Where Is the ‘Dirty Dancing’ Cast Now? A Look at the Stars 38 Years Later

Jennifer Grey as Frances “Baby” Houseman

After starring in 1984’s Red Dawn with Swayze (with whom she didn’t get along during filming) and 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with her then-boyfriend Matthew Broderick, Grey achieved icon status with her role as Baby in Dirty Dancing.

It became the commercial peak of her career, as Grey told PEOPLE in 2010, she began making “a lot of choices most ambitious people would not have made,” following her performance in the 1987 classic. Those choices included rhinoplasty surgeries, which radically altered her appearance.

Changing her distinctive nose made her unrecognizable, and she feels her career suffered as a result.

“In the world’s eyes, I was no longer me,” she told PEOPLE in 2022.

Even without her famous face, Grey still nabbed opportunities after Dirty Dancing. In 2010, she put her dancing shoes back on, winning the Mirroball Trophy with her pro partner, Derek Hough, on season 11 of Dancing with the Stars. The actress also had a prominent role in the 2024 Oscar-winning film A Real Pain.

In her 2022 memoir, Out of the Corner, Grey opened up about her past relationships and life as a young starlet. She also plans to star in the Dirty Dancing sequel that was still being “ironed out” as of late 2024, according to Variety.

Grey married filmmaker Clark Gregg in 2001. They announced their split in July 2020, and Gregg filed for divorce one month later. They share daughter Stella, who has appeared in her father’s 2013 film, Trust Me, and on the Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle

Swayze was a charismatic rising actor in films like 1983’s The Outsiders and Red Dawn when he landed the role of Johnny.

He followed it up with the cult classic action flicks Road House (1989) and Point Break (1991), as well as the mega-hit 1990 supernatural romance drama Ghost, which earned him his second Golden Globe nomination (Dirty Dancing was the first). In 1991, he was named PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Swayze died at the age of 57 from pancreatic cancer in September 2009.

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” his rep told PEOPLE at the time.

He and his wife, Lisa Niemi, were married for 34 years before his death and acted together in Steel Dawn (1987), Next of Kin (1989), Letters from a Killer (1998) and One Last Dance (2003).

In 2024, Niemi told PEOPLE one of the ways she has remained close to her late husband is by watching his films “every once in a while.”

“I catch a little bit here and there, and a few years ago, I watched Road House, and I was like, ‘Wait a second. This is really great. This is so campy.’ ”

Grey, on the other hand, said that Dirty Dancing moves her to tears whenever she sees it now, and the loss of Swayze is part of why.

“It gets me every time,” Niemi told PEOPLE in 2023. “It feels like I’m living it when I’m watching it. And then I’m realizing that Patrick is gone.”

Cynthia Rhodes as Penny Johnson

Cynthia Rhodes played Penny Johnson, the resort dancer whom Baby fills in for after an unexpected pregnancy and subsequent botched abortion. Before Dirty Dancing, she appeared in the 1983 films Flashdance and Staying Alive.

Not long after the 1987 classic, she retired from acting to focus on her family. Her last film role was in 1991’s Curse of the Crystal Eye.

Rhodes and singer Richard Marx were married for 25 years from 1989 to 2014 before announcing their divorce. The former couple shares sons Lucas, Jesse and Brandon.

Jane Brucker as Lisa Houseman

Jane Brucker’s role as Baby’s vain but awkward elder sister, Lisa Houseman, was the most notable of her acting career. She also appeared in 1988’s Stealing Home and alongside former costar Grey in 1989’s Bloodhounds of Broadway.

Lisa’s most memorable moment in the film is her talent show performance of a song-and-dance number called “Hula Hana,” which Brucker devised with choreographer Kenny Ortega. Brucker wrote the song but didn’t get credit for it until 2004. When filming, she didn’t try to get credit for it and therefore missed out on royalties.

However, when the movie was adapted as a stage musical, she ensured she received a credit, which was then retroactively applied to the film.

“When I first heard about the song being used in a stage musical, I got in touch with Kenny Ortega,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2022. “I was on a cell phone at the farmers market here in L.A., and he’s going, ‘Oh Jane, of course. We’ll split it 50-50. Let’s do it.’ ”

Brucker continued, “But then he goes, ‘I’ll do it if you sing that last note at the end.’ I was like, ‘Kenny, I can’t. I’m in a parking lot at the farmers market.’ He said, ‘No, I’m not gonna do it unless you sing the last note!’ So, I bent into my car and sang, ‘Away, away, awaaaaaaaay.’ ”

“He said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And that was that,” she added.

