THE FANS' LOVE STORY: How The Movie 'DIRTY DANCING' Captured The Hearts Of Millions!

by Tabashnik, Sue

  Where do people come from? Which countries and states?

  They seem to come from all over, from everywhere. I’ve talked to people there from Germany—who came there for that particular reason, and of course there’s been a fair amount of people from the UK there. But people from all over the country. Our regular based guest is generally from Northern Virginia, Maryland area. That’s our core of guests. I mean we have people from all over, but that is the main core. These people that are coming for the Dirty Dancing thing are from everywhere—Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan … They’re coming from everywhere.

  There are stories … The leaves were spray painted green? That’s true, isn’t it?

  Yes, indeed. There are rhododendron bushes all the way around there. They have a really dark green leaf and in the fall, they’re turning brown and falling off. They came and spray painted them all green. They put a lot of cutsie stuff in there. They put little lanterns all over the place. They put in the little fence that we have there now. Awnings on the buildings. Fake rock was placed into the windows on the kitchen so you couldn’t tell there were windows there. Just a lot of neat little stuff like that, which was beneficial to us too. Other than that, they were fairly unintrusive. It was weird just to be around there because they had these huge, big screens to direct the light this way and that … It was quite a production. When we didn’t have business to do, we were out there watching this stuff. They would run us off when the filming began. You gotta remember we were the only guys who could come in there, as the police kept everybody else away.

  What about those kerosene heaters?

  They had kerosene heaters down under the tables (at the beach) because it was quite cold.

  OK. So some guys were paid to have their ’57 Chevies sit in the parking lot all day?

  Uh-huh.

  Do you know how much they were paid?

  I only knew one person who actually had a vehicle out there … There were other people who did. There was one guy who lived there. He was a waiter and he had a ’57 Chevy station wagon. You did not see it in the movie anywhere. But they did pay him. I think they gave him $20.00 a day, which was actually more than they gave to any of the extras.

  What did the extras get?

  $10.00 a day and lunch.

  Note: Extras were expected to be available 12–14 hours a day per multiple sources.

  They were all from Blacksburg?

  All around … quite a large area, people from Beckley, West Virginia … lot of people from Roanoke. They were there from several surrounding areas.

  That scene where it is pouring rain, and then Buddy breaks the car window so they can get in the car. So it really wasn’t raining?

  No.

  I didn’t know that. Honest to goodness.

  They can do that stuff pretty well … we were watching … The hoses were on top of the porte cochere. That is the actual entrance to the hotel lobby. It is a covered drive thru—right off the dining room. Johnny was actually driving the wrong way as we use it today. So we were in the dining room just watching the whole thing.

  What about other little stories?

  I was in the kitchen when they filmed that scene. It was myself, with the chef and two other guys that worked there with us …

  Baby and the nephew were going along there and they’re opening the refrigerator and he says, “Well, what would you like? Some cabbage roll, some this and that, some lime sherbet?” Well, right there is where the chef’s office is …

  So we all said cut. And they stopped the whole thing and they actually weren’t happy about it but they re-wrote it right then and there and changed it so he no longer says lime sherbet because it was a refrigerator—wasn’t a freezer. That was our point. Plus, we were there for a reason. We had to cut off all the equipment in there. So we had to be in there to make sure nothing caught on fire or anything bad happened. Of course, we were in the chef’s office and it is full of liquor. So we’re imbibing a little bit. We had a few cocktails while we watched this transpire. They were filming at night because we had to cook in the morning. They had built fake walls in there, so it looked really black. We walked through the walls because we weren’t used to walls being there. They probably weren’t real happy by the time that night’s filming was done, but what can you say.

  So did you see it when Penny was kneeling on the floor?

  Oh, yes.

  She doesn’t get a lot of attention.

  Yeah, she doesn’t but that corner does.

  Well, I had my picture taken there. I admit it.

  That’s the most photographed place on Mountain Lake.

  Are you serious?

