Dirty Dancing released in 1987 and there wasn't a girl in the world who had watched the film and didn't want to be Baby. Baby Houseman, who goes on vacation with her family and falls in love with the resort's dance instructor, was played by actress Jennifer Grey, who endeared herself to a generation of movie buffs with her curly hair and distinctive nose. The nose that set Jennifer apart from other young actors of the time is now long gone – she had rhinoplasty twice, something she's been open about in the past. Now 62, Jennifer Grey addresses the nose jobs in her new memoir and also in an interview with People Magazine.
In her memoir Out Of The Corner – a reference to Patrick Swayze's iconic Dirty Dancing dialogue "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" – Jennifer Grey reveals that after her second rhinoplasty, she ran into actor Michael Douglas and he failed to recognise her. "That was the first time I had gone out in public. And it became the thing, the idea of being completely invisible, from one day to the next. In the world's eyes, I was no longer me," Jennifer told People, adding that she had held out against getting a nose job for a long time: "The weird thing was that thing that I resisted my whole life, and the thing I was so upset with my mother for always telling me I should do my nose. I really thought it was capitulating. I really thought it meant surrendering to the enemy camp. I just thought, 'I'm good enough. I shouldn't have to do this.' That's really what I felt. 'I'm beautiful enough.'"
Jennifer had the rhinoplasties on the advice of her mother, actress Jo Wilder. She revealed to People that both her parents – her father Joel Grey won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in 1972 film Cabaret – both had nose jobs. Jennifer and her parents are Jewish. "She loves me, loved me, always has, and she was pragmatic because she was saying, 'Guess what? It's too hard to cast you. Make it easier for them.' And then I did and she was right. it wasn't like, 'You're not pretty.' It's like, 'Guess what? If you don't want to be an actor, okay. But if you wanna be an actor...' But when I was a kid, I was completely anti-rhinoplasty. I mean it was like my religion. I loved that my parents did it (had rhinoplasty). I understand it was the 50s. I understand they were assimilating. I understood that you had to change your name and you had to do certain things, and it was just normalized, right? You can't be gay. You can't be Jewish. You know, you can't look Jewish. You're just trying to fit into whatever is the group think," she told People.
When Dirty Dancing released in 1987, Jennifer Grey was already familiar to audiences from the previous year's Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which she played Ferris' long-suffering sister Jeannie. By the time Jennifer landed the role of Mindy in a 1995 episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, she already looked very different.
Jennifer Grey, who is divorced from actor Clark Gregg, has worked steadily over the years and her recent work includes 2019 film Bittersweet Symphony and episodes of Grey's Anatomy.