Jennifer Grey's Nose

I prefer no Jennifer Grey. Fish.

She was so incredibly homely before the nose job. So unrealistic that Patrick Swayze would have fallen for her and thought she was like the wind.

Nose job.made her unrecognizable but attractive.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

and how bout a little exhibit C with C at his hottest.

Recognizable. I don't see why people thought she was homely. If she didn't want a typical "Semitic" nose style, she could have had it bobbed and straightened just a little. Didn't the surgeon show her what she'd look like afterward?

It's freaky that someone could be so changed. I wonder what it did to her psychologically to disappear like that into a new face. She obviously had other work done, too. Her eyes were different than before.

I wonder what her father looked like before he had his nose turned into a gumdrop.

R2 I completely disagree. She is one of the few female celebrities I had a crush on and found attractive. I thought she had the most perfect figure in Dirty Dancing. Lean, athletic and toned but still soft and shapely.

Becoming unrecognizable to Madonna must sting the most

What’s a Jennifer Grey?

Who give a fuck about Gen Z?

R1 don't forget you did come bouncing into this world literally soaked with vaginal discharge head to toe

The personality looks completely different. Before, she looked devilish, with a look that puts you on guard. Afterwards, she looks like you could use her like a doormat and get away with it.

The weird thing is, her eyes look completely different. Even if I cover up her nose in the before and after pics, she still looks completely different.

The before and after pics are like 30 years apart.

A memorable role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the lead role in Dirty Dancing set her up for a major career which never transpired

Clearly she did more than just the nose; eyes, cheeks and lips also sculpted, rendering her unrecognizable. Even her clit was streamlined.

LOL

"Even her clit was streamlined." Bless your heart R15. Man, I needed that laugh.

Happy to oblige, Jasper. Now bend over.

Snatch Batch: Madonna, Jennifer Grey, Sandra Bernhard, Debi Mazar

Who dis?

i think she looks good after nose job. it would be nice to see some photos after the nose job when she was much younger.

Here’s her father Joel pre nose job R6. Like father like daughter

I think Joel Grey's nose fit his face well. But then again, men can pull off a bigger nose more easily then women.

Her nose job never bothered me. Today it would a non issue .

Jennifer Grey arrived at a recent breakfast at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills in a flurry of regrets about the state of her shirt and her hair (both were impeccable). Before the waiter had a chance to pour coffee, the star of “Dirty Dancing” asked a question that would be an apt subtitle for her memoir, “Out of the Corner,” which Ballantine will publish on May 3.

“Why do I think everything has to be perfect in order to be enough?”

Some actors play it coy in their autobiographies, forcing readers to bushwhack through anodyne childhood memories and tepid revelations about fame before “opening the kimono” (Grey’s term) on the subjects they’re best known for. Grey doesn’t roll this way in person — she’s forthcoming, warm and hellbent on connection — or in her book, which begins with a 17-page prologue about her nose and the plastic surgeries that derailed her career and (almost) robbed her of her identity.

At 62, Grey is ready to take control of a narrative that has been in the public domain for so long, it has achieved mythological status. As recently as 2007, this newspaper referred to “Jennifer Grey syndrome” — the phenomenon of too-aggressive plastic surgery — as if everyone is in on the joke. How long must one woman pay for a personal decision? Why should any human being be boiled down to a punchline?

Before we delve into the significance of “schnozzageddon,” as Grey called it, let’s rewind a bit for readers who are too young to remember the significance of the event.

In 1986, Grey landed a breakout role as “Baby” Houseman in “Dirty Dancing,” a movie about an awkward teenager who falls in love with a hunky dance instructor (played by Patrick Swayze) during a vacation at a Catskills resort called Kellerman’s. Made with a budget of $6 million, the movie earned $214 million at the box office and, as The New York Times’s film editor wrote on its 10th anniversary, “quickly became a phenomenon in a way that no one associated with it quite understands, even to this day.” Swayze’s line, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” became a rallying cry for disaffected Generation Xers — who, it turned out, craved rumba, romance and nostalgia just as much as anyone else. Cuffed, cutoff jean shorts and white Keds became the official summer uniform of every adolescent whose Sun-In and perm didn’t quite achieve Grey’s honey-colored waves. At 27, having been paid $50,000 for her work, she became a household name.

“After ‘Dirty Dancing,’ I was America’s sweetheart, which you would think would be the key to unlocking all my hopes and dreams,” writes Grey, the daughter of an Oscar-winning actor, Joel Grey, and granddaughter of Mickey Katz, a comedian and musician who might have performed at Kellerman’s had it been a real place. “But it didn’t go down that way. For one thing, there didn’t seem to be a surplus of parts for actresses who looked like me. My so-called ‘problem’ wasn’t really a problem for me, but since it seemed to be a problem for other people, and it didn’t appear to be going away anytime soon, by default it became my problem.”

