All week long, young and old, they've come to Middle River to pay homage to Vinnie Barbarino of television's Sweathogs fame.
Or Danny Zuko from the movie Grease. But mostly it was, in the collective mind's eye of the fans who lined up daily by the hundreds on Old Eastern Avenue, the swaggering dancing machine Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.
John Travolta is at the creaky but venerable Commodore bar and meeting hall this week filming Ladder 49, a tale of Baltimore firefighters, their triumphs and their foibles. The film shoot on Baltimore County's east side winds up today.
And quite a scene it has been.
"Every day, the fans started lining up before sunrise and usually the crowd would grow to several hundred people," said Officer Carl McQuay, one of several county police officers assigned to the movie security detail.
"It's pretty wild," McQuay said. "They yell for Travolta, want him to sign record albums or take a picture with their kids."
And they wait all day, the crowd melting away sometime before midnight when the cast and crew head downtown to their hotels.
Through his visit to the headwaters of Middle River, Travolta has made friends with his personality and style. This week, he invited a little girl onto the set who was celebrating her birthday and got a couple of children to act as extras.
Among the throngs desiring Travolta's attention this week was Peggy Parker, a soon-to-be-laid-off flight attendant for US Airways from Harford County. She held a sign that read "Out of Work Flight Attendant ... John, I Want to Fly With You."
Travolta, a self-confessed "air geek" and pilot, owns two planes, including a Boeing 707 repainted in 1960s retro.
Parker's friend, Julie Harrell of Forest Hill, said the pair camped out for two days trying to get Travolta's autograph.
"She likes John in Saturday Night Fever, but I thought he was awesome in Pulp Fiction," Harrell said.
Robert Hudgins, who lives on nearby Kitty Hawk Road, said Travolta waded into the crowd Monday and posed for a photograph with Hudgins' 15-month-old daughter, Gianna, one of many photo ops the star seemed to enjoy.
"This has been great for our community and just so weird in a way," Hudgins said. "I saw one woman get Travolta to autograph her arm and she went immediately to a tattoo parlor and made the autograph permanent. She came back and showed it to everybody. Also on Monday, a couple women just grabbed him and kissed him."
