This blog discusses the movie Dirty Dancing, which was released in 1987 and starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. The articles discuss:
* literary aspects, such as characterization, motivation, interactions;
* the music and dances;
* the production of the movie;
* critical reactions.
Chapter 20, titled "Baby Love", tells about events from February 1990 until about 2004.
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Grey's career did not take off, but she gradually came to accept that disappointment. She blames -- I think excessively -- her changed nose.
(In my opinion, she was born to star in the movie Dirty Dancing, but she was born to play only minor character roles in all other movies. Her career was handicapped perhaps more by her short height -- 5'3" -- than by her nose's length.)
I started working with an inspiring acting coach who reminded me why I wanted to be an actor in the first place, and I took every workshop she offered. I took acting jobs that were not great, one after another, and applied what I'd been working on in class to make each experience more meaningful for me. ....
I focused on my sobriety. ....
Whenever I was in the grips of self-centered fear over losing what I had or not getting what I wanted, I tried to help someone else. And just hung in there.
I had to sell my house and my car, put all my stuff in storage, and move to a tiny apartment in New York.
I got hired to do an HBO show, but I was replaced after the pilot. Soon after that, my agents at CAA [Creative Artists Agency] "let me go."
So much for sobriety making my life better. Except that my life was better, just not in the old ways I would've defined as better before everything went haywire. I started to feel less crazy, less like I was at the mercy of outside forces. ... My life had become more fluid and interesting as opposed to fixed and narrow.
During some of the 1990s she had a boyfriend who was 15 years younger than her. She calls him "wonderful" but her book does not name him or tell how that relationship ended.
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When she turned 40 in the year 2000, she very much wanted to have a baby, and she did not have much time left. In her search for the father of her future child, she was influenced by a book titled Getting to "I Do": The Secret to Doing Relationships Right!, written by Dr. Pat Allen.
I wonder what Baby Houseman would have thought about Dr. Allen's advice!
During the 1990s, Grey had happened to meet occasionally with Clark Gregg, an actor, director and screenwriter. After Grey read Allen's book, she grew her acquaintanceship with Gregg into a dating relationship and then gradually into a sexual relationship. (Gregg looks like the Dirty Dancing character Neil Kellerman.)
On her 41st birthday -- March 26, 2001 -- Grey informed Gregg that she was pregnant. A few weeks later they moved together into a new home. In the summer they got married (the book does not specify their wedding date).
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Grey's pregnancy was extremely stressful, because prenatal testing indicated that the baby would be born with a serious birth defect. Grey's initial doctor recommended an abortion, but Grey switched to a different doctor who monitored the pregnancy more patiently. Later prenatal tests indicated that the baby would be normal. The birth too was very stressful, but ultimately the baby, named Stella, was born normal. Grey brags that "she was perfect". Grey writes a lot about the pregnancy and birth.
After much stress during the pregnancy and birth, the infant Stella was born perfect!
This chapter ends when Stella was attending pre-school, so I figure this was about 2004.
Stella, the perfect daughter!
Grey loves being a mother, and she writes about her happiness with strong, genuine, touching emotion. Her writing about her happiness being a mother made me happy as a reader. It's one of the best parts of the book.
Grey's husband achieved much success in the movie business. Grey was content to be his helpmeet and the mother of their child. She compares herself appreciatively with her own mother Jo Grey, the supportive wife of the successful actor Joel Grey.
Professional dancers and choreographers Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Grant analyze what makes the "Time of my Life" dance in Dirty Dancing so heart-pounding, even after 22 years.
Chapter 19, titled "Heeeere's Johnny", tells about an event in February 1990.
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Sometime during 1989, participated in the filming of a television docudrama called Murder in Mississippi. She played the role of Rita Schwerner, the wife of Michael Schwerner, (played by the actor Tom Hulce) who was murdered in June 1964 while helping Negroes to vote in Mississippi.
Tom Hulce and Jennifer Grey in the movie 1990 movie Murder in Mississippi
You can watch the entire movie on YouTube. If you just want to see Grey, then skip forward to about 10:30.
Grey does not write anything, however, about her experience of acting in that movie. (In her movie Dirty Dancing, the character Neil Kellerman mentioned to Baby Houseman that he intended to travel to Mississippi to participate in the Civil Rights movement.)