  I kid you not. Constantly, we’re bringing people in there to have their picture taken. When we do the tour, we turn the lights down in that section of the kitchen. And I put one of my carbon lamps up on the line so it’s pointing right down to where she would be hunkered down so everybody can get a picture just like it looked in the movie. That’s just kind of neat. A lot of people enjoy that.

  Buzz told me something about the guy who stepped on Jennifer’s foot—like in the beginning of the movie when Penny was having them do the line dance.

  Bobbie’s dad. A real nice guy … He was in three shots so for three days’ work he got $30.00. He has them all framed with a Dirty Dancing handbill in there. A real nice guy—loves to talk about his part in it.

  Was the entire lift scene in the water done at Mountain Lake?

  Yes.

  What was it like to go to the premiere at The Lyric?

  We all naturally wanted to see how that was going to go. Everybody who went was pretty excited about going. It was interesting. I thought they did a pretty good job of it. But I did not know that it would be what it is today.

  Did they have the premier there the same time it was premiering around the country?

  It was January or February …

  So what do you think about the stage show? Have you seen it? If not, are you going to see it?

  I’ve only seen the information that Buzz has brought back. It looks pretty interesting. If it gets a little closer, I probably will go see it. I would like to see it come really close by … I think it would help us a whole lot.

  It would make sense to have it come close … wouldn’t it? It’s in Boston now, going to LA, and then maybe Broadway.

  Actually, New York and Chicago are the closest.

  So I think someone had to go buy stuff to put on the shelves in the kitchen to make it look like Kellerman’s.

  We had to get everything of ours off all shelves because they put their own props up there—matzah flour, gefilte fish. We did sneak some things in there.

  What did you sneak in there?

  There is a can of Old Bay sitting on the shelf. There’s a set of ear plugs hanging where utensils would hang. I think A1. We were very mischievous in those days …

  Do you have a favorite scene or a favorite character?

  Naturally, my favorite scene is the kitchen part. That’s just because I was there. It’s one of the number one scenes as far as people want to see at Mountain Lake. They like to go down to Virginia Cottage and look around or they want to know what room Patrick Swayze stayed in and that corner in the kitchen …

  So some of the people stayed at the hotel in Blacksburg. Was it a Marriott?

  It was the Holiday Inn where you stayed in but at that time, it was a Marriott. Well, you know they had a lot of people. We just didn’t have enough rooms. That’s what it boiled down to.

  That is really interesting. I never heard of that.

  What about some of those other people—Eleanor Bergstein, Linda Gottlieb—sounds like you didn’t see them too much.

  Most I saw them around is when they were filming in the kitchen. ’Cuz they were all in there. You know us kitchen guys were pretty much in the kitchen all the time.

  I don’t know how many extras they had, but it sounds like you were cooking for a couple hundred people.

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sp; It was insane you see, because they would come in and say we need a walking dinner for three hundred people. Walking dinner means a sandwich—something you could pick up and walk away with. I didn’t have ten–fifteen cases of anything in there. We didn’t have three hundred hamburger patties. We were getting ready to close down in a month. We didn’t have a lot of stuff here. The best I could do was make big batches of soup.

  That sounds good. Nothing wrong with soup.

  It was cold—that worked. But that was what I could do at that time. They catered a lot of pizza. They would go to Domino’s and get a couple hundred pizzas. That made Domino’s real happy … That was part of the deal—$10.00 and lunch for all the extras.

  Would Buddy pay for the beer sometimes in the evenings?

  He always paid for it … Of course, we didn’t have $12.00 for a six pack. I think we were making five or six dollars an hour … it wasn’t so glamorous. In those days, we had two days off. We worked from seven in the morning until closing at night. So we had breaks in between breakfast and lunch—and a big break between lunch and dinner—and we got to use all the facilities. During that time whenever they were filming, we tried to watch it.

  It is so beautiful there. It is amazing.

  It is a gorgeous place. I’ve been all over this world—literally. I am not prejudiced just because this is where I’ve been all my life. There is nothing that compares to it. It has four beautiful seasons and it’s just a pretty part of the world. Virtually no crime.

