8 Writer and content creator Margo Donohue revisits the drama behind the making of Saturday Night Fever. Stayin’ Alive: A Book About Saturday Night Fever Explains the Film’s Lasting Appeal By Luis Polanco Since Saturday Night Fever’s release in 1977, the American dance drama has become a cult phenomenon. The movie made disco music and culture a national and global sensation. The movie catapulted John Travolta, who played a hardware store clerk by day and a dance king by night, into the spotlight. The Bee Gees, the British musical group, won five Grammy awards with their soundtrack for the film, with hits such as “Stayin’ Alive” and “How Deep Is Your Love.” And Travolta’s dance sequences upon a multi-colored dance floor have become cultural touchstones for that decade. Documentaries such as Saturday Night Fever: The Ultimate Disco Movie and Inside Story: Saturday Night Fever have provided fans with different access points into the story behind the movie. More recently, HBO’s Mr. Saturday Night has emphasized the role that Australian producer Robert Stigwood had in shaping the movie’s distinct look and sound. Now, from the late Margaret (Margo) Donohue, an American writer, content creator, and podcast producer, comes a new, comprehensive account of the movie with Fever: The Complete History of Saturday Night Fever (272 pgs., Citadel, 2025, $29), which provides fans with an all-encompassing understanding of what made the movie so memorable. Almost 50 years after Saturday Night Fever’s original release, Donohue obtained exclusive interviews and conducted extensive research to highlight the movie’s lasting appeal and dig up some little-known stories about its making. While the dancing, the music, and Travolta are some of the first things that come to mind with Saturday Night Fever, there was more, Donohue claimed. Filmed in Brooklyn, New York (where Donohue lived), the movie told the story of Tony Manero, played by Travolta, who found love and freedom in the discotheque. The movie also touched on more difficult topics, such as cultural conflicts, sexual violence, and suicide. Behind this filmed story are a host of little-known stories that Donohue set out to chronicle in her book: “The mafia shakedowns, on-set romances, the shooting of the club sequences that sometimes required camera sleight of hand (and dance doubles) to enhance performances, on-set drug use, fights between the star and director, stunt scenes gone awry, and a dance instructor who takes the credit for the film’s choreography, though he never spends one day on the set.” The chapters of the book are ordered chronologically, and several chapters are devoted to exploring the roles of some of the important people behind the making of the film: Stigwood, who in his career transitioned from music talent manager to Hollywood producer; Travolta, who at this point in his career was best known as a TV star on the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter; director John Badham; Norman Wexler, the screenwriter who adapted Nik Cohn’s Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night; Donna Pescow, who played Annette, the young woman infatuated with Travolta’s character; and choreographer Lester Wilson, among others. Donohue reserved one chapter for the business of the movie, in which the suits at Paramount entered the scene. Apparently, Barry Diller and Michael Eisner agreed to produce the movie with the expectation that it wouldn’t be as successful as it would turn out to be. This was a good thing, as it meant little corporate meddling in the dayto-day making of the movie. However, the Paramount execs were most upset about the amount of cursing in the film. They were “worried about attracting a teen audience with a film that had an R [restricted] rating, at a time when parents were more vigilant about these things,” explained Donohue. Stigwood ended up renegotiating the deal with Diller, so that Stigwood’s RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization) would cover more of the costs. In the end, the official number of f-bombs in the movie is around 77. Donohue wanted to clear up two controversies she saw misrepresented in discussions of the movie. The first dealt with whether John Travolta had a double for the opening scene. Because of Travolta’s fame, the powers that be had to be careful about shooting the scenes that were set in public as they were nervous that he’d be swarmed by fans. Director Badham needed shots on the street, and considered using Travolta’s body double, Jeff Zinn, for part of the opening walk. In the end, however, Donohue reported that Travolta actually did the entire walk himself, sans body double. The other issue Donohue wanted to straighten out was whether choreographer and TV host Deney Terrio should be credited as a choreographer for the film. In 2012, Terrio was quoted in the Financial Times as claiming, “Every dance move that John Travolta did in Saturday Night Fever came from me.” In the book’s breakdown, it notes that the narrative that Terrio should have been credited as a choreographer came from Terrio himself, as he had more media connections than Lester Wilson, who is actually credited as the film’s choreographer. Saturday Night Fever will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2027. Its critical and cultural success is unequivocal — box office earnings of $237 million in 1977 dollars and a soundtrack that sold over 40 million copies, not to mention the fact that the Library of Congress selected it to be preserved in the National Film Registry. With Fever: The Complete History of Saturday Night Fever, Margo Donohue has conveyed what made the film so special to viewers then and why it’s still so special now. VIDEOAGE February 2026 Book Review
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