Grey mentioned this docudrama only in relation to her appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show on February 2, 1990, in order to promote that docudrama, which would be broadcast on February 5.
Grey's appearance on this show seems to be unremarkable, but it traumatized her emotionally.
Her recounting of this situation is not clear, but I understood that she stopped drinking alcohol immediately after she broke up with Johnny Depp in March 1989. She even attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Some months later, however, she learned that Depp was romantically involved with the actress Winona Ryder. At that time, Ryder was only about 17 years old and happened to live next door to Grey. Ryder and Grey had talked with each other frequently about their lives, including their love lives. When Grey discovered that Ryder was dating Depp, Grey began drinking again. (That is my understanding of this meandering, confusing chapter of the book, but I am not sure.)
Wynona Ryder dating Johnny Depp
Now on February 2, 1990, right before Grey walked out onto the stage to talk with Carson, she downed a couple glasses of wine. Early in the interview (at 0:45 in the above video), she reached over and touched Carson's chest. Although Carson did not object visibly, Grey regretted immediately that her unexpected touch had angered him.
As she left the studio, she drank more wine, straight out of the bottle, although she felt she now had ruined her career because she was intoxicated (also with drugs?) during her appearance on the show.
In the following days, Grey decided that she needed to stop consuming alcohol, Xanax, Valium, marijuana and any other mood-altering drugs (cocaine?). I got the impression that she resumed attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. She has maintained her sobriety since 1990. (She admits she has continued to smoke cigarettes.)
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I think that her nose size had been reduced before she filmed Murder in Mississippi, but I cannot say for sure. I think she looked fine with either nose. I cannot always even tell the difference.
Chapter 18, titled "Mrs. Broderdepp", tells about events from August 1987 into March 1989.
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Right after her Dirty Dancing premiere, Grey flew back to Belfast to keep Matthew Broderick company in the hospital there. Eventually they returned to the USA and moved back into the Manhattan apartment that they still shared with Meg Burnie.
Once we got home after the accident, my resolve to break it [their relationship] off vanished. We were living together in my apartment, along with my roommate, Meg. Matthew was gaunt, still on crutches, at the start of months of physical therapy to rehabilitate his leg.
I couldn't help but fall into a deeply ingrained mindset. I loved him.
Whatever Matthew's needs were, especially if they posed a serious threat to his health or work, they would have to take precedence. His grave injuries, the sudden question mark that loomed over his career, the public flaying that ensued, and the fallout that continued to swirl around him -- all of this rendered my needs, my life, my injuries, my career, inconsequential to me.
Their relationship continued to be troubled. Grey writes that when they ate out together in a restaurant, she would drink an entire bottle of wine and would weep at the table.
In January 1988, she was nominated for the Golden Globe award for Best Actress. Broderick flew with her to Los Angeles, where the awards show would take place. Instead of going to the show with her, however, he went to a restaurant to eat a meal with his agent. Meanwhile, Grey went to the awards show with her own agent.
I didn't see how much I needed help. I obviously had enormous ambivalence about going after what I wanted, though I didn't know it at the time. Ambition had a strangely distasteful and negative connotation to me; it smacked of self-involvement, entitlement, soullessness, being cutthroat and driven. I had never been a big fan of competition and was quick to avoid conflicts -- with Patrick, with Matthew, with my dad.
If there was going to be a tussle over who should stand in the limelight, I was out. Still, it didn't feel good that Matthew wouldn't be next to me, holding my hand at the Globes that January.
At about the end of February 1988, Broderick moved out of Grey's apartment into an apartment he had bought for himself. He did not invite her to move in with him. They broke up.
In spite of everything I knew, I still loved him.
We don't know Broderick's side in the story of their breakup. We do know, however, that he was a rich, successful movie star who attracted young women easily. He did not have to put up with Grey's addictions and emotions. Her own movie career seemed to be finished, but she was postponing motherhood indefinitely, in the futile hope that she too would become a movie star. If he ever married her, he might lose half of his wealth if they ever divorced.
Broderick does know how to be married. He has been married to Sarah Jessica Parker for 25 years, and they have three children. Back in 1988, though, he decided that a marriage with Jennifer Grey would be a bad risk.
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In 1986, Grey had earned $50,000 for Dirty Dancing. That amount would be about $135,000 in 2022 dollars. She did not earn any further money, such as a share of the movie's profits.
