At just 27 years old she reached the peak of her popularity as Baby, but after getting her nose job her fame faded. "I went into the operating room a celebrity and came out anonymous," the actress said.
Jennifer Gray (60) went from being a Hollywood promise to disappearing from the film industry. And all for getting a nose job. At just 27 years old, the young actress had reached the peak of her popularity with Dirty Dancing (1987) as Baby, the young woman who discovers dance, love and passion in the arms of Patrick Swayze on a summer vacation. With just a five million budget, the film grossed nearly $215 million worldwide, almost immediately becoming a pop culture icon.
Although Gray had debuted at just 19 years old in an ad for Dr Pepper soda, she had barely landed a few supporting roles over the next decade. Apparently, her prominent nose did not conform to the prevailing beauty standards and she was rejected at all the castings she attended. Among those early titles were Reckless. The Cotton Club and Red Dawn, all three released in 1984 and the last one with Swayze himself. And she Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a 1986 film translated into Spanish as All in a Day where she met Matthew Broderick, an actor with whom she secretly began dating.
Just before the premiere of Dirty Dancing, Gray and Broderick were involved in a traffic accident while on vacation in Ireland. Broderick, who was driving, and occupied the opposite lane colliding head-on with another vehicle in which a mother and daughter were traveling, both of whom died in the accident. Broderick was convicted of reckless driving and fined $175. And Gray claims that she was never the same again.
"The impact was emotional and physical. My body was never the same, my head was never the same, my ambition was never the same," Gray told People about the traumatic experience.
In the actress's opinion, that lack of ambition was to blame for her, shortly after, deciding to undergo rhinoplasty. The daughter of Oscar-winning Cabaret emcee Joel Grey, and actress and singer Jo Wilder, both Jewish, Gray decided to modify the nose that may have prevented her from achieving fame earlier, but which had then become a distinctive feature of she.
Her first intervention took place in 1989 and shortly after she had to undergo a second rhinoplasty to correct the problems caused by the first. Grey's makeover was so radical that not even her acquaintances recognized her.
"I entered the operating room as a celebrity and came out anonymous. It was like entering a witness protection program or being invisible," the actress said after the disastrous result. Well, she Gray recognized that she hoped to change her appearance, but not to the point that she would destroy her career because no one recognized the Dirty Dancing girl anymore.
Since then, Gray has continued to work as an actress, but she has only gotten a few supporting or episodic roles in series like Friends, House, or Grey's Anatomy. Between 1999 and 2000 she starred in the series It's Like, You Know..., a short-lived comedy where her rhinoplasty was a recurring gag. And in 2010 she won Dancing with the Stars, the US version of Look Who's Dancing.
Perhaps Gray's return to the film industry will come with the sequel to Dirty Dancing. Last August, Lionsgate announced that it would produce a new sequel to the famous film where the actress will play Baby again. As for Swayze, who died in 2009 from pancreatic cancer, Gray recently assured that he will not be replaced in the film.
Personally, on July 21, 2001, Gray married actor and director Clark Gregg, with whom she has a daughter, Stella, born on December 3 of the same year. This summer the couple announced that they had separated amicably last January and that they were processing their divorce, which will take effect in 2021. The actress was previously associated with actors Michael J. Fox and Johnny Depp.
