We had the time of our lives...
MARION MCMULLEN CELEBRATES THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY OF DIRTY DANCING
IT WAS the summer Rick Astley was singing Never Gonna Give You Up, Madonna was asking Who’s That Girl and feel-good movie Dirty Dancing was the surprise hit at the box office.
The on-screen chemistry between co-stars Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey offered the romance that cinema audiences wanted to see again ... and again ... and again.
Dirty Dancing was released 35 years ago this month and became a 1987 blockbuster although Patrick was not convinced by the title and reportedly tried to get studio bosses to rename it I Was A Teenage Mambo Queen.
No one expected a movie about dancing set in a 1960s holiday resort in New York’s Catskill Mountains to turn into box office gold and become an international success, but the story of “Baby” Houseman and her crush on dance instructor Johnny Castle proved irresistible.
The movie opened with a voiceover from Baby saying: “That was the summer of 1963 when everybody called me Baby and it didn’t occur to me to mind.
“That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn’t wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my Dad.”
Only experienced dancers were used for the movie’s dance scenes and it proved a wise decision when there was only time for two weeks of rehearsal before filming began.
Weather conditions on location ranged from pouring rain to sweltering heat with the thermometer hitting more than 40 degrees at some points. It is reckoned 10 people passed out one day within the first 25 minutes of shooting because of the overwhelming heat.
However, by the time it came for Patrick and Jennifer to film their famous dance rehearsal lake scene, the weather had dropped to mere four degrees and Jennifer remembers it as being “horrifically” cold.
Both she and Patrick had worked together before on the 1984 film Red Dawn, but they had not got on well then and he had to convince her to be in Dirty Dancing.
Jennifer at 27 was older than her young screen character and there was some tension during filming between the romantic leads.
Patrick once said: “We did have a few moments of friction. She seemed particularly emotional, sometimes bursting into tears if someone criticised her.”
He began his own career as a dancer appearing in Disneyland’s parades as Prince Charming. One of the Cinderellas he danced with was future Scarface and The Witches Of Eastwick film star Michelle Pfeiffer.
The success of Dirty Dancing made Patrick an A-lister and it was the first film to sell a million copies on home video.
The movie quote, “Nobody puts baby in a corner,” became famous, as did the spectacular dance lift at the end of the film with Johnny catching Baby in midair and holding her aloft. Jennifer later said: “He was always going to be there to catch me.”
The song (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life went on to win an Oscar and Patrick also co-wrote and sang She’s Like The Wind from the movie soundtrack.
He once said: “What’s powerful about a love scene is not seeing the act. It’s seeing the passion, the need, the desire, the caring, the fear.”
Patrick told the cast how much he related to his character of dance teacher Johnny, having grown up
among a “redneck Texas mentality” where “people didn’t understand the arts of acting, dancing and singing”. And he even admitted that, like his screen character, he felt “like an outsider” and had to “fight his way through his youth” to prove he could be an entertainer.
Studio bosses were certainly keen to follow up on the box office success of Dirty Dancing and reportedly offered Patrick $6m to play Johnny Castle again in a sequel ... he turned them down.
However, the appeal of Dirty Dancing lives on and it became one of the fastest selling shows in London’s theatre history when it opened at the Aldwych Theatre in 2006 with a record-breaking advance of £15m.
The stage show was seen by more than two million people over five years and sell-out international and UK tours have followed.
“There’s just something about dance. It’s like a primal thing in all of us,” said Patrick.
He went on to star in Hollywood hits, including Ghost alongside Demi Moore in 1990, Point Break a year later and Donnie Darko in 2001. But his career was cut short when he died of pancreatic cancer aged 57 in 2009.
Jennifer said: “When I think of him, I think of being his arms when we were kids, dancing, practising the lift in the freezing lake, having a blast doing this tiny movie we thought no one would ever see. He was a real cowboy with a tender heart.”