We all have to make decisions in life but, at times, those decisions may come back to haunt us in various ways. This can be a simple choice or perhaps one that took years to come to light.
One person who is familiar with just how much difference a single decision can make is Jennifer Grey. She is well known for playing Baby in the movie, Dirty Dancing. In fact, after that movie, she was expecting to receive many more roles.
Her life-changing moment occurred as a result of an unfortunate accident and it would change the course of her life from that point forward. She didn’t talk much about it, but now Jennifer is speaking about it many years later.
When Dirty Dancing opened in theaters in 1987, everybody realized that something great was in the making. Patrick Swayze, the primary actor in the movie became well-known and ended up appearing in many other movies.
Jennifer, however, wasn’t feeling well so she decided to take a break. She disappeared and didn’t show herself with all of the celebrations and parties that were taking place.
She even stepped away from the limelight for a while and it was due to an accident that had altered the course of her life.
Prior to making Dirty Dancing, Jennifer Grey took dancing classes when she was very young. She was born in 1960 and after graduating in 1978, she started looking for acting roles.
At first, she worked as a waitress on the side to pay the bills but she did manage to get some TV commercials. She starred in Reckless in 1984 but when she was in Dirty Dancing a few years later, it would make her well known.
Despite the success of the movie and receiving a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, Jennifer stayed in the background. She had been living in Ireland with her boyfriend, Matthew Broderick. As they were driving around the island, Broderick was on the wrong side of the road and struck another car.
A woman and daughter in the other car were killed instantly and eventually, they took away the charges of reckless driving. Jennifer only had some minor bumps and bruises but it took a psychological toll on her.
A few days later the premier of Dirty Dancing took place. Because of survivor’s guilt and experiencing sadness from the accident, it just didn’t feel right to her to be celebrating.
In the early 1990s, she reappeared for one episode of Friends. By that time, she had gone through plastic surgery and had her nose done. In her words: “I entered the operating room as a celebrity and left anonymous.”
She felt as if she was suddenly in the witness protection program. She even called it the worst nose job she’d ever seen and her career was only sporadic after she had the work done.
Although she managed to make a comeback by 2010, being on Dancing With The Stars, she had lost something important in her life.
It’s nice to see that she was able to regain some of the passion that she had prior to the accident. We will always love her part in the movie and wish her much more success in the future.
