Jennifer Grey is known for many things: Dirty Dancing, of course; winning Dancing with the Stars; notoriously for a nose job gone wrong. The memoir looks back at every important event of her life with rare honesty and what is even rarer in celebrity memoirs: a lot of introspection and insight into the type of person Grey was and the world she found herself in. For fans and film buffs, not every piece of information is new, but each is backed by Grey’s own perspective as well as a certain nostalgia. 

Grey was born to actors Joel Grey and Jo Wilder and grew up in a star-studded environment, with access to Hollywood celebrities and the surrounding paraphernalia literally from the time she was born. The initial parts of the book, delving into her growing-up years and her fascination with showbiz, give a great insight into what it is like to be a child in that atmosphere. She talks about her relationship with actor Mathew Broderick with whom she was in a car accident just before the release of Dirty Dancing, and her whirlwind engagement to Johnny Depp. Her stint in Dancing with the Stars and her attempts to navigate the business of movies add another layer to the story. 

Of course, the most honesty (and time) is reserved for her botched nose job. It is the story the book begins with, showing the reader just how much of an impact it had on her life and her career. Each person’s role in the fiasco is well-highlighted, including that of her mother and the doctor. She also briefly touches upon the relationship between the star and the audience. Who is a star, if not an image created by the audience? And does it mean that the audience has “ownership” of the star and all their facets and decisions? About her botched nose job, she says, “The general public and Dirty Dancing fans seemed to react to my amended profile as a kind of personal affront. Perhaps because they had identified with my realness, my humanness, because I was relatable, more like them than the typical leading ladies, the impossibly perfect goddesses they had grown accustomed to seeing up on the screen.

Perhaps their connection to me as an actress or as Baby, was inextricably linked to my physical imperfection, to my ability to “pass” for beautiful. I’m a big fan of wabi-sabi, the Japanese concept of the perfection of imperfection. But is there no statute of limitations on how long people think they are entitled to ownership of my face? Entitled to not only have a personal preference about my nose, but feel obligated to declare their allegiance to it, to write about it, and to assume I should be pilloried for allegedly not loving myself enough.”

Jennifer Grey in a still from Dirty Dancing

It brings up several questions about stardom and the relationship between celebrities and fans. It reminds me of Shah Rukh Khan saying he is an employee of the myth of SRK and one of my favourite scenes in Luck by Chance where Zafar (Hrithik Roshan) points to his reflection in the mirror and says, “Main Zafar Khan nahin hoon. Yeh Zafar Khan hai,” – a fantasy created by fans, whose every decision is motivated by what fans what or demand. 

Her relationship with her body and gender are relatable even in different contexts. Her honest confession that she had always wanted to be more career-driven like her father and not family-oriented like her mother strikes a chord. Though she ultimately admits that no role she has ever played has given her the satisfaction of motherhood.

A lot of her struggles have been self-imposed, she says, and it comes out in the clinical way she analyses her life. In a recent New York Times interview, she says, “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. I seemed to have felt in the past that I had been put in corners. But once I started writing, I realised that there were so many things I did choose.” 

The book is an interesting comment on acting and stardom, and while the writing is not always top-class, it is good enough to keep you hooked.

Shreemayee Das is a writer and a stand-up comedian. She writes mostly on cinema and culture. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @weepli.

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