That $50,000 did not last long. I suppose she had to pay off her school loans and other debts. She had continued to work as a waitress until August 1987, the month when the movie opened in the theaters. After the movie made her famous, she felt too embarrassed to be seen working as a waitress.
She writes: "I was broke".
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She switched to a new agent, Sam Cohn, who had represented her father Joel Grey for many years. Joel Grey, however, had become dissatisfied with Cohn and therefore was angry about Jennifer's decision.
Cohn sent her a lot of scripts and arranged for some auditions, but her career did not take off. She was considered for roles in some feature movies -- she names Cocktail and Working Girl -- but ultimately was not selected.
In the months after Dirty Dancing came out, it seemed like everyone wanted to see me for their project, but something was off, out of alignment. Even though I was hurting for cash, I was turning down the jobs I was being offered. Out of fear -- fear of not being a good enough actress to overcome subpar material. And when I had an exciting audition for something A-list, I either didn't prepare adequately or got super close to getting it, which happened a lot, but for some reason ... didn't make the cut.
In late 1987 she was selected to play a leading role in the movie Bloodhounds of Broadway, which was filmed in January and February 1988 (eighty-eight) and was released in November 1989 (eighty-nine). That movie bombed. Its budget was $4 million, but its box office earnings were just $43,671.
Grey co-starred in the movie with Madonna, who was going through a divorce. Grey and Madonna became close and lasting friends. In her book, Grey writes a lot about their friendship.
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Madonna arranged for Grey to date Alec Baldwin, who introduced Grey to his brother Billy Baldwin, who then became Grey's boyfriend for a while.
Jennifer Grey dating Billy Baldwin
Grey describes this time of her life as follows:
I'd been drinking and smoking -- cigarettes and weed -- pretty much on the regular for more than a decade. I also found it necessary to pop a Xanax or Valium whenever anxiety threatened to flood my system -- and around this particular time there was some pretty serious flooding going on.
It had never ever occurred to me that these coping mechanisms might be having a deleterious effect on my life. I had come to rely on them as helpful and necessary, to rescue me from "feeling too much." I couldn't see that while these habits were effectively turning down the volume on my overloaded nervous system, they were also muting the intuitive voices that were trying to save me from myself.
Silencing the voices saying, "Get out! Get the fuck out! What is wrong with you? Stop the madness!"
In June 1988, Broderick returned to Grey, begging her to marry him after all. She agreed to marry him, but they broke up again before the end of July. One of the reasons was that she thought he was continuing an affair with the actress Helen Hunt.
In the summer of 1988, Grey began a romance with the actor Johnny Depp. On their first date, they realized that they both loved to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. After two weeks, he proposed to her. Their engagement lasted for about nine months. Her book's description of those months is interesting.
Jennifer Grey dating Johnny Depp
In March 1989, Grey flew to Hollywood to spend some time with Depp, who was meeting with a movie director to discuss a future movie. Depp left their hotel room in the morning to attend that meeting, promising to return to the hotel in a few hours. In the evening, he still had not contacted her, and she could not contact him, and she still was alone in the hotel room. She wrote a breakup note, left the note on the hotel room's bed, and walked out of Depp's life. I suppose they both, separately, were drunk during much of that day.
In a following days she also fired her agent and switched to Madonna's agent, Jane Berliner. These days were also when Grey got her nose surgery.
Chapter 16, titled "Ireland", and Chapter 17, titled The Premiere", tell about events in August 1987.
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There was a ten-month interval between the end of filming on October 27, 1986, and the movie's premiere on August 21, 1987. During most of those months, Grey felt pessimistic and depressed about her movie. By the beginning of August 1987, however, she perceived indications that the movie might be successful. The movie had been praised by an audience that had watched it a film festival in Cannes, France, in May 1987.
As the premiere approached, Grey told her boyfriend Matthew Broderick that she looked forward to attending the premiere together with him. He responded that he disdained such events and would not go with her. Since he already had appeared in six movies, I assume that he always had refused also to attend the premiers of his own movies (Grey's book does not clarify that point). He refused to make an exception even for Dirty Dancing, the star of which was his own girlfriend. Grey thinks he got this disdain about movie premiers from his mother, Patsy Broderick. (Keep in mind that Matthew's mother recently had exposed the homosexuality of Jennifer's father.)