“It was as plain as the nose on my face,” she said.

Following the advice of her mother and three plastic surgeons — one of whom recalled seeing “Dirty Dancing” and wondering “why that girl didn’t do her nose” — Grey underwent two surgeries to “fine-tune” her proboscis. The second procedure, intended to correct an irregularity caused by the first, was more aggressive than what Grey expected. Her new nose was “truncated” and “dwarfed.” She was unrecognizable to people who had known her for years. Photographers who had hounded her the month before didn’t pick up their cameras when she walked down a red carpet.

She recalls an airline employee who glanced at her driver’s license and said, “‘Oh, Jennifer Grey, like the actress.’” When Grey said, “Actually, it is me,” the woman responded: “‘I’ve seen ‘Dirty Dancing a dozen times. I know Jennifer Grey. And you are not her.’”

“Overnight I lose my identity and my career,” Grey writes.

In the two hours she sat on a blue banquette in a Beverly Hills restaurant, matter-of-factly scooping a soft-boiled egg, spreading butter on rye toast and chatting about her memoir, only one person appeared to recognize Grey. The woman’s face lit up, then softened as if she’d spotted an old friend who’d survived a terrible ordeal.

“Being misunderstood on a global stage was very painful,” said Grey. “I think people really love black-and-white thinking. I’m into gray; I couldn’t have a better name.”

Readers might wonder why Grey decided to write about her life now, decades after many of the events she explores. She is — like Baby Houseman, who was about to go to Mount Holyoke and dreamed of joining the Peace Corps — on the threshold of a new phase of life. In July 2020, Grey announced on Instagram that her marriage to Clark Gregg was ending after 19 years; their 20-year-old daughter, Stella, is now pursuing an acting career of her own. Not that it has anything to do with her memoir, but the 16-year-old family dog, Dorothy, died three days before our meeting — another turning point.

With Grey, one has a sense of an ending, but also a beginning. Worth considering: the nose that launched a thousand attacks, jokes and judgments has now been around longer than the one that made its debut in a Dr Pepper commercial in 1979.

“If you are public in any way, there is a sense that you are impenetrable. Or that you’ve sacrificed your privacy,” said Dani Shapiro, an author and a friend of Grey’s. Of the timing of “Out of the Corner,” she added, “When you tell a story is the story. There are books written out of anger or revenge or score settling. This is not one of them.”

In 2010, after many years of voice-over work, stints on “Friends” and “Grey’s Anatomy” and a role on a short-lived sitcom, “It’s Like … You Know,” in which she played a fictional version of herself, Grey appeared on, and won, “Dancing With the Stars.” That’s when the idea for “Out of the Corner” started to percolate.

Grey had a “ragtag, mismatched” collection of journals she’d kept from the age of 14 until she was 41, so she had plenty of material to work with: “I started to look at high points and low points and the way I’ve adapted to dramatic shifts. I wrote every single word of this book myself, which I know is unusual.”

From April to September of 2021, she had daily coaching sessions by Zoom with Barbara Jones, an editor and publishing industry veteran who helped shape the memoir. “The first thing Jennifer did was give me a massive manuscript, something she called the whole enchilada,” Jones said in a phone interview. “She’s one of the most highly verbal people I’ve ever met. I’d say, ‘You need a word here that means this’ and she’d spit out 10 synonyms, rapid fire. Then she’d pick one.”

“Out of the Corner” isn’t all about regret, survival or reinvention. It’s a funny, dishy, occasionally heartbreaking coming-of-age story, including Grey’s memories of crashing her parents’ late-night snack ritual, ditching class at Dalton and belting out show tunes at Hal Prince’s holiday party with Stephen Sondheim on the Steinway. There are escapades with Madonna, Johnny Depp and Tracy Pollan (whose vintage jeans inspired the “Dirty Dancing” cutoffs) alongside glimpses into Grey’s wild child years (think cocaine, sex and Studio 54 — “Although no one cool ever called it that,” she writes. “It was either Studio or 54”).

There’s Grey’s joy at landing a coveted role in “The Cotton Club,” followed by Francis Ford Coppola’s unexpected announcement, delivered “as offhandedly as if he were telling the waiter to make sure the calamari were extra crispy,” that she would film her first scene naked. She writes, “If I couldn’t trust Francis to take care of me as an actress, whom could I trust?”

(When asked how she would respond to this treatment now, Grey said, “If it was my daughter, I’d kill every single one of them.”)

