<Tr> <Th> Budget </Th> <Td> $3.5 million </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $237.1 million </Td> </Tr> <P> Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American musical drama film directed by John Badham . It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a working - class young man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Gorney as Stephanie Mangano, his dance partner and eventual confidante; and Donna Pescow as Annette, Tony's former dance partner and would - be girlfriend . While in the disco, Tony is the champion dancer . His circle of friends and weekend dancing help him to cope with the harsh realities of his life: a dead - end job, clashes with his unsupportive and squabbling parents, racial tensions in the local community, and his general restlessness . </P> <P> The story is based upon a 1976 New York magazine article by British writer Nik Cohn, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night"; in the mid-1990s, Cohn acknowledged that he fabricated the article . A newcomer to the United States and a stranger to the disco lifestyle, Cohn was unable to make any sense of the subculture he had been assigned to write about; instead, the character who became Tony Manero was based on an English mod acquaintance of Cohn . </P>

Who did the dancing in saturday night fever
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