The Time of My Life (15 page)

The whole thing takes about two seconds, but one wrong move can result in injury to you, the horse, the calf, or all three. Gene trained me, and I was off to the races—I loved getting down in the dirt and honing my skills. And with Gene, Cliff, and my cowboy friend Tommy Howell all doing calf roping, it was a really fun time.

With the pinewood barn finished and plenty of room for more horses, Lisa and I started thinking about buying the most beautiful, regal animals of all: Arabians. Yet even with the money I’d made on
North and South,
we still weren’t sure we could afford them.

Arabians are the steeds of the gods, and expensive to buy. Originally bred in the Middle East, they have a proud bearing and gorgeous bone structure, with arched necks and high tails. A particularly beautiful Arabian is the kind of horse that can make you gasp as it prances by. And not only are they stunning to look at, they’re also smart, with boundless energy. Arabians aren’t the easiest horses to train—I always joke that you have to be at least as smart as the horse—but the result is a real partnership between horse and rider.

I’d always wanted to own an Arabian, and Lisa and I were fortunate enough to know two of the best breeders in the country—or the world, for that matter—Tom and Rhita McNair. So we decided to stop by and see the McNairs at Glen-lock Farms one week when we were in Houston visiting Lisa’s family. We’d already told them we weren’t sure we were ready to buy, when a horse named Ferouk suddenly came trotting out of his gate. Ferouk was a stunner, an impressive, powerful, well-trained Western Pleasure horse. This was our first serious look at the Arabian breed, so we asked Tom’s opinion.

“This one’s a winner,” he told us. “You could win competitions with Ferouk.” Looking at that horse, with his gliding stride and dark, intelligent eyes, we knew it was true.

Lisa and I wanted to own Arabians to learn more and improve our personal horsemanship, and we also wanted to show them competitively. Tom knew this, and Ferouk seemed to understand it, too. He looked at us with those big brown eyes as if to say, “You and me! Let’s go!” We knew right then it would be hard to resist this horse. So we asked Tom how much it would cost to buy Ferouk—and his answer stunned us. It was a lot less than what we’d expected. As Tom knew, it was a price we really couldn’t say no to.

Lisa and I looked at each other and broke into big smiles. Without even saying it, we both knew we were about to buy our first Arabian.

And that was how we began showing horses. We didn’t know much about it, but being dancers, we picked up the physical nuances quickly. Your bearing and carriage have to be as impressive as the horse’s, as the horse takes its cues from you. After taking her first lesson in how to show, Lisa entered a competition the very next day—and placed third. She was hooked.

Ferouk was a smart, savvy horse, and he and Lisa bonded right away. They spent hours together, each bettering the other’s performance, and soon they were an amazing team. Lisa was a natural, and less than a year after we bought Ferouk, she took him all the way to the U.S. Nationals competition. She competed there with people who had been showing horses their whole lives, but that didn’t intimidate her in the least. Lisa’s skills were phenomenal, and she brought the best out in Ferouk. She placed in the top ten in the Nationals—an incredible achievement. And I went top five in Region 9, the most difficult region in the country.

We competed seriously for a while, traveling all across the United States for horse shows. People always seemed surprised that we did everything ourselves, from mucking out stalls to scrubbing down the horses to staying in the same Motel 6s our trainers stayed at. I suppose people expected a couple of prima donnas, but to us the whole point was to be one with the horse, and not to stand out. Both Lisa and I loved getting down and dirty, even if it sometimes led to a little bit of gawking from fans.

In fact, people sometimes couldn’t believe it was really us
out there. I was entered in a regional competition one weekend, and was riding Ferouk around the ring. My hair was still long from
North and South,
and as I rode atop our beautiful horse, my hair flying out behind me, a guy turned to his wife and said, “That guy rides like he thinks he’s Orry Main!”

Lisa overheard him, but she didn’t say anything. When I got closer, she heard him murmur, “Wait a second. That
is
Orry Main!” Lisa just smiled.

Unfortunately, the more famous I got, the more difficult it was to compete in horse shows. Working with horses, like working with ballerinas, teaches you that it’s not about yourself. It’s about bringing out the beauty and precision and perfection of your partner—in this case, your horse. But as fans began to realize that I was showing horses, they’d come out to the arenas and sometimes hang over the rail, shouting, waving photos for autographs, or even worse, taking flash photos right in my horse’s face.

I ended up switching from riding horses to showing at halter, where you have the horse at the end of a lead rope. You teach the horse to stand in a certain way, pulling up the head and neck, and then you run, leading the horse through paces meant to show off its conformation and movement. This worked out a little better, though eventually, after
Dirty Dancing,
I’d have to stop showing altogether. It just wasn’t fair to the horse or to the other competitors.

As Lisa and I worked to get Rancho Bizarro in order, we accumulated more and more animals. Soon we had dogs, cats, horses, peacocks, and a chicken house that produced quantities of eggs. I loved being around animals and felt a connection with them that I felt with only a few people. Whenever an animal was upset, I could talk it down and soo the it—and they
could do the same for me. Surrounded by acres of gorgeous land and our growing menagerie of animals, we felt that the ranch was a true haven.

And we’d soon need that haven more than ever, as 1987 would mark the release of my biggest movie yet—and the start of the craziest period of our lives.