There are also revelations about Grey’s tumultuous offscreen romance with Matthew Broderick, whose sulky sister she played in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” She recalls him saying, on the eve of her “Dirty Dancing” audition, “‘There’s no way you’re gonna get it. They’re seeing everyone for this part.’” Shortly before the movie’s premiere, Broderick and Grey were in a car accident in Ireland that left two people dead. He was behind the wheel and suffered serious injuries. Thirty years later, she would require spinal surgery as a result of the head-on collision. But in the meantime, news of the accident — and questions about it — followed her in the wake of her biggest success. Howard Stern joked about it on air; Bryant Gumbel inquired about it during a “Today Show” segment that was supposed to be about “Dirty Dancing.”

“The idea that the most traumatic tragedy, the most impactful experience of my life, was sandwiched —” Grey held up her hands, palms facing her collarbone and brought them together with a firm thump — “They are inextricably linked. The pleasure of that moment, that surprise arrival, it never felt good. It never felt like what I’d hoped my whole life it would feel like.”

She added, “We were so young. And there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t think about it. That I don’t think about the families. That I don’t think about Matthew. It’s just in me. It’s part of my topographical map, the landscape of my life.”

Grey’s friend Jamie Lee Curtis helped design the cover of “Out of the Corner,” using what she described in a phone interview as “D.I.Y. photoshop phone app skills.” The image she chose was a casual one with a retro vibe: “It isn’t overly fancy. It wasn’t for a magazine. There’s a confidence, an establishment of self in flow. It feels like she is at the precipice of something.”

Grey hopes readers who feel victimized or stuck will be inspired by her story: “Like Flintstone vitamins: It feels like candy but you’re getting something.”

“I’m a person who has been associated with ‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner.’ If I were to die, that’s what they would write on my tombstone,” she said. “I seemed to have felt in the past that I had been put in corners. But once I started writing, I realized there were so many things I did choose.”

Grey added, “The truth is, when I had all the good stuff, I was definitely not even close to how free I feel today.”

She didn't just change her nose, she changed other features on her face including her eyes. She looked like a completely different person at an age when it was too late to start over. She changed from a recognizable and interesting face into "just another pretty face" that was average and boring. One of the stupidest career moves ever.

Not sure that she had her eyes done so much as a brow lift. This is her in 1991

And then 1993. She has the same eyes (one slightly larger than the other) but the brows are a lot higher, which I don't think is just makeup.

Her ex-husband, Clark Gregg, has a very big dick.

I think her she and her Dad looked better with their natural noses

Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Dirty Dancing were the one-two punch that creates lifelong careers, and then becoming part of Madonna's Pussy Posse,,,

That nose job had reverberations felt around the globe

It's not a bad nose job - it doesn't look natural but it does suit her face, as does the brow lift. But it makes her a generic unmemorable sort of pretty, where before there was no one that age in Hollywood who looked like her and she was being lauded for her unconventional looks, including the proboscis nose. I believe that the second nose job was probably more extreme than she asked for - that has happened to many people who get nose jobs - but the fact is that she tried to correct something that she says herself she was getting accolades and work over and she should have known better.

Fame makes an average woman more fuckable. Barbra Streisand proves that a large ethnic nose can still pull in a good amount of meaty dick

It's Like, You Know: "Welcome to LA"

She should have it re-shaped to its original form

She looked better with the big nose. Sometimes you’re born with a perceived flaw for a reason and when you get rid of it you’re nothing special.

I don't think any studio ever really considered her as a viable long term leading lady. They tag that on you on pretty early. She could be an ugly duckling innocent young teen who gets a hot stud once. You can't make a leading lady out of that. Her contemporaries like Michelle Pfieffer and Julia Roberts were primed to be long term leading ladies. And both worked every studio at the time.

I like her with her original nose. I thought the nose was cute.

Grey was only ever gonna be a character actress. She should've kept the nose. The success of Dirty Dancing confused her people.

Matthew Broderick's mother outed Joel grey to his daughter with the brutal "don't you know your father is a fag?" In her autobiography, Jennifer grey says she felt like the statement was a "sniper attack". Now, I didn't know what "gay" was when I was a young'un, but I sure as hell knew that Joel grey, John Inman, Kenneth Williams and that "obvious" type of entertainer were "different" and didn't out a name to it, because the word "gay" was not in my wheelhouse, but I knew that none of those men , without knowing the ins and outs of their private lives were for "for marriage".

It took for the family driving to Brixton one day in the very late seventies/ early eighties ( definitely pre "gay cancer") and seeing a mere straggle of a Gay Pride coming out of Brockwell Park , most of the men with their arses out in leather chaps and my father throwing an expletive to even have heard of the word "gay" and me connecting it to all those entertainers who I had clocked as "different" , but now I knew why ( due to the obvious sexual nature of those men in that tens strong Gay Pride that day).