  MOUNTAIN LAKE PATRICK SWAYZE MEMORIAL WEEKEND

  Mountain Lake Hotel honored Mr. Swayze by holding The Patrick Swayze Memorial Weekend, November 20–22, 2009. On November 21, 2009, a dedication ceremony was held at the gazebo during which an engraved lift stone was dedicated to Mr. Patrick Swayze for his starring role in Dirty Dancing and his courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. The stone had been taken out of the lake at the hotel from the approximate location where the lift scene was filmed in 1986.

  Mr. Buzz Scanland, General Manager at Mountain Lake Hotel, led the memorial ceremony. Ms. Abigail Bartley, Area Executive Director for The American Cancer Society, and Ms. Rita McClenny, Virginia Film Commissioner, also participated. Mr. Scanland and Ms. Bartley announced that Mountain Lake Hotel and The American Cancer Society are co-sponsoring a contest in which people contribute money for their guesses as to how many days it will take for the lake to re-fill. The donated money will be earmarked for pancreatic cancer research. The winner of the contest will get a stay for three nights at Mountain Lake Hotel.

  Four

  OTHER FILM LOCATIONS

  LAKE LURE INN

  The second film location for Dirty Dancing was at Lake Lure Inn in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Filming at this 1927 recently restored inn and spa occurred from September 20 to October 27, 1986. The wrap party actually occurred right here also. Even though a fire about fifteen years ago destroyed some of the landmarks from the film, guests may still stay in the rooms where Mr. Swayze and Ms. Grey stayed while filming.

  Scenes that were filmed at Lake Lure Inn include: the interior dance scenes (including the grand finale), the scene in which Johnny and Baby practice dancing on a log, Johnny’s cabin scene, Baby on the rock stairway, and the employee cottages scenes. There are several famous stories regarding some of these scenes. Mr. Swayze (who refused a stuntman) while teaching “Baby” fell off the log several times and had to be taken to the hospital to have his knee drained, and then was back to work the very next day. Ms. Grey was stung by wasps several times while filming the famous Johnny’s cabin scene.

  RUMBLING BALD RESORT

  The golf course scene was filmed at Rumbling Bald resort on Lake Lure at Hole 16. This scene is when Baby’s parents were putting and Baby asked her dad for money.

  Rumbling Bald Resort is located in North Carolina near Charlotte, Greenville, and Asheville—on the north side of Lake Lure.

  I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Mr. Gary Wilson from Rumbling Bald Resort regarding the filming of the golf course scene.

  GARY WILSON

  Age 60. Lives in North Carolina.

  March 2009 (telephone and e-mail interviews).

  What is your position at Rumbling Bald Resort, and how long have you worked there?

  Head of Security. I have worked there since December 1971. We got to see some of the filming … I met Patrick Swayze. He was a nice guy.

  Gary told me that Patrick was the only one of the leads that he spoke to. Even though Patrick was not in the golf course scene, Gary had contact with him.

  Patrick came over a couple of times. I let him through the gate. He was there during part of the filming and also came with other people for lunch one day.

  How long did the filming take?

  The scene at the golf course was shot in a couple of days—one entire day and part of another day.

  How far away is Rumbling Bald Resort from Lake Lure Inn?

  Lake Lure Inn is at the other side of the lake and is about fifteen minutes away.

  Did you think Dirty Dancing would be popular?

  I never thought it would be that popular. We still get fans asking to see the golf course.

  Gary confirmed that there is a plaque at Hole 16 commemorating where Dirty Dancing was filmed. Also, he indicated that the fans are allowed to walk with the walking club at specified times if they want to see the hole.

  Why do you think that Dirty Dancing has remained so popular?

  I think the movie’s songs, dance themes, and characters reflect a simpler time that so many of us remember from our youth. For the younger generation who like it—my youngest daughter who was barely born when it came out and who has probably watched it thirty times! likes the simplicity of it without all the complicated, sordid story lines that are present in today’s movies and in today’s life.

  Do you have a favorite scene or character in the movie?

