PEOPLE Dirty Dancing: The Music, The Moves, The Memories: Inside Film's Most Beloved Dance Romance

By The Editors of PEOPLE and Derek Hough

It has been 30 years since Johnny pulled Baby from the corner to have the time of their lives. To mark the occasion, People offers a loving look back at the classic dance romance. Featuring a Dirty Dancing oral history: Jennifer Grey, choreographer Kenny Ortega, and other members of the cast and creative team recall the making of a movie-both the challenges and mishaps as well as the on-location party atmosphere. With a foreword by Dancing with the Stars pro Derek Hough.

Includes:

• Meet the real Baby, Dirty Dancing creator Eleanor Bergstein. And the three guys who wrote "(I've Had) the Time of My Life" talk about its creation-and how it changed their lives
• The movie's living legacy: the wildly successful stage musical, the annual summer festival, and how to nab the Housemans' bungalow at the hotel that doubled as Kellerman's. Also: inside the ABC television 30th anniversary movie remake
• From the People archive: a 20th anniversary interview with Patrick Swayze on the role that made him a leading man. Plus: tributes to the lives and careers of Jerry Orbach, director Emile Ardolino and others we've lost from the Dirty Dancing family
• All about "the lift" and how to do it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: People
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781683301417

Book preview

The Time of Their Lives

Set in the summer of 1963, Dirty Dancing is full of never-forget moments—even for fans who hadn’t been born yet

That was before President Kennedy was shot. Before the Beatles came. When I couldn’t wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my dad

—Baby Houseman

STOMP THOSE GRAPES! Ex-Rockette Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes) teaches the merengue to Kellerman’s guests. Baby (Jennifer Grey, at right) reveals herself to have little talent for moving.

TWO SETS OF RULES Resort owner Max Kellerman (Jack Weston) warns dance teacher Johnny (Patrick Swayze) to keep his hands off the female guests after telling the college-bound waitstaff to romance the daughters, even the dogs.

Can you imagine dancing like this on the main floor, home of the family fox­trot? Max would close the place down first

—Billy Kostecki

NO GUESTS ALLOWED Billy (Neal Jones, previous photo) leads Baby into the staff quarters because she’s carrying a . . . you know. There she spies Johnny and Penny dirty dancing for the first time (above).

"Baby? Is that your name? . . . Go back to your playpen, Baby"

—Penny

SOME PEOPLE COUNT, SOME PEOPLE DON’T Robbie Gould (Max Cantor) shares his worldview when Baby implores him to help Penny. (He then tries to loan her a copy of The Fountainhead, which he evidently carries even when setting out dinner rolls.)

ROLLING IN THE GREEN When Penny is in trouble and needs money for an abortion, Baby runs to her dad, Dr. Jake Houseman (Jerry Orbach), on the golf course to ask for a loan for unspecified purposes. The scene is longer than originally planned because Orbach made both putts, which were left in the final cut, as he was so pleased with them.

MEET THE SCHUMACHERS When an elderly guest drops her bag (spilling more than one foreshadowing wallet) Penny and Baby offer to help. Mrs. Schumacher was played by Paula Trueman, who had made her film debut in a 1934 Claude Rains picture, Crime Without Passion. Mr. Schumacher was portrayed by Russian-born music-professor-turned-actor Alvin Myerovich, whose film debut you’re looking at here. After Dirty Dancing he had one other role, as the grandfather in Barry Levinson’s Avalon.

SPAGHETTI ARMS . . . When Baby offers to step in for Penny in a performance they’ve booked at the Sheldrake resort, Johnny sets about teaching the novice to mambo with a partner: how to hold a frame, how to step on the two beat and how to balance by shimmying on a fallen log.

Don’t step on the one . . . Don’t put your heel down . . . Listen to me: the steps aren’t enough. Feel the music

—Johnny Castle

I DIDN’T DO THE LIFT A nervous Baby makes her way through the mambo and spots the Schumachers in the audience at the Sheldrake. You did real good, Johnny assures her. Later they share a dance in his cabin.