When you are an actor, it helps when you have a certain edge that makes you recognizable. Some people call this typecasting if you are going to play the same role over and over but even a physical part of you can be something recognizable as well.
When you think back to Jennifer Grey and all of the amazing movies that she was in when she was younger, it really is incredible. Dirty Dancing, which is just one of the movies that she was in changed her life forever, and she is still known today for that role.
There was one point in time, however, when she made a decision that would change her life forever. Now that she is 62, she is opening up about the situation and describing it for the world to see.
Dirty Dancing was a megahit from the time it hit the big screen in 1987. Patrick Swayze was going to be a big star but his role with his costar, Jennifer Grey was going to throw her in the limelight as well. In fact, she remained in the limelight until something happened that changed it quickly.
Jennifer had a real desire to be in acting and she was doing various parts, including TV commercials until she finally got her big break. Her first break was in Reckless, which was filmed in 1984 and that was followed a few years later by Dirty Dancing.
After the film premiered in 1987, she was in Ireland with Matthew Broderick, her boyfriend at the time. They were in a car accident when Broderick was driving on the wrong side of the road and hit another vehicle. Both the mother and the daughter in the other car were killed.
Broderick was charged with dangerous driving but later it was reduced to careless driving. Jennifer only had some bruises and minor injuries but she had mental scars that would stick around for years.
She never was able to recover from the trauma that the accident brought about. She said that neither her head nor her ambition were ever the same.
That is when she disappeared for a couple of years as she struggled with survivor’s guilt. She did appear on an episode of Friends in 1995, but she had plastic surgery by then and changed the look of her face.
In her words: “I went in the operating theatre a celebrity and come out anonymous.”
“It was like being in a witness protection program or being invisible. It was the nose job from hell. I’ll always be this once-famous actress nobody recognises because of a nose job.”
Jennifer had a difficult time finding work in Hollywood after her nose job. She did appear on Dancing with the Stars and one the TV show, but it was just something that was important to her at the time.
She was also on some other shows, including Untogether’, as well as new comedy ‘Red Oaks’
It’s nice to know that her passion has stayed, and we wish her the best in the future.