  Patrick Swayze was my favorite. I have always liked him. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy. Hope his health improves. He’s a fighter. My favorite scene was the dance scene at the end with “Baby.”

  Gary also told me that the fire at Lake Lure Inn in which the main building burned down was about fifteen years ago. The property was bought and sold.

  Also, he informed me that the movie, Last of the Mohicans was filmed at Rumbling Bald Resort.

  This moment is probably one of the most important in the entire film. Johnny (Patrick Swayze) has returned to Kellerman’s (after he had been asked to leave quietly), and takes Baby out of the corner, and up to the microphone. He says he is going to do the last dance his way—with Ms. Frances Houseman (Baby—Jennifer Grey). Johnny stands up for Baby and himself, and thus shows his respect for Baby, himself, and their relationship—in spite of what other people may think.

  Johnny (Patrick Swayze) and Baby (Jennifer Grey) dance in the finale scene of the movie. Their eyes reflect their heart and soul connection.

  Steve Schwartz and one of his dance partners, Nadine Leach, in 1956 in Miami Beach. This picture was the poster for the Mambo Jamboree that he ran at the De Lido Hotel. Steve Schwartz—also known by his professional dancer name Steve Sands—was the dance partner of Jackie Horner (consultant to Eleanor Bergstein) at Grossinger’s in the ’50s. Per Jackie Horner, “He’s the Johnny (Patrick Swayze).”

  Mr. H. M. “Buzz” Scanland Jr., General Manager at Mountain Lake Hotel, was a very gracious host to me during my visit there in January 2009. This shot was taken in the dining room looking out at the beautiful Mountain Lake property. Buzz was the marketing manager when Dirty Dancing was filming there in 1986.

  Mr. Mike Porterfield, Executive Chef at Mountain Lake Hotel, is standing in front of the hotel. He gave Patrick Swayze a ride on his motorcycle down the mountain when Dirty Dancing was filming there, and was one of the people who hung out with Patrick Swayze, Miranda Garrison, and others in the evenings. Mike’s family used to own the property—beginning in the late 1880s for more than thirty years.


  Swayze Mania Ladies on their reunion trip in the dining room at Mountain Lake Hotel with the popular cardboard Patrick Swayze. Per Roberta Teska (first fan standing on left side): “While we were having our first dinner in the dining room (with ‘Patrick’ at the head of the table), we had lots of fun … Our Swayze Mania friend and husband arrived and went up to the front desk and asked where they could find us. The clerk said, ‘They’re in the dining room having dinner with Patrick!’

  Roberta also shared, “Two of the Swayze Mania ladies were lucky enough to share Room 232, which was Patrick’s room when he was at Mountain Lake Hotel filming Dirty Dancing … I asked Buzz, the manager, ‘Why don’t you have a plaque up on the door stating this fact?’ He replied, ‘It wouldn’t even last a day.’”

  Scenes at this famous Mountain Lake gazebo include: Baby (Jennifer Grey) had her foot stepped on by a male guest during a dance class, Johnny (Patrick Swayze) was dancing with various guests and then alerted that Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) was in need of help, and Dr. Houseman (Jerry Orbach) and Baby had their father/daughter talk here.

  Here is another shot of the Mountain Lake dining room where Johnny (Patrick Swayze) told Robbie (Max Cantor), the college boy, where to put the pickle. Also, this is where the Housemans had their first dinner, and the breakfast when Dr. Houseman (Jerry Orbach) talked about leaving early.

  Buzz took my picture in this famous kitchen where Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) crouched down crying, and soon Johnny (Patrick Swayze) arrived on the scene to rescue her. Per Mike Porterfield, this is one of the most popular places for fans at Mountain Lake Hotel to have their picture taken.

  Buzz is braving the six below zero temperature to show the beautiful wintry Mountain Lake Hotel property.

  Rachael Harrell and Maury Denton. Richmond, Virginia. “We visited Mountain Lake to celebrate our love and our love for dancing. Like Johnny and Baby, we met on a dance floor. Thank you to our friends, Warren and Emily Bailey, for helping us recreate the lift that captured the hearts of romantics around the world.”