The movie Dirty Dancing is considered an 80s classic and one of the most successful of all time. Set in 1963, it tells the story of teenager Frances “Baby” Houseman (played by Jennifer Grey), who has a hot summer romance with dance instructor Johnny Castle, played by Patrick Swayze.

Dirty dances raised more than $214 million worldwide and was also the winner of an Academy Award for Best Song (I had) the time of my life. Audiences fell in love with the characters, the music and the iconic dance routines, including the famous “lift up”.

But now the 62-year-old actress has gone blonde for her latest character.

Gray gave her fans a sneak peek of her new role on Instagram, in which she’ll play the leader of the cult. Gwen Shamblin, the American author, founder of the Christian diet program ‘The Weigh Down Workshop’ and the ‘Remnant Fellowship’ church, who tragically passed away last year in a plane crash.

Dirty Dancing actress customized christian diet guru and put on a long blonde wigstyled in Gwen’s signature style.

Jennifer, who is known for sporting shorter curly brunette locks, looks like completely different in the wigwhile pouting seriously for the camera.

The star took to Instagram with the photo, writing, “Call me Gwen,” while teasing the name of her new movie, “Hungry for Salvation”.

Her fans quickly flooded her IG account’s comment section to talk about the incredible transformation and share your enthusiasm for the film.

Among them was the actor Michael J Foxwho wrote, “Okay, you have my full attention,” while NCIS star Sasha Alexander said: “AH-MA-smiling.”

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Dirty Dancing, an icon of cinema

The success of Dirty Dancing launched Patrick Swayze to stardomdied of cancer in 2009 at the age of 57.

But his partner, Jennifer Grey, did not have the same luck, who in a few years disappeared from the public scene for what she believed a big mistake in his career.

Memories of Jennifer Gray and her nose operation

This 2022, Jennifer Gray has published her memoirs, in which she tells the reasons that have not made her film career prosper: a nose job that made her unrecognizable to the general public and this caused the big studios to stop offering him roles.

In the book Off the corner (off the cornerwhich alludes to one of the film’s most memorable lines), Gray – now 62 – recounts how early in his career, as he struggled to get roles, his mother, also an actress, Jo Wilder, suggested he the lack of work may have something to do with his “Jewish” nose.

“At that point, I was almost 30 years old and I had spent most of my adult life trying to love and accept myself as I was,” the actress says in the book. “So going under the knife felt perilously close to admitting defeat.”

However, after the huge success of Dirty dances She decided to take the plunge and spoke to a famous plastic surgeon. She asked him to operate on her. which only “tune” his nose, but will leave the characteristic “bulge” it had in the septum. The procedure was a success and Gray started getting more roles and earning more money.

What a director saw

In 1992, during filming Windthe film’s cinematographer noticed this a piece of cartilage was sticking out from the tip of his nose.

The actress spoke to her surgeon and agreed to fix it. The idea was just not to see that piece of gristle, but the result of that second operation it would change his life.

When he was able to remove the bandages, Gray was startled by what the mirror showed him. “I could not understand what I was seeing. I knew something bad had happened“.

That second operation changed her appearance so much that the general public no longer recognized her. “It seemed that he had committed an unforgivable crime: deliberately stripping myself of the one thing that made me special,” says Grey, who was aware that her original nose was also a physical link to her Jewish identity.

In an interview with the reporter Katia Couric Last May 2022, Gray reflected on what had happened.

According to what he said, his parents’ families were Jews originally from Eastern Europe and when they arrived in the US they changed their surname. And for Jews who worked in show business (his father is actor Joel Grey, Oscar winner for Cabaret), changing the nose “was a normal thing to do and considered a smart thing to do”.

“My mother knew how show business worked and thought it would be easier for me to get the paperss, because there weren’t many roles for girls who looked like me and were Jewish. There weren’t many opportunities and she wanted me to have more. She wanted me to have the career she didn’t have.”

cosmetic changes

“I don’t know what it did, but it changed the proportions of my face (…) it looked different in a way that didn’t make sense,” Jennifer Gray said in an interview with Katie Couric.

“Was the hardest, loneliest, most confusing time of my life. It was very devastating. And being so misunderstood around the world for decades… The lack of generosity and humanity hurt me so much.”

According to Gray, after the operation he “couldn’t find work” or survive. “I decided to throw in the towel. I never again asked anyone to give me the thumbs up or appreciate them.”

Life after Dirty Dancing

From then on, he had to figure out who he was “without that character, without Dirty Dancing.” “Y in that loneliness I hit rock bottom. And I understood who I was and what I was worth in a way that no one would ever take away from me again.”

The actress – who is now working on producing a sequel to Dirty dances— spent years trying to figure out why the public turned away from him after his makeover.

“At one point I thought maybe they felt it [el personaje] Baby it was them and they felt very identified with her, because there are very few films in which the protagonist looks like them, or isn’t perfect or is more human… and it hurt them that (with the operation) he said something about them that weren’t enough”.

“I’ve spent too many years thinking about it and not finding an answer. I just realized that no one was going to save me (…) It was a drama and I realized I’m a very strong person,” said Gray.

“All the hard things that have happened to me have happened to me and changed me and I wouldn’t want to be someone else (…) Now I am happier than ever and I feel very grateful that I survived. And I don’t think about me or my nose. I think about how much I have contributed in this life, as a mother, as a friend,…”.