Jennifer Grey gets candid about nose job, Hollywood romances and more in new memoir

Jennifer Grey is opening up about her career, Hollywood romances and more.

In her new memoir, “Out of the Corner,” the “Dirty Dancing” actress tells all about some of the highs and lows of her career since the iconic film.

“I’m known for two things in terms of the world,” Grey told “GMA.” “Not my friends or my family. Two things: ‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner,’ and Jennifer Grey ruined her career, ruined her face, took away everything unique about her by being a slave to plastic surgery.”

After the 1987 release of the cult classic film, in which Grey starred alongside actor Patrick Swayze as the character Frances “Baby” Houseman, Grey said other roles in films didn’t come easily as some told her that her nose was a “problem.”

“It was a Jewish girl who was considered not pretty who was Jewish, who would never have been looked at twice by the Patrick Swayze character,” she said. “So, I get this part and it’s hugely successful. I made $50,000 when I made the movie. And now, I’m famous and I can’t support myself. And I thought okay, maybe -- maybe, I just have to say uncle. I’ll do it.”

So Grey went under the knife twice after a second surgery was needed to fix a problem caused by the first. But it left her unrecognizable to many.

Grey recalls the moment when flight attendants didn’t believe she was the “Dirty Dancing” star.

“It was just the woman at the checkout counter at the airline and she attacked me as if I was trying to get away with something,” Grey said. “It was like being invisible. And in terms of my career, it was devastating.”

Hollywood romance

Prior to “Dirty Dancing,” Grey’s breakout role was in the 1986 film "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off," where she starred alongside actor Matthew Broderick, who became her boyfriend at the time.

“I was in love with him, and I was with him for many years,” Grey said. “He was not naturally my type. But my type, turns out, is just insane talent and humor and brains. And something about that guy just got to me.”

A few weeks before the premiere of “Dirty Dancing,” Grey was vacationing in Northern Ireland with Broderick when they got into a car collision. Broderick was behind the wheel when he crossed into the wrong lane and collided head-on with a Volvo driven by a mother and daughter. They were killed instantly.

“I was in shock when the -- ‘cause I was the only living witness and Matthew was unconscious and had amnesia,” she said. “And the other two women died. So, I was the only one who everyone was looking to me for what happened. And I didn’t have the answer. I was putting a cassette in the cassette player at the time. And I heard the scream and I looked up.”

Working with Swayze

When it came to working with Swayze, Grey said she wasn’t on board at first, saying that when she heard that Swayze would play Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing,” she said, “Anybody else, please.”

Grey said she worked with Swayze in the film, “Red Dawn,” in 1984, and while on the set for that film, Swayze would prank her.

“It just did not jive with my thing,” she said. “And I didn’t trust him. I just felt like he wasn’t serious.”

Grey’s lack of trust in Swayze almost impacted the iconic lift in the film, where Swayze lifts Grey during their final dance.

But in her memoir, Grey writes that she wishes Swayze -- who died in 2009 from pancreatic cancer -- was still alive.

“I wish I could tell him a lot more than I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry is a thing that I would say, like I’m sorry I was just young and scared and you know, had some idea of how it was supposed to be and wishing you were on time,” she said. “Like, who cares? You’re the best, you know. You were the best Johnny I could ever, ever have had.”