Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze's famous dance lift from "Dirty Dancing" is an iconic movie scene, but it's one that the 55-year-old actress would never attempt to do again.
Grey, promoting her new Amazon
comedy series "Red Oak," confessed to The Guardian that she and Swayze never practiced the move.
"I only did it on the day I shot it," Grey said. "Never rehearsed it, never done it since. I don't know how all these people who reenact it have the guts to throw themselves into the arms of anyone other than Patrick Swayze. It's insane!"
Grey, who won "Dancing With the Stars," said she was asked every day on the show to do that famous lift. Laughing, she told The Guardian, "It’s a non-starter. It happened, enjoy it, watch it over and over again but never ask me to do it again because I’m too f***ing old . . . I have a family and I want to live longer."
Wedding videos with couples attempting the lift — and usually making it, though rarely as gracefully as Grey — are all over YouTube. There's even a commercial.
Swayze, who died in 2009, said in a 1987 interview that he was really proud of Grey for doing the film.
"She was scared. She's not necessarily a dancer," he said. "Her father was, and she's got phenomenal natural talent. But I just think she pulled off a really, really neat performance, because she grew. You saw her move from a little girl to a young adult. I feel real, real good about 'Dirty Dancing.'"
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