Actress Jennifer Grey speaks candidly about past relationships, plastic surgery | Nightline

[Music] i'm known for two things in terms of the world not my friends or my family two things nobody puts baby in a corner and jennifer gray ruined her career ruined her face took away everything unique about her by being a slave to plastic surgery but i never wanted a nose job jennifer gray bearing it all in her deeply candid new memoir out of the corner starting with the role that changed it all starring his baby opposite patrick swayze in the cult classic dirty dancing you write about when you heard they wanted patrick swayze to play the part of johnny castle that you said quote anybody else please why i did a movie with patrick yes called red dawn i found that his pranks and kind of his way it just did not drive with my right thing and i didn't trust him i felt like he wasn't serious well i'm curious did that play a role in your fear from doing the iconic [Music] [Applause] he was a serious dancer and male ballet dancers the whole deal is lifts it was easy it was for him it was like it was just like you know like nothing for him it was me it was my fear my lack of trust that somebody would take care of me nobody puts baby said he didn't want to say nobody puts baby in a corner the most famous movie line perhaps of all adamant adamant so how is he convinced fortunately they said let's just do one with that and one with something else that'll trick and then they just use the one that they want you write about wishing patrick we're alive and you talk about all the things you would say to him and one of them was i wish i could tell him i'm sorry i wish i could tell him a lot more than i'm sorry i mean i'm sorry as a thing that i would say like i'm sorry i was just young and scared and had some idea of how it was supposed to be and wishing you were on time and like who cares you were the best you were the best johnny i could ever ever have had but after dirty dancing success the parts didn't come pouring in the young actress told by some it was her nose that was a problem my dad had changed his nose my mom had changed her nose my grandmother had changed her nose my aunt it was a thing and you resisted as you point out and then you write about why you finally decided right it was a jewish girl who was considered not pretty who would never have been looked at twice by the patrick swayze character so i get this part and it's hugely successful but i made fifty thousand dollars when i made the movie and now i'm famous and i can't support myself and i thought okay maybe maybe i just have to say uncle i'll do it i'll do it for your career for my career for my ability to support myself so she got the surgery but then needed a second operation to fix an issue caused by the first one it left her unrecognizable to many to the point you write about flight attendants not believing that you were the actress jennifer gray it was just the woman at the checkout counter at the airline and she attacked me as if i was trying to get away with something what did that feel like surreal dude surreal it was like being invisible and in terms of my career it was devastating thank god your you know we've been worried sick about you gray's star was on the rise when she landed her breakout role in the 1986 film ferris bueller's day off where she met her boyfriend matthew broderick and then one of the other i'm sure defining moments in your life happened in ireland 1987 you were with matthew in the car and that car struck another one and it ended two lives what were the days and weeks like for you after that accident how did you cope i was in shock because i was the only living witness and matthew was unconscious and had amnesia and the other two women died so i was the only one who everyone was looking to me for that what happened and i didn't have the answer i was putting a cassette in the cassette player at the time and i heard the scream and i looked up it was devastating and there's something about near-death experience and being that close to death and that curtain just goes up and just somehow i slip through gray also writes about her childhood growing up as the daughter of actress joe wilder an oscar and tony award-winning cabaret star joel gray [Music] in 2015 her father publicly revealed that he identified as a gay man so when your father told the world that he was gay at the age of 82. how long have you known i found out in my late twenties when it initially came out i was just so heartbroken that he wasn't able to live his whole truth for all those years for a lifetime and that if he hadn't done it that way then i wouldn't exist and so my gratitude for him to sacrifice himself so that he could have a family and i got to be his daughter that to me is an enormous gift that he gave to me you write about your remarkable childhood growing up you know in broadway dressing rooms with your father watching him on stage and your mother doing the same i grew up knowing i was the luckiest girl in the world there was no doubt in my mind my parents loved me still love me i have two 90 year old parents who i talk to every day as she looks back on her life and career gray is returning to her most iconic role in a new sequel to dirty dancing gray will executive produce and star and i'm playing baby and i hope they don't call me bubby at this point there will be dancing there will be a lot of music and romance and god i hope this book will be a template for you know what happens to baby what's the message what's the reason behind the book you don't get out unscathed for me the most painful moments the most confounding situations are the ones for me that i have grown the most from and that were i guess necessary to get me to where i am today which is happier than i've ever been is the truth hi everyone george stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the abc news youtube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel and don't 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Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: Corner, Dancing, Dirty, Grey, Jennifer, Out, Patrick, Swayze, abc, abcnews, actress, book, memoir, movie, of, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-84611676, plastic, surgery, the

Id: DtwioaILJSU

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Tue May 10 2022