He said he already had watched the movie in a special screening for the cast and crew, and he never wanted to watch it again, because of the movie's romantic scenes between her and Patrick Swayze.
This situation indicates that Broderick was an unreasonable, inflexible, weird person. In an earlier chapter, she described him as "a twenty-four-year-old who could easily slip into the personal of a cranky old guy when it suited him".
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Matthew's father, James Broderick, was of Irish descent and so had bought a cottage in Kilcar, Ireland, when Matthew was eight years old. Since then, the family vacationed there often. When James Broderick had died in 1982, his ashes were buried there.
In late July 1987, Matthew Broderick insisted that Grey go with him to Kilcar. She did not want to go but felt she had not choice. While there, they argued some more about his refusal to attend her movie's premiere. (I wonder if Broderick intended to keep her in Ireland through that premiere, although Grey does not say so in her book.)
When we'd get into these circular arguments, the isolation of the remote Irish countryside and being unable to get some distance or call a girlfriend for a reality check seemed to render me more vulnerable to feeling confused, questioning the validity of my point of view.
Was the movie opening as inconsequential as he insisted it was? Or was it possible that my boyfriend was not supportive of my career?
He would've vehemently denied that assumption as preposterous and offensive. And it was impossible for me to fathom that someone who loved me, which he certainly seemed to, wouldn't be my biggest cheerleader.
In the first days of August, his mother called to declare that she had decided to fly to Ireland in a few days to join them in the cottage. Grey resented this impending intrusion and decided that she would fly back to the USA as soon as Patsy arrived in Ireland. Grey did not want to spend any more time with either Broderick.
Furthermore, Jennifer decided she would break up Matthew as soon as he returned to the USA.
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On August 5, Jennifer and Matthew were driving from Kilcar to Dublin (about 160 miles) to meet Patricia at the airport. The plan was that the Brodericks would drive back to Kilcar, and Grey would fly from Dublin to New York.
About 60 miles into the trip, however, Matthew apparently fell asleep at the wheel, drifted into the wrong lane, and crashed head-on into another car. Exactly what happened is unknown. Matthew has no memory of the accident. Jennifer was looking down at some cassette tapes when the accident occurred. The two women in the other car were killed in the collision.
The collision broke one of Broderick's legs horribly, collapsed a lung and caused other injuries. Grey suffered severe whiplash. They were transported to a hospital in Belfast. Grey describes the accident and its aftermath in excruciating detail.
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Grey was able to leave the hospital, but she felt morally obligated to stay in Belfast to keep Broderick company. She thought she should stay there through her movie's premiere.
I had been trying to quit smoking on and off for years. I'd successfully quit for some time before the accident, but after the accident I immediately began chain-smoking, as if I had to make up for all the cigarettes I'd missed.
I was unable to eat. By day, I'd keep Matthew company in his hospital room. In the evenings, or for lunch, I'd cross the street to the Crown Liquor Saloon, Belfast's most famous bar .... I drank and smoked, picked at the pub food.
I started taking Valium before bed t try to get some sleep. One of my first nights in Belfast, I had an extremely vivid nightmare in which I was visited by the Grim Reaper. He looked just like you'd imagine, scythe toting, dressed in a billowing black robe. He was coming for me, and I told him to fuck off. ....
My mother arrived in Belfast a day or two after Patsy, and we all took shifts being with Matthew at the hospital. My mother was wonderful with Matthew.
But when we were alone, I could tell she was concerned about my fervent allegiance to him. She seemed to see then what I see now: that I was struggling to maintain any sense of my life separate from his. Once it became clear that he was coning to be recovering for the next month in the Belfast hospital, my mother was insistent that I return to the States for the premiere.
Broderick's entertainment lawyer flew to Belfast to persuade Grey not to go to the USA -- or at least not to talk to the press in the USA if she did go there. Apparently, Broderick and his lawyer were concerned that Broderick's reputation might be spoiled if she talked to the press about the fatal accident -- which apparently had been caused by Broderick.
In this situation, Grey felt guilty about her recent intention to break up with Broderick. She felt guilty for wanting to attend her movie's premiere. She felt guilty that she might say something to a reporter that might spoil Broderick's reputation. She felt she should fall back in love with him..
