Jennifer Grey from Dirty Dancing

First off, RIP Patrick Swayze - you made dancing macho for a generation and you will be missed. But whatever happened to Baby, the girl that Swayze insisted shouldn't be put in the corner by anyone?

For those in the dark about this reference, we're talking of course of 1987's Dirty Dancing, one of THE definitive dance movies to emerge from a decade that for some reason was THE decade for cheesy dance movies (also see Flashdance, Fame and Footloose for further evidence).

The plot is simple. Jewish princess Baby, played by Jennifer Grey, is becoming a young woman in the summer where she meets Johnny Castle - played by Swayze - who teaches dance at a family summer camp and in his off hours 'Dirty Dances' (whatever that is) with the other dancers.

Anyway, all woman seem to go weak at the knees when mentioning this film, while all the men try and fight the compulsion to vomit blood.

In fairness it's a pretty good example of feelgood romantic comedy and a great chick flick. Plus the title song, performed by ex-Righteous Brother Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (who?) nabbed an Oscar for best Original Song.

Well, sadly we know where Swayze is now, but what of female lead, Jennifer Grey? She'd already made her mark opposite Matthew Broderick as the perpetually-pissed off sister Jeanie in the wonderful Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet. So, where is she now?

Grey is the daughter of well known stage and screen actor Joel Grey and the granddaughter of celebrated comedian and musician Mickey Katz.

She was classically trained in New York's legendary acting school Neighborhood Playhouse, but after landing the plum roles in the above films during the 80s she never achieved the same level of big screen success.

There is an urban myth that the reason for this is because she had an infamous nose job, which inadvertently took away her unique looks and made her less appealing as people stopped recognising her - check her out now. At least we think it's her.

There is also a story that at an anniversary screening of Dirty Dancing, she had to convince security of who she was as they no longer recognised her!

Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but Grey did comment in a recent TV interview on our Channel Five that having plastic surgery to her nose was the worst mistake she had ever made, because she was no longer recognizable as the girl from the film Dirty Dancing, just somebody who looked a bit like her.

Since her fall into obscurity, Grey remains hard working, appearing in many US TV movies and the odd sitcom (as per usual for most of our WATN targets), most recently the short-lived ABC sitcom It's Like, You Know... as a struggling actress named Jennifer Grey, who pokes fun at herself after a much-publicized nose job!

Interestingly she has been engaged to both Matthew Broderick and Johnny Depp, but her husband since July 2001 is actor Clark Gregg, most noted by about ten people for starring in The New Adventures of Old Christine. Together she has one child, daughter Stella, born December 3, 2001.

Wonder if she gets together with her girl friends with a couple of bottles of wine and watches Dirty Dancing like every other girl on the planet?

Probably not.

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