Was this the real reason for her career going off track? Is there anything similar that happened to another actor?
It probably didn’t help, but is there anything in her IMDB listing after Dirty Dancing but before her nose job (1991-1992) that makes you think she was still a big star when she had it?
I think she was pretty much out of the public eye anyway. Then a few years ago, there was the big deal that she was coming back to star as herself in a new sitcom and the first ep revealed… the nose job! And nobody watched any more because if they had any interest, it was in the Jennifer Grey they knew- not some has-been actress who had her uniqueness removed.
Oh, I guess not. But it always gets mentioned as something that cooled off her career.
What!? It went for two season?!?
I remember reading that Keri Russell cutting her hair cut the legs out of the ratings for Felicity.
Yeah, but here’s the question – is it really always mentioned, or did she make the joke once in that sitcom, then that same joke clip was played on Entertainment Tonight, then we all start parroting it to the point that it becomes bigger than the issue itself? On that sitcom, she had the same figure, hair style, body style, pose, as teenage Baby (played by 27 year old Jennifer Grey) had. I didn’t even notice until they made the joke. There a a dozen threads on the IMDB message board about the surgery causing her to “lose an interesting characteristic”, when the rest of the package is fine. Funny 'tho, nothing else seems to highlight the career drop. Seems to me the commonest explanation for a starlet’s career sudden, possibly temporary, cool-off is marriage and starting a family. But that info isn’t easy to find on her IMDB page.
OP Title = new band name
I don’t know if it was a case of cause and effect, but Jan Smithers (aka Bailey Quarters) is another actress whose career took a nosedive after she had surgery to ‘fix’ her nose. I always thought she was much more attractive before the surgery.
By the way, does anyone know how her traffic accident two years ago played out?
I loved her in Wind, a post-Dirty Dancing, campy, America’s Cup/Yachting flick with Matthew Modine… found her cute pre-nose job and “less than meh” after…
Well she did lose her personality when she made her nose smaller. She isn’t a person you’ll look twice at anymore.
There are several actresses who went “fish lip”, whose careers seem to have taken a corresponding nosedive (ha!), i.e., Meg Ryan, Madeleine Stowe, et al.
Jackie Gleason was told in the 1940s that if he lost weight, he could get leading man-type parts. He lost a lot of weight, didn’t get the parts, went back to being fat, and became a star on TV.
Not really germane, but supposedly Barbra Streisand was told a nose job would make her more bankable as an actress. She refused because doctors couldn’t promise her that a new nose wouldn’t affect her singing voice.
Then there was the woman who told her hairdresser she wanted to look like Barbra Streisand, so the hairdresser broke her nose with a curling iron.
OK, sorry.
And the guy who told his barber that he wanted to look like Tony Curtis, so the barber shaved his head. The guy said, “Do you know who Tony Curtis is?”
And the barber said, “Sure I loved him in **The King and I **!”
OK, sorry.
Was the hairdresser Joel Schumacher?
This is just MHO, but Hollywood is a fickle business, as are America’s tastes. She had a couple of big hits (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Dirty Dancing) and then failed to re-capture her previous success. Happens all the time, really.
Cindy Williams was the second lead on one of the 70’s most popular TV shows (Laverne & Shirley), but by 1985: Cindy who?
You’re absolutely right, of course. The “reason” for the collapse of Jennifer Grey’s career is… nothing in particular, other than bad luck and the fact that she’s a competent, decent looking actress in a business FILLED with decent looking, competent actresses.
But when things start going downhill, actresses often tell themselves the problem is something simple that can be easily remedied. Judy Norton-Taylor couldn’t find work after “The Waltons” went off the air. She told herself the problem was that her image was too clean and wholesome. So, she did a nude layout in Playboy. And the job offers started rolling in!
Not.
Judy was just another decent looking, competent actress in a town crawling with them. She wasn’t losing roles because she was seen as too virginal, just because the competition was fierce and there was nothing unique about her. Instead of realizing that, she tried to “fix” a problem that didn’t exist.
Jennifer Grey “fixed” a perfectly fine nose for the same reason
She is pretty hot now, tho. She looks weird, but in a hot way.
I would have preferred her to remain as she was, but, OTOH, it seems to me that women that have cute dominant noses, such as hers, can get kind of ugly when they age, so maybe it was her best move.
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I think it was just her lack of good parts. She only had 1 - Dirty Dancing. She was in Ferris Bueller but as a villain. After that she failed to land a leading role in any popular film.