I had always been pretty fierce when fighting on behalf of others, but less so for myself. I was designed to be that girl. And what could be more enticing to this personality kink of mine than someone who was injured, who had nearly died. and was facing an uncertain future.
I had no internalized fight for myself. I was punch-drunk and vulnerable, exhausted, and traumatized.
My mom was that coach for me that no one ever was for her. She showed up big-time. She said: "There's nothing more you can do for Matthew at this point. The [Dirty Dancing] producers are flying you back on the Concorde. This is too important. This is about about your career. You have to go. .... I understand this is hard for you, but you need to go. Matthew will be fine. You can come right back, but you cannot miss this."
... He [Matthew] begged me not to go. There were a lot of tears. ....
I cried the whole way to the airport. I cried and smoked all the way across the Atlantic .... I arrived at JFK [Airport in New York] in a fucked-up haze of nicotine, alcohol, and jet lag.
Flying home for the premiere of my first big movie meant only one thing: that I was not a good person.
Grey's emotional distress continued through the premiere. Now she barely remembers any of that event. She felt uncomfortable as she watched the movie, sitting between her parents. At the after-party, she drank champagne out of a bottle and fell asleep in a restaurant chair.
Jennifer Grey asleep at the afterparty of her movie's premiere
On the following day, she flew back to Belfast. In the hospital, she began to read to Broderick a newspaper review that praised her movie. He interrupted her: "I really don't want to hear this." She felt guilty that she seemed to be bragging to him about her movie's success.
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This chapter of the book was captivating from beginning to end. This time of Grey's life should have been happy and exhilarating, but it turned out to be sad and depressing. Just reading this chapter was an intensely emotional experience for me. So far, this has been the book's best part.
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Chapter 14, titled "Back at the Ranch, a Triptych", and Chapter 15, titled "Rough Cut", tell about events between October 27, 1986, (when the filming ended) and August 21, 1987 (when the movie appeared in the theaters).
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Grey had been sharing a Manhattan apartment with another young woman, Meg Burnie, since about 1982. Matthew Broderick had moved into that apartment as a third renter in about December 1985.
In early 1987, Broderick was in California for the filming of the movie Project X, which would star him and the actress Helen Hunt. In about February, Grey flew to California to watch some of the filming. It seems that Grey soon began to suspect that Broderick and Hunt were involved in an affair.
A little later in 1987, Broderick was in Arkansas for the filming of the movie Biloxi Blues, which was to star him and the actress Penelope Ann Miller. Grey flew to Arkansas to watch some of the filming. It seems she soon began to suspect that Broderick and Miller were involved in an affair.
In her book, Grey's insinuations about Hunt and Miller are not clear. In general, her book's Chapter 14 is a meandering, confusing mess.
When Grey was watching the filming at the two locations, Hunt and Miller avoided Grey -- or at least Grey felt they avoided her. The book's readers apparently are supposed to view this avoidance as evidence of their affairs with Broderick. However, I myself wondered whether Hunt and Miller perceived immediately that Grey was suspicious, hostile and paranoid toward them. In any case, Broderick denied to Grey that he was involved in any affairs.
I wonder if Grey was consuming a lot of alcohol and cocaine. During her airplane trip from Arkansas back to New York, her flight was delayed and so she happened to spend a long time with the actor Chris Walken (he acted in Biloxi Blues) in the airport's bar.
He turned me on to Wild Turkey [whiskey] and we spent what seemed like hours there. I'd never been happier to be delayed, stuck in an airport bar, hearing Chris talk about his early days as a dancer and laughing our asses off.
Getting drunk with this mysterious and complex actor I had been so in awe of, finding such an instant and easy connection with him definitely took the edge off the fraught trip to visit my boyfriend.
It almost made me forget how much pain I was in.
Grey feared not only that Broderick was having affairs with other women. She feared also that her own movie Dirty Dancing would flop in the movie theaters -- while Broderick's movie career was soaring.
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Shortly before her birthday, shortly before March 26, Jennifer Grey was informed by her father Joel Grey that he was homosexual. She indicates in her book that this happened shortly before her 26th birthday -- which would be shortly before March 26, 1986 -- but this seems to be a year too early. This revelation about her father's homosexuality is placed in her book shortly before her 27th birthday -- before March 26, 1987 -- after she returned from Arkansas and before she watched a rough cut of her movie in the spring of 1987 (see below).
Until that revelation, Jennifer had thought that her father was a straight heterosexual. She occasionally had heard remarks that she seemed to be gay, but she always objected to them.
In the late 1980s, Jennifer's father was living in New York, and her mother Jo was living in California. They had separated and divorced in 1982. Jo initiated the divorce, but did not indicate to Jennifer that there was a sexual reason. Rather, Jo seemed to be frustrated by her own mediocre acting career and by Joel's frequent absences from the home. (That is my own interpretation of the book.)
The revelation to Jennifer that her father Joel Grey was homosexual was prompted by Matthew Broderick's mother Patsy Broderick. When Patsy and her husband James Broderick (he died in 1982) had been a young married couple, they socialized somewhat with Jo and Joel Grey. All four were young actors. Based on that socializing, Patsy knew beyond any doubt that Joel was homosexual. (The book does not explain Patsy's certainty.)
Anyway, now in early 1987, Patsy was deathly sick. Jennifer went to visit Patsy, who was heavily medicated. During that conversation, Patsy remarked, "Well, your dad's a fag .... he's gay." Patsy went on to say that everyone knew that fact except for Jennifer and her mother Jo Grey. Jennifer walked home "shaking and crying".
When Jennifer arrived home, she phoned her mother in California, who then phoned Joel, who then phoned Jennifer and her brother Jimmy (who was attending a school in New York). Jennifer and Jimmy traveled to their father's apartment, where their father confirmed to them that he was homosexual.
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If this revelation indeed happened in about March 1987 (not 1986), then it happened about when Broderick was filming the move Biloxi Blues, where he played a character who suspected that another character was homosexual.
Furthermore, Broderick already must have been preparing to star in the 1988 movie Torch Song Trilogy, where he would play a homosexual character who intended to raise a child as a foster parent.
Jennifer must have been disturbed that the revelation of her father's homosexuality coincided with her boyfriend's acting two movie characters with homosexual aspects. However, she does not write anything about possible such feelings in her autobiography.
In the spring of 1987, Grey was allowed to watch privately a rough cut of her movie, in order to obtain her written approval of some nudity that still was in the movie at that time. Grey invited her agent Susan Smith to watch too. Smith -- who apparently was drunk -- hated it.
We sat in the pitch black as the unfinished cut of the movie began. I could barely breathe as I tried to acclimate to the surreal experience of seeing my face on the screen, as big as a brownstone. I had no idea if what I was looking at was good or bad — the movie, my performance, any of it. All I could tell was there was an awful lot of me. Much more than I was used to seeing or comfortable with.
Throughout this disorienting experience, I became aware of a mysterious intermittent ticking sound, like a metronome. A drunk metronome. Eventually, I discovered the source. It was my agent, punctuating each moment I was on camera, which was pretty much from the beginning of the movie to the end, with a weary "tsk" of distaste. If an exhalation could convey disgust, that was the sound.
When the film ended, we sat for a moment in silence. We thanked the projectionist, and as we walked out, the mood was grim. "Nobody is ever going to see this movie. So you don't have to worry," Susan said. “You're just going to have to get something else in the can as soon as possible."
She straightened her wig. "And the nudity? Let 'em have it. It's the only scene in the movie that works.” [All the nudity ultimately was removed from the movie in order to get a PG-13 rating.]
I somehow found my way back home, and once inside my apartment I grabbed the frosty vodka bottle out of the freezer, made a beeline for my bed, and crawled under the covers with all my clothes on, even though it was only late afternoon.
The emphasis in the above passage was added by me. I think Grey was consuming too much alcohol and cocaine during these months.
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Grey continued to feel pessimistic and depressed about her movie until just a short time before it opened in the theaters on August 21, 1987.
For months after that screening, I had lower-than-low expectations for my first starring vehicle, as did [the production company] Vestron, which had originally planned a very limited theatrical release (I think it was one weekend), the bare minimum necessary to support their home video sales. ....
As the date for the movie's opening drew closer, there began to be rumblings suggesting that Dirty Dancing might not be a total disaster. Whether it was through the work of the film's editor, Peter Frank, or just the way this particular story intersected with the zeitgeist of that particular year, 1987, the fate of this little movie seemed maybe to be turning around.
