Here’s your slowly-close-your-eyes-and-pretend-you-never-heard-it Fact of the Day: Jennifer Grey… is fifty years old. But don’t worry– she’s still on her toes.
In this screengrab from Yahoo.com, we see one of the icons of the ’80′s has surfaced on this season’s Dancing with the Stars (Mondays 8:00 PM ET and Tuesdays, 9:00 PM ET, ABC, DISH 245.). Partnered with Derek Hough, sentiment and fond memories of Bill Medley are making Grey the favorite. (She’s certainly faring better in pre-show polling than poor Florence Henderson, who garnered a mere 1% of the vote.)
Grey, once done Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze in 1987, seemed to drop off the edge of the cultural map. She resurfaced briefly in a failed sitcom in 1999, but it seemed that her Oscar and Tony winning dad, Joel Grey, was getting more work than Baby.
Where’d she go? Down the same post-adolescence career hole as Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy?
Grey broke free of the Brat Pack of the ’80′s (but not before an engagement to her screen brother in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Matthew Broderick), but probably not the way she may have liked. Rhinoplasty altered her appearance, and she hung around television for the most part, most notably on an episode of Friends as Mindy, Rachel’s former best friend. She stole the show, leaving many of the series’ fans gasping, “That was Jennifer Grey?”
It was, and she’s now a mom. Grey was suffering from the effects of a serious car accident; then, as part of her treatment, doctors discovered cancer. A series of surgeries didn’t keep her from pursuit of reality television’s tackiest trophy (and that is saying something.) Grey fans who may be disappointed by an unexpected early exit from the competition shouldn’t despair; it’s reported that she’ll appear on an episode of the next season of House.
