Out of the Corner, by Jennifer Grey
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Jennifer Grey basically wrote her autobiography herself but then hired a professional writer to help her finish it.
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In the Acknowledgments chapter (pages 333 - 335), Grey thanks the following people (links added):
Dani Shapiro, who insisted I had a book in me and that I needed to write it myself.
Elissa Altman, a gifted writer and teacher of memoir, who gave me such thoughtful notes, and steered me toward her editor, Pamela Cannon ....
My wonderful editor at Ballantine Books, Pamela Cannon, for trusting in my ability as a writer.
And Barbara Jones, a freelance editor, who was as close to a miracle as I could ever hope to have in my sidecar for the last stretch of this journey. What I couldn't have anticipated was that after months of exhaustive, intensive Zoom meetings, I would find in Barbara one of the most exquisite collaborators, someone I trusted implicitly, as well as a kindred spirit ...
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In a New York Times article published on April 18, 2022, journalist Elisabeth Egan wrote:
From April to September of 2021, she [Grey] had daily coaching sessions by Zoom with Barbara Jones, an editor and publishing industry veteran who helped shape the memoir.
“The first thing Jennifer did was give me a massive manuscript, something she called the whole enchilada,” Jones said in a phone interview. “She’s one of the most highly verbal people I’ve ever met. I’d say, ‘You need a word here that means this’ and she’d spit out 10 synonyms, rapid fire. Then she’d pick one.
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An interview by Zibby Owens on May 7, 2022, Grey told how she wrote her autobiography:
.... It was more like, let me just get down on my computer, with these two fingers because I don't even type ... really slowly, which made me actually take my time because of how slow I am with a computer. I would just try to get what I knew out. Once I got what I knew out, then I would put it aside. Then I would just get the next thing that I could remember. .... I would just do it in little dreamlike ... snapshots. Then I almost felt like it started to meet me. The book started to give me more. I remember when I was first thinking, maybe I should try writing ...
I was living with her [my daughter, born in about 2001] during the pandemic when I was, in earnest, writing every day. I'd started a couple years ago. Once the pandemic hit, all I was doing was working [on my autobiography]. ...
I wrote it pretty much for me, but also for her. ... She didn't know me as a girl. She didn't know me as a struggling actress. She didn't know me really getting beat up in the romantic world in my adventures. ... I thought, any way I can show her what is in her, in her genes, the trauma that's expressed in her genes and the anxiety and all these things as well as the incredible, great stuff I have ....
The writing of it was such a herculean effort for me. The fact that I did it myself and that I have this wonderful editor named Barbara Jones who I hired the last few months. We did hours just on Zoom, never in person. She helped shaped it. I can't believe I did it.
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Jones advised Grey to begin her book with a "Prologue" (pages 3 - 17), Grey writes about her nose. I summarize that chapter as follows:
At age 25, Grey was satisfied with her nose, but her mother talked her into consulting three nose surgeons. Grey's acting career was stagnant, and she was working as a waitress. Grey consulted two of the three surgeons soon, but then waited about four years, until she was 29 years old, to consult the third surgeon.
The Prologue does not explain that Grey was 25 years old in 1985. She was selected to star in the movie Dirty Dancing in 1986. She became famous when the movie was released to the theaters in 1987, but then her career stagnated again. Eventually, when she was 29-years-old in 1989, she consulted the third surgeon.
The third surgeon (he is not named in the book) operated on her nose, and Grey was delighted by the result. The Prologue includes this photograph of the new nose that made her so happy.
The surgeon removed the nose's hump and made the tip more pointed. Otherwise the nose remained about the same size, and so Jennifer felt that her appearance had changed only slightly..
The following photograph is not in the book, but it shows the previous hump on her nose:
I think her new nose is seen in the following video clip of a television appearance in February 1990, soon after her surgery. Her nose remains big, but the hump is gone. (Or maybe I am completely wrong; this might be her original nose.)
Grey felt that the nose surgery boosted her movie career. In about 1990, she was selected to star in a movie titled Wind, which was filmed in 1991 and was released to the theaters in 1992.
For next YouTube video, Click on Watch on YouTube and then skip forward to about 1:00.
Toward the end of the filming of Wind in 1991, however, a problem developed in her new nose. The white cartilage at the tip of her nose became slightly visible through the skin -- especially since her nose skin had become quite tan during the filming.
Therefore, her surgeon had to fix that problem. It's my understanding that the surgeon cut off some of that cartilage, and therefore the nose was shortened.
Grey was quite upset that her nose was shortened, because she felt like she now looked like a different person. People no longer recognized her. Also, she did not want the public to think that she vainly had decided to change her nose drastically.
In my own opinion, the surgeon did not botch the operation. He did change Grey's nose according to her desires, but a problem eventually developed, and so the surgeon had to adjust the nose. The result was not what Grey had wanted, but the final result is a pretty nose. (Here is an interesting article about Grey's nose surgery.)
Unfortunately, a few scenes of Wind had to be re-filmed after the final surgery, and Grey's shortened nose caused some complications in the re-filming. Later, when the movie did not succeed critically and commercially, the director Carroll Ballard (according to Grey) blamed Grey's nose problem.
After the movie Wind, Grey's career stagnated again for many years, and she blames her nose problem. Here is my basic thinking about Grey's movie career:
* She was born to star in the role of Baby Houseman in Dirty Dancing.
* She was born to play just supporting characters in all her other movies.
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To be continued in Part 02
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