We had time of our lives but thought the movie would flop
IT’S likely the 1987 smash film I Was A Teenage Mambo Queen is high on your list of favourites.
If you cannot quite place it, think Dirty Dancing instead.
It became one of the biggest films of the decade – yet it was thought such an unlikely hit that even its title was as up-in-the-air as its almost unknown stars.
As the romantic classic marks its 30th anniversary this month, we can reveal how the movie’s own cast thought it would be a massive flop.
In fact, it catapulted Patrick Swayze to stardom, won an Oscar for signature track I’ve Had The Time of My Life, and Swayze’s iconic line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” has passed into movie history.
“Baby” was female lead Frances Houseman, 17, played by a little-known Jennifer Grey.
Jane Brucker, who took the role of her older sister Lisa, had only four TV appear- ances to her name. She reveals the film’s budget was so low she had to write a song herself to sing in the talent show scene, rather than pay for one from South Pacific.
Wisely she held on to the copyright for The Hula Song, and reveals: “It’s made me more money than I got paid to do the movie.”
Set in 1963, Dirty Dancing tells the tale of daddy’s girl Baby, dragged by her strait-laced parents to a holiday camp in the US Deep South.
There she develops a crush on Swayze’s dance instructor character, Johnny Castle. The bad boy hunk enlists her as his dance partner for the summer’s final show – to the horror of her father ( Jerry Orbach)
– and the pair fall in love as they secretly practise their raunchy moves.
But rather than the glamour of the Hollywood studio Jane, 59, recalls how they shot the movie in rain-soaked cabins in Virginia and a boys’ camp in North Carolina.
LIMOS
She says: “I knew it wasn’t going to be a big blockbuster. There was no big sponsorship – and it was about dancing.
“We weren’t getting limos to the airport or catalogues of sneakers to choose from. We weren’t lavishly catered for and all stayed on site.
“Even though it was fun I felt it wasn’t going to be a big mainstream movie. Who would care about
Patrick said it was a scary lift, it took hours for them to get it right
JANE BRUCKER CO-STAR ON FILM’S ICONIC FINALE
mambo dancing? Even the title, Dirty Dancing – what was that?”
Jane reveals Swayze tried to get studio bosses to change the title to I Was A Teenage Mambo Queen, fearing a Bible Belt backlash.
She laughs: “Dirty Dancing sounded like a porno movie, which would have put people off. But they couldn’t think of a better title.”
Thankfully Swayze’s alternative was overruled – and another allegorical alliteration was born.
For its millions of fans around the world, the movie’s most memorable scene is at the climax, where Baby is held aloft by Johnny in that iconic lift as they perform the summer dance finale.
It perfectly symbolises the couple’s defiance – of Baby’s parents, and the camp’s bosses.
The scene took three days as director Emile Ardolino pushed Swayze and Grey in order to capture different angles and perfect the drama.
Swayze, who pulled a groin muscle and damaged a disc in his back during the arduous shoot, finished up physically exhausted.
He was also left with a long-term knee injury, with a torn ligament causing him agony.
“I believe he hurt his knee doing one of those jumps from the stage on to the audience floor,” says Jane.
“He landed awkwardly and immediately everyone knew something wasn’t right. We all knew he was pushing himself. Patrick admitted it was a ‘scary’ lift – they spent hours getting it right.”
Swayze had told the cast how much he related to his character, having grown up among a “redneck Texas mentality” where “people didn’t understand the arts of acting, dancing and singing”.
OUTSIDER
And he even admitted that, like Johnny, he felt “like an outsider” and had to “fight his way through his youth” to prove he could be an entertainer.
Jane says: “Johnny and Patrick were similar in life experiences – which is why he is so believable.”
Jennifer, who had starred in 1986 hit Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, had never danced professionally before playing Baby – but her sizzling chemistry with Swayze helped make the film the smash it became.
Jane said: “Their connection and friendship was so genuine.
“When she and Patrick are rehearsing and he runs his hand down her side and she laughs, that was real.
“Patrick said the film was ‘about heart and people trying to find themselves’, and that was the reason it stayed around so long.
“He always said, ‘If Jennifer wasn’t so brilliant as Baby, none of that movie would have worked.’
“Jennifer captured Baby in a way no one else could.”
After Dirty Dancing’s surprise success Jane left movies and now has two children.
Swayze went on to star in blockbusters such as Ghost, Road House and Point Break before dying from pancreatic cancer in 2009, aged 57.
Jane says: “The question I get asked the most is, ‘What was Patrick Swayze like?’ Let me tell you, Patrick really was his own guy.
“He was as macho as he was in the film. Patrick ruled that movie set, and that movie. I’m not sure anyone could have worked harder.”