Nothing said sixties to me like tight, high-waisted white Levi's cropped to just above the ankle I asked the [movie's costume] designer if we could get some of those and some of the old-school white lace-up Keds we all used to wear.
Right before that passage in her autobiography, Grey had written that she had selected the red-striped sailor shirt because she had liked such a shirt in the 1960 movie Breathless, which Baby might have watched.
Grey did not write similarly that her white Levi's were inspired by some 1960s movie. However, I will speculate here that such pants "said sixties" to Grey because of the 1966 move Blow-Up. Of course, Baby could not have watched that movie before the movie's story, but the white pants do evoke the 1960s because of that movie.
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Every recent Friday evening, the TCM cable-television channel has discussed the clothing of old movies, and I happened to watch last Friday's discussion of Blow-Up. That movie's clothing was discussed by cinema expert Alicia Malone and costume designer Mark Bridges. In that movie, the main character wears white pants (and a blue shirt) all the time.
In their discussion of the movie's clothing, Bridges remarked that, for him as a costume designer, the white pants evokes the 1960s. For that reason, Bridges put characters in white pants for two movies where he himself served as costume designer.
Bridges did so for the 2001 movie Blow, which takes place in 1968.
White pants in the 1966 movie Blow, which takes place in 1968
White pants in the 1966 movie Blow, which takes place in 1968
The second movie that Bridges mentioned because he puts characters in white pants was the 2021 movie Licorice Pizza, which takes place in 1973 (soon after the 1969s).
White pants in the 2001 movie Licorice Pizza, which takes place in 1973
White pants in the 2001 movie Licorice Pizza, which takes place in 1973
White pants in the 2001 movie Licorice Pizza, which takes place in 1973
So, there is good reason to speculate that white pants reminded Grey -- perhaps just subconsciously -- of the 1960s because of the 1966 movie Blow-Up.
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 fifth in a series of my blog articles about that chapter.
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Grey acts in almost every scene in the movie, so she always was very busy, focused and stressed during the filming. Her book's Chapter 13 gave me the impression that she engaged herself significantly with only three people: Patrick Swayze, Emile Ardolino (the director) and Kenny Ortega (the choreographer).
In contrast, her relationships with practically everyone else seems to be just professional. She acted her scenes with them, but did not develop personal relationships with them during the filming.
In her book, she mentions and praises several fellow actors, but does not say much about them:
No one could ask for a better human to play the good father than Jerry Orbach [Jake Houseman]. He was the ultimate pro — haimish, hilarious, generous, and present.
We hit the jackpot with Kelly Bishop [Marjorie Houseman]. I'd been a fan ever since I'd seen her in her Tony Award-winning role of Sheila in A Chorus Line.
Honi Coles [Tito Suarez], whom I knew and adored from The Cotton Club, a bona fide legend, played the musical director at Kellerman's.
Jack Weston was [Max] Kellerman, [and] Lonny Price [was] Kellerman's son [Neil].
Cynthia Rhodes ... had been in Flashdance and Staying Alive and was not only an exquisite dancer but also an angel.
That is all that she writes says about any fellow actors, beyond Swayze. She does not even mention Jane Brucker (Lisa Houseman), Max Canton (Robbie Gould) or Neal Jones (Billy Kostecki). She acted her scenes with them, but perhaps did not get to know them personally.
She writes a lot more about the women who did her hair and makeup than about her follow actors, beyond Swayze.
I am not criticizing Grey for being unfriendly. As I said, she was busy, focused and stressed. She was there to act the star role, not to make friends with the other actors.
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With Swayze, she felt a lot of tension. Her book complains that he showed up late every day and that he kept bugging her to practice the lift. I got the impression that she was annoyed also by other elements of his behavior. She writes that they were "like oil and water". She writes that sometimes they talked with each other like this:
Swayze: Seriously? You're going to dance like that?
Grey: Seriously? You're going to act like a total dick?
Whereas Grey usually felt stressed, Swayze seemed to be rather relaxed. He had much more experience in the movie business, and his own future career would not depend so much on this one movie. He tried to make Grey laugh.
Swayze did something unexpected to make Grey laugh in the scene where they are driving out into the country. In this blog article, I will not tell what he did. You will have to read the book to find out.
