' do all of these things that were kind of charmingly reflecting on modest aging. But then I hit 50, and I can't kid about that anymore! I have to admit to some actual age that I never wanted to hit. So, it wasn't the easiest thing, and I'm getting better at it.''

The one good thing about really getting older, Travolta says, is being able to act one's age, or a little beyond.

Of course, Travolta has always done what he wanted to do. His late 1970s superstardom takeoff, while mostly fueled by female-pleasing musicals, also included Brian De Palma thrillers (``Carrie,'' ``Blow Out''). His ``Pulp Fiction'' return to credibility after a decade of talking-baby movies and worse has been balanced, for the last 10 years, among cool commercial projects (``Get Shorty,'' John Woo's ``Broken Arrow'' and ``Face/Off''), mediocre popular product (``Phenomenon,'' ``Michael,'' ``The General's Daughter,'' ``Swordfish'') prestige/art-house fare (``A Civil Action,'' ``Primary Colors,'' ``She's So Lovely'') and losers (We still can't comprehend a star of Travolta's magnitude wanting to make ``Lucky Numbers,'' ``Domestic Disturbance'' and that incalculably awful tribute to his Scientology faith's beloved founder, L. Ron Hubbard, ``Battlefield Earth.'').

But Travolta likes to point out that over his last four jobs, he's played a comic-book villain in ``The Punisher,'' a stalwart big-city fire chief in ``Ladder 49,'' a Southern culture vulture on the skids in ``Love Song,'' and ``Get Shorty's'' mobster-gone-Hollywood Chili Palmer again in the sequel ``Be Cool,'' scheduled for a March release.

``I have much more life experience to give,'' the actor notes. ``Those are four distinctly different characters that I couldn't have played any younger than I am. I needed to be the age I am to play those parts. Age gives you a lot of permission and freedom to choose.''

Of the quartet, Bobby Long is clearly the closest to Travolta's heart. Based on the R.E. Capps novel ``Off Magazine Street'' and scripted and directed by feature newcomer Shainee Gabel, ``Love Song'' charts the slow, cantankerous redemption of former literature professor Long, who's been on a years-long bender with his ``biographer,'' Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht), in a rundown New Orleans hovel once owned by a recently deceased singer, drinking buddy and, perhaps, girlfriend of Bobby's.

But when her estranged teenage daughter Purslane (Scarlett Johansson) shows up to claim the property, she has a profound effect on the two old drunks. Unhappy, initially, but perhaps just what the guys needed to get their lives in order before it's too late.

``The voice of the South hasn't been explored very much since the 1960s, with Williams, Inge, Faulkner, Capote,'' Travolta notes. ``It was refreshing to see a throwback to this kind of character and story that allowed you to be broken and romantic. My favorite quote from the movie is when Scarlett says, 'Books are better than life. That's why they're books. Don't you know that? Any fool knows that.' I love that because I think it's indicative of the way he's lived his life. He almost knows too much and has read too much to have any sense of his own reality.

``It's really everything that I want to do as an actor growing older but rarely have a chance to,'' Travolta continues. ``This is the kind of work that Geraldine Page or Paul Newman had an opportunity to explore that it's just not possible to nowadays. I don't know why, but it seems like the writing trends have not led toward the classics. This is a very important movie, in my opinion, because it's inviting people to get literary again.''

Besides reams of juicy, poetic dialogue, ``Love Song'' also gave Travolta a freedom of image that he hasn't enjoyed since ... well, since he portrayed ``Battlefield Earth's'' evil alien.

``It is fun because you have freedom to let it go, if you will, in a character,'' he says. ``You don't have to be vain or conscious of any way you look or behave. Bobby is a well-mannered Southern gentleman. But at the same time, he's a lech and lascivious and wicked, too. All of those things come into play, but mostly it's just fun to let go and relax into a character and not have to worry or be self-conscious.

``In a major film, you wouldn't be allowed to do that, for all the obvious reasons. You're taking a chance, but it's better to risk it with something well-written than to risk it in something that is not going to work.''

Travolta was so happy to get a role like Bobby Long that he didn't even complain about shooting it in a non-air-conditioned house at the height of the sweltering Louisiana summer. And this from a guy who's been accused in the past of pulling out of projects when his personal chef's salary or fuel for his private jet were not worked into the budget.

``It's very easy to develop a chemistry with John because, in many ways, he's such a generous artist,'' co-star Macht confirms. ``He's one of those guys who really wants everybody to feel good, be comfortable and feel like they have something to say in order to be free and spontaneous and then to be vulnerable.''

As always, Travolta credits the positive aspects of his personality, as well as coping better with the big five-o, to his studies in Scientology. But he also credits living half the year near the Central Florida city of Ocala with keeping him happy and sane. Travolta and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, and their two small children reside in a fly-in community in a home avid pilot Travolta himself designed with ramps on either side for his Gulfstream and Qantas 707 airplanes.

``As fly-in communities go, they're the best in that part of the world,'' explains Travolta, who also has homes in Maine and Brentwood. ``And it's a natural because in Clearwater (a half-hour flight away) there's a lot of Scientology, so I spend a lot of time there anyway. It has this very unique home that I built, can pull the planes right up to it.''

When asked ``Why Florida?'' Travolta rattles off reasons such as water sports, aviation galore, race cars, all the theme parks, the weather, the ocean. ``I don't care who you are - if you can't find something to do in Florida, you can't find something to do. And I love it, because there I live more of a life. I do other things; I don't just do show business and home.''

Doesn't sound like anyone who's feeling very old and tired. In fact, Travolta assures us that when we next see him, as the slick and enterprising Chili Palmer, ``It'll be quite contrary to my look in this movie; yes, completely.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) TRAVOLTA'S LOVE SONG

At 50, the actor reflects on life and `Bobby Long'

(2) John Travolta sees ``A Love Song for Bobby Long'' as a return to the long-neglected ``voice of the South,'' as exemplified in the works of Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Truman Capone and the like.

(3) Scarlett Johansson's arrival as a wakeup call for the two booze-addled men in ``Bobby Long.''

(4) Gabriel Macht, left, says of Travolta: ``He's one of those guys who really wants everybody to feel good, be comfortable and feel like they have something to say in order to be free and spontaneous and then to be vulnerable.''