Jennifer grey must have been blind, considering that she was in the business and was no child. I cannot believe that she had no inkling and was so unsophisticated with her background, being a New Yorker, having a Broadway, ever twink father and the fact that "gay" was being dragged out of the closet due to AIDS which was first mentioned by the CDC in 1982. Matthew Broderick's mother sounded like a bitch, but she did Ms Grey a favour in a "she cannot be the last one to know" way. Aside from her nose job , her father being outed to her, the car accident in Ireland that killed two people what about this biography can be interesting? She wasn't an actress full of talent or charisma.

Honey I knew Joel Grey was gay the first time I saw Cabaret. And I was but a budding gay just discovering George Stevens movies.

Did it really ruin her career though? From her filmography, it looks like she wasn’t getting decent roles after a Dirty Dancing (pre nose job).

Yes, she might have been able to become a character actress with the old nose, but she would have had to have waited decades to get to the right age range for that.

She was 27 when she filmed Dirty Dancing so had the nose jobs pretty late in life. Most Jewish girls got them the summer before their senior year of high school.

It’s a shame, I think a wonderfully Jewish nose is beautiful on both men and women.

Anyone have any pictures or videos of her with the FIRST nose job? I have only ever seen her real nose and second surgerized nose.

I think a nose like her original one is hot on either gender. And if I meet someone who looks Jewish I’m automatically nicer to them and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Her original nose would have worked well for character roles on a series as a police officer, detective, social worker, upscale, downscale, teacher, Mom, bitter divorcee, criminal

Her generic nosejob nose just makes her look like an everyday Soccer Mom

She looks much better with her gentile nose. Only men look good with big honkers.

Having a fucked up nose never hurt Bette or Barbra. But then they had talent and charisma.

She should've fixed her nose before taking on leading role. Then nobody would've made a fuss.

Joel Grey has that generic ski-jump/storm drain nose that no man should have

When did she have her nose job? I saw the trailer for a film called “wind” with Matthew modine in 1992 and she still looked how she did in “dirty dancing”. By the time of her guest appearance in “friends” though around 1995, she was unrecognisable to me.

Revealing interview where Jennifer says she knew she had no chemistry with Patrick Swayze after working with him in Red Dawn

R54 On that Netflix show The Movies That Made Us about how certain classic movies got made, there was one episode about Dirty Dancing and it said basically that Patrick was a professional and wanted the two of them to work on the dances properly but Jennifer was a flighty ingenue who didn't want to put in the work and so they quickly ended up hating each others guts which is why Patrick's wife refused to allow her to visit him when she was dying (even though she was pretending to be upset about him when she was competing on DWTS). She's a fake bitch. Just like her nose.

Cher got a nose job when she was about 40 after having already been famous for decades and it did not hurt her career. So with that being said, I don't know if Jennifer Grey's nose job was the only reason her career ended...

It's insane she or her agents ever assumed she could be a leading lady. Her charm was her ugly parts.

r22, He looks like a tiny version of the first Bewitched Darren. Spooky.

R57 Dirty Dancing is a leading lady role

Yes, but it was a specific role. Someone mistakenly assumed you could plug her into leading lady roles. She was not the type.

R58 sounds like Dame Edna. Spooky!

There needs to be instant recognizability for a celebrity to be a spokesperson or dominating a movie poster

She removed that instant familiarity and there would always be the need to prominently display her name for her to be recognizable

I personally think the people that get upset when people get nose jobs are just jealous that they can not afford and/or do not have the guts to get a nose job themselves.

R63 guts to get a botched nosejob are actually insecurity, lack of self-esteem and valuing the opinions of others over your own

Other nosejobs that rocked the nation are Ashlee Simpson's and Courtney Love's US Magazine unveiling

Courtney Love is the rare person who was improved by heavy plastic surgery. She was outright homely before it.

A man with a nose job is the face of regret

She was not even gonna be a Molly Ringwald type. Or even a Joan Cuscak who became a very respected character actress.

R65, damn that is a good picture of Courtney Love

R67, why?

R2 She wasn't so "incredibly homely" your #1 crush Pat Swayze wouldn't look at her, you asshole. He wouldn't look at YOU. She was a star with that nose.

R70 can you think of one man who looks better with a nosejob

Courtney Love admits in her VH1 Behind the Music that she was all about mating for a nose

"Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose had the best noses in rock, and I was not about to mate with Axl Rose"

R72, Benjamin Bratt, Michael Jackson's FIRST nose job, Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, Peter Andre to name a few.

Can anyone think of others?

Ironically, surgery and injectables into a man's face permanently deflates testosterone and masculinity

I preferred her original nose. It gave her character and made her stand out. She did have a great body.

She never had a nose job...it's all contouring.

Elvis looked more masculine with his original nose, like a Bruce Weber model

Bump

Has anyone read her book?

R79 pun intended?

If Anna Kendrick can make a career despite looking witchy, Jennifer could have too.

I'm sure SJP isn't happy about Jennifer talking about when she dated her husband so publicly