‘Dirty Dancing’: Did Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey Ever Date in Real Life?
Dirty Dancing was among the highest-grossing films of 1987, with audiences enthralled by the undeniable on-screen chemistry shared by actors Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. The couple turned up the heat so high that many people believed they were involved in a sizzling celebrity relationship in real life.
Let’s take a look at what happened when the cameras stopped rolling and see if the dancing duo had the time of their lives off-screen.
‘Nobody puts Baby in the corner’
In the iconic dance drama, Swayze plays Johnny, an abrasive dance instructor who gives dance lessons to wealthy patrons of Kellerman’s, an exclusive summer retreat in the Catskills. Grey’s character is Baby, a young girl from a well-to-do family that is anxious to let loose and show people, especially her father, who she really is.
The couple is forced together, much to Johnny’s dismay, when Baby becomes his dance partner after a set of unfortunate circumstances. While Baby comes into her own and learns to be the partner he is looking for, the two share one of the greatest on-screen romances of all time.
The flirtatious energy between the couple is undeniable, and you can’t help but fall in love with the characters, especially when Johnny declares, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner,” a line that has held the test of time.
How Swayze and Grey really felt about each other
The dynamic dancing duo never dated in real life. In fact, they really didn’t like each other too much. According to The Things, both actors previously appeared together in the 1984 film Red Dawn.
Swayze seemed to rub Grey the wrong way, taking the eight-week rigorous training of his character much too seriously for her liking. Eventually, the two found it hard to be around each other, much less explore a romantic relationship.
While filming Dirty Dancing, Swayze reportedly became increasingly frustrated by Grey’s lack of dance training. He was constantly annoyed by having to reshoot scenes because of her ineptness. Despite her lack of formal dance instruction, in 2010, Grey was crowned the winner of Season 11 of Dancing With the Stars.
Reminiscing about the 25th Anniversary of the movie, the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off star said the tension she shared with Swayze was “much hotter-looking than just love.” She explained,
“There was a very complex dynamic between Patrick and myself for the whole movie. Whatever our issues were, we had them, but they weren’t talked about.”
While Grey was never romantically involved with Swayze, she did date Johnny Depp and Matthew Broderick. In 2001, she married actor Clark Gregg, best known for his role as Agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to People, they divorced in 2020, and the 62-year-old actor retained 100 percent of her earnings and residuals from Dirty Dancing.
Swayze married actor Lisa Niemi in 1975, and they remained together until his untimely death in 2009, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.
The tension the couple shared made the film that much more intense
According to Cinema Blend, Grey shared that she was terrified of doing the infamous lift from the final dance scene in Dirty Dancing. Despite practicing the move and Swayze reassuring her that he was a reliable partner, she could not shake feeling scared.
On an episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Grey admitted that she knew her trepidation in filming the scene was making Swayze and the directors “insane.” She remained fearful right up until the time the scene was shot. After Grey released her memoir, Out Of The Corner, she talked with People about the tension she shared with Swayze while filming Dirty Dancing, saying they were not a “natural match.”
The actor explained, “the fact that we needed to be a natural match created a tension,” and “our being forced to be together created a kind of a synergy, or like a friction.” Grey reflected, saying that she wished she would have just appreciated who Swayze was instead of wishing he was more like what she wanted him to be.
