Jennifer Grey

Actress Jennifer Grey, who played Baby in the 1987 film, told “Good Morning America” that a second film is coming and that she will also reprise her role. “ ...

Jennifer Grey's memoir "Out of the Corner," gets candid about the "Dirty Dancing" star's nose job, her Jewishness and her romantic life. %

Upset that her nose was a “problem” for casting directors, if not herself, she nonetheless is guilty of sorting attractiveness and Jewishness into discrete boxes. You may not know that Grey (whose father, Joel, changed his name from Katz, the last name of his klezmer parodist father, Mickey) was partaking in a family tradition when she did her nose. In making her point, Grey recalls the moment in Bob Fosse’s film version of the musical where her dad, as the ghoulish Weimar performer, dances with a female gorilla, singing about society’s disapproval of their relationship. For the first 29 years of her life, the “Dirty Dancing” star’s trademark proboscis was her pesky “friend,” demanding three-quarter profile headshots. In an opening prologue – a magazine-ready excerpt – she explains that she in fact had two procedures. Reading these reflections in “Out of the Corner,” a negative that can’t be proven arises.

In her new memoir, “Out of the Corner,” Jennifer Grey tells a life story as wildly entertaining as the movie that shot her to fame, “Dirty Dancing.”

She told AARP about her memories — and how not to let fate put you in a corner. I was nervous. I heard his dog whistle, and he heard mine. Director John Hughes and I just fused our energy, brought out the best in each other. Weeks later, Grey got engaged again, to Johnny Depp — and had another traumatic breakup. After Francis Ford Coppola cast her, at age 24, in The Cotton Club, her life got even starrier: She won overnight fame as Baby Houseman, the dirty dancer hoisted to glory by Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). She then got engaged to Matthew Broderick, whose bad-boyfriend behavior inspired her close friend Madonna to write the hit “Express Yourself” about their relationship.

There's more to Jennifer Grey than rhinoplasty gone wrong and "Dirty Dancing." In her new memoir "Out of the Corner," Grey reclaims her narrative.

So in a way, the accident that I thought was maybe one of the worst things that happened to me saved my life. Grey: I'm going to be playing Baby as an adult and also working as executive producer of the film, and I can tell you it will involve Kellerman's (Mountain House), music, dancing and romance. I interpreted it as my power that I was in those situations, but it was my not having the ability to assess how dangerous it was and how a person who puts themselves in that position is not someone who really values themselves the way I wished I had valued myself. It might come out in ways that hurt or sting or may not be the most productive, but never in my entire life would my mother aim to say anything to hurt me . It's just not even in the realm of possibility. I believe that everything that really got my attention like getting my heart broken, getting in a car accident, and being injured – each of them changed me. What I knew was that there was a certain amount of grace to my ex-husband and I separating. It is one of those things where you're taking your history and everything you've learned and you're trying (impart) it to this being. And my mother, I believe, like a lot of mothers – we project onto our kids feelings about ourselves, and also the ways in which we want to protect our children and keep them out of harm's way. When I think about her in those situations, I find it stunning that I didn't understand how much it was going to cost me. I got more out of writing this book than all the years of therapy because I wanted to be unflinching in my desire for my truth. And on some level, I believed that that was true and that it was a reflection of my worth. Grey: It was a very introspective time for a lot of people.

Meanwhile, her tumultuous off-screen relationship and breakup with Ferris Bueller co-star Matthew Broderick and a whirlwind nine-month engagement to Johnny Depp ...

