Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing (1987) (Photo: Reproduction)
Actress Jennifer Gray revealed that she received a personal apology from collaborator Patrick Swayze (1952–2009), with the actor teary-eyed, before he began filming the classic “Dirty Dancing” (1987). The 62-year-old artist revealed what happened while participating in the talk show ‘The View’ to talk about his recently released autobiography ‘Out of the Corner’, the newspaper’s website reports. . New York Post,
According to Grey, she was reluctant to work with Swayze on “Dirty Dancing” because she was hurt by her colleague’s pranks on the set of “Bloody Dawn” (1984). Another 1980s classic, the film also featured Charlie Sheen and Lee Thompson to narrate the actions of high school students in a small United States town by Soviet soldiers.
Actress Jennifer Gray (Photo: Instagram)
“Patrick kept poke fun at me and everyone else,” Gray said. “They were kind of sexist and I couldn’t handle it. Like, ‘Please, this guy can’t do it anymore'”.
Then came an invitation to star in ‘Dirty Dancing’ and his initial hesitation when he learned of Swayze’s presence in the cast as his romantic father. However, she agreed to audition for the film with her colleague’s participation, and ended up hearing an apology.
“He took me aside and said, ‘I love you, I love you and I’m sorry. I know you don’t want me in this movie.’ And he had tears in his eyes. And I had tears in my eyes – not for the same reasons. I just thought, ‘This guy is celebrating me’. And he said, ‘We can break everything, we can destroy it’ If we do it together.’ we went there [fazer o teste] And he grabbed me by the arms and I thought, ‘Hey man, I’m in'”.
Actor Patrick Swayze and his widow Lisa Niemi (Photo: Getty Images)
Swayze died in 2009 at the age of 57 after being treated for pancreatic cancer for two years. A few weeks earlier, in another interview, Gray compared his relationship with his colleague to the dynamics of his characters in the 1987 film, Francis ‘Baby’ Houseman and Johnny Castle.
Gray said: “Just like Baby and Johnny couldn’t be together, they weren’t natural… They weren’t a natural match, right? We weren’t even a natural match. And the fact that we didn’t have to be a natural match. Because when it’s not natural, you both give up, but they forced us to be together.”
Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze in a classic scene from ‘Dirty Dancing’ (Photo: Reproduction)
She later said: “And from this imposition there was a kind of rapprochement, something like a friction”. The actress also shared what she would say to Swayze today, if she were still alive: “I’m sorry I couldn’t appreciate you and who you are, wanting you to be the person I wanted to be. Be you.”
Jennifer Gray with her autobiography, Out of the Corner (Photo: Playback/Instagram)
Gray joked about his annoyance with Swayze at the time, a Hollywood heartthrob: “It was the weirdest thing to happen to me, like, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Like, I wasn’t interested. And he was married and loved his wife very much. Whatever he did, I didn’t… I was too busy with Matthew [Broderick], Like, I can’t imagine anything different.”
After a brief relationship with Broderick in the late 1980s, Gray dated actor Johnny Depp. She was married between 2001 and 2021 to actor Clark Gregg, with whom he had Stella Gregg (20 years).
Watch the trailers of ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Violent Dawn’ below:
