TRAVOLTA IN HIS OWN WORDS, WORLD

Anybody interested in having a John Travolta byline? Free. It’s on offer.

Travolta, who has made enough money from his movies to live in style on a 17-acre Santa Barbara ranch and buy himself three airplanes, has never been an actor to rest on his press clippings.

Not long ago he started to learn French. Then he took up the violin. And he pilots himself all over the world--most recently to Egypt, where he found 2,000 people waiting at the airport. No, they weren’t on standby. They were fans.

Now he’s started writing, and his first article will appear in the July Rolling Stone. He also has a piece ready for the August issue of Interview.

All this started when Aaron Latham and James Bridges, the producer and director of his new movie “Perfect,” gave him a word processor as a present. “You’re playing a reporter in this movie,” they said. “Go to it.”

So he did. And soon he was coming up with articles on Latham and Bridges and friends like Sylvester Stallone and Debra Winger.

“Getting that word processor inspired me,” he said the other day, “and the people I wrote about seemed to think my stuff was all right. Of course, it should be--I do know them well. The real test will be to interview someone I don’t know. I really want to do that.” (For the record, he was not paid for his Rolling Stone piece.)

Having now played a reporter, Travolta says he has a greater rapport with the scribes who come to see him.

“I understand them better now,” he said, “so much so that when one of them said, ‘I can’t think of any more questions to ask you,’ I suggested a few.”

In “Perfect,” which reunites him with the team that made “Urban Cowboy” (Latham and Bridges), Travolta is a journalist who on one of his assignments gets involved with an aerobics instructor (Jamie Lee Curtis). The story was inspired by Aaron Latham’s Rolling Stone article, “Looking for Mr. Goodbody.”

“I enjoyed making it,” said Travolta, “but next I’m going to direct. A lot of people have encouraged me, so I’ve decided, Why not?” (The movie, for Columbia, is “Lake Forest.”)

Once his promotional tour for “Perfect” is over, Travolta will wing quickly back to his Santa Barbara ranch.

“I get nervous here in Los Angeles,” he said. “As soon as I’m through with all of this, I’m off. My rule about this town is: If you’re not working here, don’t stay. So I won’t. . . .”

PROUD: Wherever Brooke Shields goes, Mama Teri is never far behind. This has, over the years, raised the blood pressure of some producers quite alarmingly and sent at least one director wailing into the night.

But Brooke, who turns 20 next Friday, shrugs all this off.

“If my mother is with me,” she says flatly, “it’s because I want her there. She never ever comes if I want to be alone.”

Her mother, who recently said, “I’m so proud that Brooke’s a virgin--though I wouldn’t expect her to be one at 22,” is, of course, the actress’s manager.

“I’ve been given a rough time because of the way I’ve protected Brooke,” she says, “but I’ve had to. I would kill for her. . . .”