Jennifer Grey

Jennifer Elise Grey (born March 26, 1960) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Frances "Baby" Houseman in the hit film Dirty Dancing (1987), Jeanie Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and for being the winner of season 11 of the American version ofDancing with the Stars.

Early life

Jennifer Grey was born in New York City, the daughter of stage and screen actor Joel Grey and former actress/singer Jo Wilder. Grey is the granddaughter of comedian and musician Mickey Katz. She is an alumna of the Dalton School, a private school in Manhattan, and studied both dance and acting.

Career

Grey with William Baldwin at the 1988 Academy Awards.

Grey's commercial debut was at the age of 19, in an ad for Dr Pepper. After other small roles, she landed the part of jealous sister Jeanie in the hit 1986 filmFerris Bueller's Day Off. The following year, she reunited with Patrick Swayze, whom she had played opposite in Red Dawn, for her biggest role ever, Frances "Baby" Houseman in Dirty Dancing. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress.

In the early 1990s, Grey underwent a rhinoplastyprocedure that resulted in a nose that caused even close friends to fail to recognize her, and the major change in her appearance negatively affected her career. Of the experience she said, "I went in the operating room a celebrity – and came out anonymous. It was like being in a witness protection program or being invisible." She briefly considered starting over with a new name to go with the new face, but stuck with her original name. In 1999, she reappeared in the short-lived ABC sitcom It's Like, You Know... portraying herself. In an episode of the series, she poked fun at herself with a storyline about her much-publicized nose job.

Grey also appeared with Shirley MacLaine, Liza Minnelli and Kathy Bates in the CBS television movie The West Side Waltz, adapted byErnest Thompson from his play, an episode of Friends as Mindy, and she had a small role in the 2000 film Bounce with Gwyneth Paltrow andBen Affleck. Her sole Broadway theatre credit is The Twilight of the Golds (1993). On the HBO series John from Cincinnati, Grey portrayed Daphne, Meyer's fiancee. In October she played Abbey, the mother of a sick child in a Season 7 episode of House, Unplanned Parenthood.

Grey was one of the twelve contestants in the eleventh season of Dancing With the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer Derek Hough. She came out very strong at first, topping the leaderboard very often. However, injuries, stress, and exhaustion took their toll on Grey, and for a couple of weeks she fell behind. In Week 7, however, she improved, tying with previous frontrunner Brandy Norwood. On November 23, 2010, Grey and her partner Hough won the competition.

Personal life

Grey with her husband, actor Clark Gregg (left) at the November 30, 2010 Epic Mickey launch party.

On August 5, 1987, Grey was in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, vacationing with Matthew Broderick, when in a rented BMW, he veered into the wrong lane on a country road in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh and smashed head-on into a car driven by Anna Gallagher, 30. Gallagher and her mother, Margaret Doherty, 63, died instantly. Broderick spent four weeks in a Belfast hospital with a fractured leg and ribs, collapsed lung and concussion. Grey suffered severe whiplash. Broderick told authorities he had no recollection of the crash and did not know why he was in the wrong lane. "I don't remember the day. I don't remember even getting up in the morning. I don't remember making my bed. What I first remember is waking up in the hospital, with a very strange feeling going on in my leg," he said at the time. Broderick was charged with causing death by dangerous driving and faced a prison term of up to five years. He was later convicted of the lesser charge of careless driving and fined $175. The victims' family called the case "a travesty of justice." Broderick agreed to meet with the family of the two women in the spring of 2003 so that the family could gain some sense of closure on the accident.

Following engagements to Matthew Broderick (her on-screen brother in Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Johnny Depp, and after dating George Stephanopoulos, Grey married actor/director Clark Gregg (The New Adventures of Old Christine) on July 21, 2001. They have a daughter Stella, born December 3, 2001. The couple co-starred in the Lifetime movie Road to Christmas in 2006.

Grey lives in the Los Angeles, California, area with her family.

Prior to her 2010 stint on Dancing with the Stars, Grey had a physical examination to ensure that she was fit enough to compete. In addition, Grey saw a doctor to address chronic neck problems caused by the car accident years before. Her spinal cord was compressed and her surgeon said "If you fell or got rear-ended, you'd be paralyzed". Surgeon Robert S. Bray placed a titanium plate in her neck to stabilize her spinal cord but also told her to see another doctor about a suspicious white spot on her thyroid that he'd seen on her MRI. Grey had believed the spot to be a benign nodule but it was cancerous and was removed. Grey told ABC's Good Morning America she believes the cancer was caught before it metastasized and that she is now cancer-free. On the November 8, 2010 episode of Dancing with the Stars, it was revealed that she has a partially torn knee tendon.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Reckless	Cathy Bennario
	Red Dawn	Toni
	The Cotton Club	Patsy Dwyer
	ABC Afterschool Specials	Carol Durate	1 episode: "The Great Love Experiment"
1985		Laura Eller	1 episode: "Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale"
	American Flyers	Leslie
1986	Ferris Bueller's Day Off	Jeanie Bueller
	The Equalizer	Valerie Jacobs	1 episode: "A Community of Civilized Men"
1987	Dirty Dancing	Baby Houseman
1988	Gandahar	Airelle (voice)
1989	Bloodhounds of Broadway	Lovey Lou
1990	Murder in Mississippi	Rita Schwerner	TV movies
	Criminal Justice	Liz Carter
	If the Shoe Fits	Kelly Carter / Prudence
1991	Eyes of a Witness	Christine Baxter
1992	Wind	Kate Bass
1993	A Case for Murder	Kate Weldon	TV movie
1995	Friends	Mindy	1 episode: "The One with the Evil Orthodontist"
	Fallen Angels	Ginger Allen	1 episode: "A Dime a Dance"
	The West Side Waltz	Robin Ouiseau	TV movie
1996	Portraits of a Killer	Elaine Taylor
	Lover's Knot	Megan Forrester
1997	Red Meat	Candice
1998	Outrage	Sally Casey	TV movies
	Since You've Been Gone	Patty Reed
1999	It's Like, You Know...	Herself	TV Series
2000	Bounce	Janice Geurrero
2001	Ritual	Dr. Alice Dodgson
2006	Road to Christmas	Claire Jameson	TV movie
2007	John from Cincinnati	Daphne	Episode: "His Visit: Day Five" Episode: "His Visit: Day Seven" Episode: "His Visit: Day Nine"
2008	Redbelt	Lucy Weiss
	Keith	Caroline
	Phineas and Ferb	Dr. Gevaarlijk (voice)	1 episode: "The Monster of Phineas-n-Ferbenstein/Oil on Candace"
2009		Louisa Patel (voice)	1 episode: "Hide and Seek/That Sinking Feeling"
		Librarian (voice)	1 episode: "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo"
	The New Adventures of Old Christine	Tracey	1 episode: "Love Means Never Having to Say You're Crazy"
2010	Dancing with the Stars	Contestant and Winner, 11th Season	TV series
	House	Abbey	1 episode "Unplanned Parenthood"

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