Out of the Corner, by Jennifer Grey
Continued from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12 and Part 13
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Chapter 13, titled "The Time of My Life" tells about events in 1986, when the movie Dirty Dancing was produced and filmed. This is the fourth in a series of my blog articles about that chapter.
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On one night, toward the end of the filming, Grey got sick (she thinks the cause was food poisoning).
The following morning I'd planned to sleep in because I had a late call .... But at the crack of dawn, I got a call from the choreographer, Kenny [Ortega], asking if I'd be willing to come in before I was called on set because he was shooting some montage footage for second unit. (The second unit director is responsible for shooting supplemental footage, often action sequences or stunts, and usually not with the lead actors.)
All I wanted was to say yes, because I knew this an opportunity for Kenny to show his directing skills, and I would have done anything for this man. Unfortunately, I was super sick, and I told him so. Which didn't sway him. He wanted to grab some footage of Baby practicing her dance moves on the outdoor stairs. He promised it wouldn't take long. With the last ounce of chi in my body arrived on the second unit set and threw on my costume. The entire time we shot that sequence ... all I was trying to do was not throw up, Kenny shot me practicing my dance moves over and over.
"Go back up to the top of the stairs. Let's go again. Still rolling!" It wasn't choreographed, I was just winging it. This beat in the montage sequence was never scripted as "Baby loses her mind and has a tantrum"; it was simply "Baby practices dance steps on her own." But I was weak and exhausted, and the frustration I was experiencing was real.
The Playhouse had ingrained in me to use whatever was happening in the moment, so I just let the line out, as Kenny kept rolling, "Do it again."
My struggle (to not be sick) became Baby's struggle (to learn to dance).
In a previous blog article, I reported another story, according to which screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein reportedly persuaded sick Jennifer to film that delightful scene:
Those quick scenes when Jennifer would come down and she was practicing by herself on the little bridge, and then she put her lipstick on -- that was an afterthought.
They had finished. They had wrapped. ...
It was a Saturday morning. ... Jennifer didn't feel good at all. She was really sick.
Eleanor said, "I will give you anything you want if you can pull yourself together and do these fast scenes."
And she [Eleanor] said they had the clothes and everything right there, and they would change into the costumes quickly.
That is such a memorable part of the movie .... That was an afterthought done after they had supposedly wrapped the movie.
I would like to know more about Bergstein's participation in the filming.
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In her book, Grey complains that Swayze always showed up quite late for filming schedules. On the other hand, she admits that she refused to practice the lift move with him:
One area, though, where my problem almost identically aligned with Baby's was in my abject terror of practicing "the lift" .... I knew I wasn't going to be able to get out of that one. Postponing it was all I could do. I wouldn't rehearse it. I refused to. ... My fear made me feel like a total baby, but still I couldn't move past it.
From the very first day of rehearsal right on through the whole shoot, Patrick wanted us to rehearse the lift and I just wouldn't do it. He would say, "C'mon now! I've been doing this forever. I've never dropped anyone yet. And you're tiny."
I knew he was telling me the truth. He'd been lifting ballerinas into the air since he was a kid. But I took no comfort in that fact. I wanted to let go of the fear, but the fear wouldn't let go of me. Hating myself and feeling shame wasn't enough to get my body to take the leap.
Meanwhile, all I wanted was to get along with Patrick. Every morning I would have a new resolve and a new approach. I would focus on all his great qualities, and they were plentiful. He was handsome and a great dancer, had a great body and was strong. But something would happen to throw a spanner in the works every day. Whatever progress I'd made internally. to shape my desire by accenting the positive would be undone. Patrick was chronically late, and the crew and I would have to wait for him. Every day, all day, for every scene.
By the time he got to set, my hopeful emotional preparation for that scene would be spoiled. It's hard to fake it when the whole screen is your face.
Looking back on it now; so what? I should have simply accepted him for who he was, had a sense of humor, and expected him to be exactly who he was. Instead, my efforts to stay upbeat by having unrealistic expectations set me up to be freshly disappointed every day.
So, Grey and Swayze each behaved unprofessionally on many occasions.
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Continued in Part 15
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