The nose job that ended the career of this 80s star

Jennifer Grey was the classic '80s icon. She went from being the most wanted and envied woman in the world after filming 'Dirty Dancing' with Patrick Swayze to completely disappearing from the Hollywood scene.

The reason why the actress vanished from the star system may come as a surprise: a nose job. However, more things happened to the actress before going into the surgery that would change everything.

Being an actress came naturally to Jennifer Grey (New York, 1960) because her parents, Joel Grey and Jo Wilder, were also actors.

Born and raised in New York, Jennifer Grey herself tells in her memoirs ('Out of the Corner') that during her teenage years she had been surrounded by excesses of which she isn't very proud. New York in the '70s was indeed the most excessive city in the world.

It wasn't until she was 19 years old that she had her debut as an actress. Like many other Hollywood celebrities, advertising granted her the first opportunity in the industry: acting in an ad for Dr. Pepper.

She would have to wait four years to get her first role. In 1984, she played Cathy Bennario in 'Reckless', starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah and directed by Chris Columbus. Not bad for being her movie debut.

From that moment on, Jennifer Grey didn't stop making movies, having roles in Francis Ford Coppola's 'Cotton Club', and John Milius' 'Red Dawn'.

We cannot talk about Jennifer's life without mentioning the actor, Matthew Broderick. They met on the set of 'Ferries Bueller's Day Off' in 1986 and started a relationship that lasted for a long time.

They started dating in secret and stayed like that for a whole year. In fact, when Jennifer Grey was filming 'Dirty Dancing' nobody knew she was dating Matthew Broderick.

Frances Houseman, better known as Baby by her friends, was the character that transformed the actress into a star in 1987. The chemistry between her and Patrick Swayze's character, Johnny Castle, was pure fire and the story, a musical romance, was a hit in the entire world.

'Dirty Dancing' cost 6 million dollars and revenue of 216 million dollars in the whole world. Even its soundtrack was a hit, becoming one of the bestselling movie soundtracks in history.

But it wasn't all fun and games. The relationship between Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey was tense. According to the biography of the actor ('The Time of my Life'), the tension came from the childish attitude of her colleague when it came to repeating or redoing a scene.

In the end, the movie turned out perfect, and it was to be premiered on the 21st of August 1987, however, Jennifer Grey suffered a terrible car accident along with Matthew Broderick a few days earlier, on the 5th of August.

The couple was in Northern Ireland when the BMW the actor was driving crossed into the opposite lane and crashed directly into another vehicle. As a consequence, Margaret Doherty (63) and her daughter, Anna Gallagher (28), passed away.

Jennifer Grey, as she tells in her memoirs, was too shocked and felt so much guilt to even enjoy the fame that 'Dirty Dancing' had brought to her (in the image we can see her being congratulated by Madonna). Besides, through the accident, the media found out about her relationship with Matthew Broderick.

Following the incident, the actress decided to take some time off which resulted in a lack of projects and opportunities that, before the hiatus, were indeed coming thanks to the success of the movie.

The lack of roles and projects affected her mental state even more. Finally, Grey decided to listen to her mother who for years, had been telling her that she needed to change her "Jewish nose".

What's more, she had a health problem that limited her breathing capacity by a 20%. So, the surgery was going to solve a real health issue and a physical insecurity she didn't know she had but that came as a possible solution to her professional problems.

The actress came out of surgery really happy with the results, but one day Grey noticed a piece of her cartilage on the tip of her nose. So, although she didn't want to change anything about her aspect, she had to undergo surgery again. At the time, she was filming 'Wind' (1992) and couldn't change her aspect overnight.

Unfortunately, her aspect did change, and with that, the reality she was living in. As she has detailed in her book: "I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. I knew something bad had happened."

If she wasn't able to recognize herself, how could the rest of the people know who she was? Family members and closest family friends, even Michael Douglas, could not recognize Jennifer Grey.

As she expressed in her memoirs: "It seemed that I had committed an unforgivable crime: willfully stripping away the only thing that made me special."

After all, Jennifer Grey got to work in little projects like the film 'Portraits of a Killer' (1996), the series 'It's Like, You Know…' (1999-2001), and even did a cameo in 'Friends', but the level of fame and success wasn't remotely the same.

Jennifer Grey went from being Baby, the girlfriend America was dreaming of, to a stranger with minor roles. Although her situation didn't change in the 21^st century, the actress did some cameos in top shows like 'House MD' and 'Grey's Anatomy'.

Her first important role of the century was thanks to the Amazon Prime Video show, 'Red Oaks' (2014-2017), where she played the role of Judy Meyers in 21 episodes.

Years prior, in 2010, Grey exhibited her dancing skills winning, along with her dance partner Derek Hough, season 11 of 'Dancing with the Stars'.

In 2019, she was part of the main cast of 'Bittersweet Symphony' along with Suki Waterhouse and Poppy Delevigne, but the movie didn't make good numbers and didn't grab much attention.

However, it is on Instagram where we can see the actress being the most active. There, she shares pre-surgery photos where you can see the incredible change the second intervention really meant for her physique.

Image: Instagram (@jennifergrey)

If Marvel ever desires to step out of Superheroes a bit, they could take the opportunity to make an episode of their series 'What if…?' about what could have happened to Jennifer Grey if she hadn't gone under the knife. But that's something we will never know…