It was much more important to write about what it felt like to me because it was so impactful and it was so messy. I think the corner is up to all of us. My inherent value is the same as when I was born, the same as before I got Dirty Dancing, when I did Dirty Dancing, when I did my nose, when they decided I wasn’t me, when I became a mother, and [when] I wrote a book. I thought it was great, and looking back on it, it was insane. It is the natural course of events to becoming your own person to break the bonds of whatever is expected of you. SE: The book begins with the story about your nose job, which halted your career just as it was taking off. I felt like I was the luckiest person in the world. I was taken to the ballet and brought to the theater, and I thought of it all as a good thing. I don’t believe that anything my parents ever did was meant to be anything but loving and supportive of me, period. SE: You write in the book that growing up, you were always known as a famous actor’s daughter, like it was a title that you carried around. It’s been an intense pregnancy, and now it seems to be an intense birth, but it looks like the baby’s going to be okay. When a second surgery was required to fix a slight issue resulting from the first rhinoplasty, it completely changed her appearance and set her life on an entirely different trajectory.

In her new memoir, Jennifer Grey leads with her nose. For the first 29 years of her life, the “Dirty Dancing” star's trademark proboscis was her pesky ...

Upset that her nose was a “problem” for casting directors, if not herself, she nonetheless is guilty of sorting attractiveness and Jewishness into discrete boxes. It was the feature that prompted her mother to call her “interesting-looking.” Grey thought her nose, which she resisted “fixing” for years, was what kept her from reaching the next level of her career – or, to put a finer point on it – kept her from being cast as someone “other than a Jew.” You may not know that Grey (whose father, Joel, changed his name from Katz, the last name of his klezmer parodist father, Mickey) was partaking in a family tradition when she did her nose. In making her point, Grey recalls the moment in Bob Fosse’s film version of the musical where her dad, as the ghoulish Weimar performer, dances with a female gorilla, singing about society’s disapproval of their relationship. Reading these reflections in “Out of the Corner,” a negative that can’t be proven arises. For the first 29 years of her life, the “Dirty Dancing” star’s trademark proboscis was her pesky “friend,” demanding three-quarter profile headshots.

In her memoir, "Out of the Corner," Grey remembers seeing her nose after surgery and thinking she was "having a bad hallucinogenic trip."

A year later, while filming "Wind," she noticed white cartilage at the tip of her nose. She added, "So going under the knife felt dangerously close to an admission of defeat." She learned that she had a deviated septum, was only breathing at 20% capacity, and didn't have a tip on her nose.

Jennifer Grey Shares What She Would Tell Late 'Dirty Dancing' Co-Star Patrick Swayze Today (Exclusive). By Paige Gawley‍ 2:33 PM PDT, May 4, 2022.

It was so interesting to feel and re-experience [my past] in a different way than I had been." Let me revisit it and really examine if how it had been told to me, how I had been telling it for so long, was actually true." I was really being quite rigorous with myself with vetting my answers and being curious and not attached to the original story," she added. "Writing this book was definitely one of the most revelatory experiences of my life," Grey said. "I had to really re-examine who I thought I was, because clearly I could no longer depend on other people's opinion of me to define me," Grey added of life after the procedures. "All I can say about that trial is that it breaks my heart for everybody involved," Grey said. I am so grateful to have had him as my Johnny... I just never had a man show up for me the way he did and that was something I will never forget." I was just young and scared and a fish out of water, because that's just not my kind of thing," Grey recalled of the 1984 film. "I was the sole living witness, because Matthew had survived, but he was unconscious and had amnesia and was very badly injured. I thought he was dead," she added. "It was just crazy. It was so hard and we did it.'"

The actress confirmed on "Good Morning America" that a "Dirty Dancing" sequel is on its way — and it could be released this year.

“What I hope people take away from this book is that no one’s life is perfect,” Grey said on "Good Morning America." “You don’t get out unscathed. Kellerman's was the resort where "Dirty Dancing" was set with Grey and Swayze in the leading roles. “Right now, getting as close as we’ve ever been to -- I think it is happening this year, the sequel for ‘Dirty Dancing,’” Grey said on the show.

Jennifer Grey said Patrick Swayze had "tears in his eyes" when he apologized to her at the "Dirty Dancing" screen test. The costars had a tense relationship ...

"I was just like, 'Please, this guy, enough with him.'" And I got the tears in my eyes, not for the same reason," she continued. She also said he was sometimes "late" to set in New Mexico where "Red Dawn" shot.