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The actual tension between the actors Grey and Swayze helped them portray the tension between the movie's characters Baby and Johnny.
... I think one of the things that possibly helped this movie override the implausible bits was that tension between us. ...
Johnny is annoyed by being saddled with a girl who has no clue what she's doing, and he's accustomed to dancing with his very excellent partner. It would stand to reason that Baby could be feeling Johnny's annoyance, just as I felt Patrick's. The stakes were high for Patrick and me, and that raised the expression of the stakes for Johnny and Baby. This worked for the film.
If the movie had featured two equally great dancers and it was all easy, with a big budget and longer shooting schedule, it would've been a different movie. The tension between us fed a certain real-life struggle and energy into the movie, which fed a desire in both of our characters to overcome something. Drama is conflict, and our real-life struggles infused the movie with real life. We were mismatched, and that served us. There was something under all the ego and fear that was somehow hot.
Well put.
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Grey writes a lot about how she felt doing the movie's sex scenes. She was made to get stark naked under the sheets, but she does not mention whether Swayze too got stark naked.
After one bed scene, Swayze laughed to her: "Will you marry me?" She laughed back: "Definitely!"
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Grey should write another book just about filming the movie Dirty Dancing. In this book, she does not write anything about the following scenes:
She should write a book where she writes something about every scene of the movie and writes more about the movie as a whole.
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Here is some of what she wrote about Ardolino and Ortega:
Emile Ardolino, the director, was a deep human being with a big heart. He was gentle, grounded, and kind. .... Emile had a way of controlling the set that was never bombastic. He didn't raise his voice. And beyond all of this, he was my ally. I trusted that he wouldn't let me be bad in this movie. I trusted his ear, his sensibility, and his barometer for truthfulness. It was a huge comfort knowing that he and I saw eye to eye on the task at hand. I knew he had my back and that we were a team. He heard every note I had, and with grace could subtly elevate the script without alienating anyone.
Emile and Kenny Ortega together were a powerful duo. Each brought to the project an unshakable belief in the transformative power of dance, in dance as a language that could layer levels of emotional storytelling — about intimacy, eroticism, and identity — that a scripted narrative alone couldn't have provided. Baby, for example, transformed from being one sort of person into a very different one, not solely because of what was indicated in the script but also through the more visceral, physical intelligence the movie revealed through dance. Emile and Kenny instilled in the production a purity of heart and truth, in the way they organically wove dance into the fabric of the movie.
The two weeks of dance rehearsals before the start of principal photography were, for me, the high point of the entire shoot. Kenny, one of the most generous of spirits, lovingly taught me the basics of mambo. .....
Kenny's confidence in my ability as a dancer had a powerful influence over how I felt about myself. His appreciation for what I was intuitively bringing to the table, by just showing up as I was, turned down the volume of a long-standing, brutal self-appraisal. All those years in dance class, an inner voice had said that I wasn't a real dancer because of how much I struggled to learn choreography — and that I shouldn't even try because I would just embarrass myself. But dancing with Kenny, I learned that my job was to follow his lead. ...
I had a crazy crush on Kenny. There was probably nobody on the set — not a man, not a woman — who didn't have a crazy crush on Kenny. But I was the one who got to dance with him, up close, with him grabbing me and grinding with me. .... Kenny was a really gifted teacher. He made me dance better.
Indeed, Ardolino and Ortega deserve much of the praise for the movie's success.
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Grey writes a lot about the filming of the lift scene. She never did practice the lift with Swayze (except in the lake scene.) The lift that the movie audience sees at the end of the movie is the one and only time she did the lift.
In this blog article, I will not quote any of her interesting writing about the lift scene. Read the book.
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Looking back now, Grey regrets that she could not relax more with Swayze during the filming.
I wish Patrick were alive. I wish we could get together. I wish we could reminisce about how, even though neither of us were kids, we were still very young ... and dumb.
In the chaos of it all, I couldn't see what we had in each other. I wish I could tell him I'm sorry for the times I was judgmental, or ball-busting, for not treating him with more empathy and compassion, for not trusting that a man would actually show up for me. I wish I could tell him what I know now. That I was so scared and in over my head.
I wish I could tell him how lucky I feel to have had him as my Baby's one and only Johnny.