Per EW, Brucker appeared as a guest judge on the 2022 reality competition series The Real Dirty Dancing.

Jerry Orbach as Jake Houseman

Jerry Orbach already had an extensive résumé and a Tony Award to his name by the time he was cast as Baby’s father, Jake Houseman, a cardiologist who has a good heart of his own. His career continued to thrive after Dirty Dancing.

In 1991, he began a 12-year run on Law & Order as homicide detective Lennie Briscoe. That year, Orbach also secured a place in animation history as the voice of Beauty and the Beast’s Lumière.

The actor had two sons with wife Marta Curro, whom he was married to from 1958 to 1975. In 1979, he wed actress Elaine Cancilla. Orbach died of prostate cancer in 2004 at the age of 69.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner, but New York put Jerry on one. In 2007, the street where he lived in N.Y.C. was named “Jerry Orbach Way” in his honor, according to The New York Times.

Kelly Bishop as Marjorie Houseman

Kelly Bishop, a Tony winner for A Chorus Line in 1976, played Baby’s mother, Marjorie Houseman. She landed the part in what she described to The Guardian in 2024 as a “switcheroo [that] was so bizarre.”

She was originally cast in a minor role as a resort guest who propositions Johnny, but when she got to set, she was offered the larger role of Marge. Bishop found the role boring and initially didn’t think the movie would be good, but realized it was going to work when she heard the music.

She followed up Dirty Dancing with roles in Queens Logic (1991), Miami Rhapsody (1995) and Private Parts (1997). In 2000, Bishop landed her most iconic role as sharp-tongued matriarch Emily Gilmore on Gilmore Girls, a role she reprised on the 2016 Netflix revival A Year in the Life. In 2024, Bishop published a memoir, The Third Gilmore Girl, about her life and career.

The actress also appeared on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which reunited her with Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. She had recurring roles on As the World Turns, The Thorns, Mercy, Bunheads, The Good Wife, The Watchful Eye and Étoile in 2025.

Bishop was married to TV personality Lee Leonard from 1981 until his death in 2018.

Lonny Price as Neil Kellerman

Lonny Price appeared in Dirty Dancing as Neil Kellerman, the resort owner’s grandson who develops an (unrequited) crush on Baby.

His theater and screen career has mostly involved directing in the years since Dirty Dancing. He’s taken the helm of episodes of Desperate Housewives and 2 Broke Girls and won Emmys for both Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001) and Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (2010). He was nominated for Tonys for writing the musical A Class Act in 2001 and directing the revival of 110 in the Shade in 2007.

In a full circle moment, he’s set to direct Dirty Dancing: The Musical for the stage, according to Broadway News.

Max Cantor as Robbie Gould

Max Cantor played the womanizing waiter and Yale Medical School student Robbie Gould, who dates Baby’s sister Lisa and gets Penny pregnant.

After Dirty Dancing, he appeared in the 1989 comedy film Fear, Anxiety & Depression, before changing careers to become an investigative journalist. He died of a drug overdose in 1991 at the age of 32, per Esquire.

Wayne Knight as Stan

Wayne Knight, who would go on to appear in or lend his voice to over 100 movies and TV shows, had one of his earliest on-screen appearances in Dirty Dancing. He had a small role as Stan, the resort’s resident comedian.

Knight’s career as a character actor has thrived since Dirty Dancing. He is most famous for playing Newman, a mailman and Jerry Seinfeld’s neighbor and archenemy, on Seinfeld from 1992 to 1998. He’s also known for his performances in Basic Instinct (1992), Jurassic Park (1993) and Space Jam (1996).

In 2024, the actor revealed that he lost 110 lbs. from his heaviest weight, and that his weight loss negatively impacted his ability to book roles because he looks so different.

“It takes time for people to accept you as you are, and they find out whether or not you can still do things without being fat,” he told TMZ, jokingly adding, “Give an old skinny guy a shot.”

He has been married to animated film editor Clare Knight since 2006; they have a son, Liam.