I read the script for
Dirty Dancing
one evening in our new house. Right away it filled me with emotion—but not the kind it was supposed to. I didn’t like it. It seemed fluffy— nothing more than a summer-camp movie. Lisa read it, too, and she felt the same way.

But at the same time, we both could see the kernel of a great story in there. The ideas behind
Dirty Dancing
were fantastic. There were elements of class conflict, relationships, sexual awakening, family issues—it had a little bit of everything. And even though the screenplay was weak, with some work it could explore all those elements through a strong story filled with compelling characters.

Potential is a wonderful thing, but would the writer and director be open to rewrites? The next morning, as Lisa and I worked on remodeling our kitchen, we talked about how the script could be better. And despite our initial reservations, we began to get a little excited about it. I was scheduled to go in and read for the part of Johnny Castle, a role that seemed perfect for me. I wanted to win it, but I also wanted to find out if we could really turn this into a great movie or not.

One thing that attracted me to
Dirty Dancing
was the fact that Emile Ardolino would be directing. Emile didn’t have a mile-long Hollywood resume, but he came from the dance world and had done award-winning work, including a televised presentation of “Baryshnikov at the White House” and a documentary about Jacques d’Amboise called
He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’
that won an Academy Award.
Dirty Dancing
would be Emile’s first feature film, but he was a class act and really knew dance. If anyone could pull this off, it was Emile.

But I still had reservations about going for the role of Johnny Castle, for one big reason. Even if the script could be vastly improved, I wasn’t sure this movie was the right step to take in my career.

The response to
Skatetown, U.S.A.
had made it clear that I could have my pick of similar roles—and make a lot of money doing them. But it was also clear that if I did choose that route, I might never be able to escape it. I’d always be seen as a dancer-turned-actor, rather than an actor. So in the eight years that had passed since
Skatetown, U.S.A.,
I had purposefully avoided roles that involved dancing or had any kind of teen-idol flavor. I’d turned down that four-picture deal with Columbia that would have shot me to fame. I’d buried myself in acting classes. And I had been constantly on the lookout for parts that could stretch me as an actor.

Now, with
Dirty Dancing,
I had a choice. Should I stick to my guns and refuse to take a dancing movie? Or was this a different kind of movie, one that would allow me to dance but also to stretch myself as an actor? I was scared to say yes, scared I’d be undoing what I’d worked for the last eight years to build. But at the same time, both Lisa and I believed that
Dirty Dancing
had the potential to be wonderful.

So, after many conversations with Lisa, I made my decision: I would go for it, and give this role absolutely everything I had. If I was going to that place—the sexual, sensual dance role—I was going there 100 percent. I knew Johnny Castle had the potential to turn me into everything Hollywood seemed to want me to be, which was not necessarily what I wanted to be. But part of me was also excited about doing a dance movie— and of course, we now had house payments to make, too. So that afternoon I said to Lisa, “Okay, here we go.” And off we went, for the ride of our lives.

The role of Johnny Castle wasn’t mine for the taking. First I had to go in for a couple of auditions, one where I read, and one where Jennifer Grey and I danced together.

Whenever I read for auditions, I prefer to improvise rather than doing all the lines straight up. So for that first reading, I talked about growing up without much money in Houston, and how dance was a magical form of escape. The truth is, I really identified with Johnny. He was a blue-collar fighter whose soul was stirred by the beauty of dance. He was the kind of man who combined a tough exterior with a gentle soul—the kind of man my dad was, and the kind I was trying to be. In that first audition, I didn’t act out Johnny. I
was
Johnny.

For the second audition, Jennifer Grey and I went in to dance for writer Eleanor Bergstein, choreographer Kenny Ortega, and Emile Ardolino. Eleanor was incredibly close to the material—she’d based it partly on her own experiences in the early 1960s, when she was a teenage girl called “Baby” dancing in the Catskills, and the movie was really a labor of
love for her. So she was the one who jumped up to show Jennifer and me what she wanted us to do.

Eleanor put on some music and half-talked, half-danced us through what she wanted. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for, but I took Jennifer into my arms and decided to wing it. Jennifer and I had never danced together before, and she probably still thought of me as that half-crazed forest warrior from
Red Dawn
. But as I led her through a couple of steps, we soon found ourselves in a comfortable rhythm together.

I moved her around slowly at first, pulling her toward me and spinning her back out. I wanted her to feel confident in her dancing, enough to lose herself in it a little bit and not feel self-conscious. We looked each other in the eyes, and though she was a little bit giggly at first, she soon got more comfortable. We started doing more complex moves, and as we danced I decided she was lithe enough and balanced enough to try a lift.

Lisa was in the room, too, so we showed Jennifer how the lift would work. Lisa and I had done it so many times, we made it look effortless. I knew that if I was to lift Jennifer successfully, she’d have to feel confident in it—and after watching me lift Lisa a couple of times, she seemed ready.

It’s not easy for a female dancer to execute her first lift. She’s got to trust her male partner completely and give in to the momentum he sets for her. Otherwise, one or both partners can get hurt. Jennifer got up and took Lisa’s place, and as we continued talking with Eleanor and Kenny, I just took her and gently pressed her over my head. I showed her I could control her completely—she could go forward, she could go back, but she would never tumble either way if she didn’t make any sudden moves.

Jennifer did break position a couple of times, which was a natural reaction for someone who’s never done lifts before. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “No matter what position you’re in, I can put you down safely.” The next time I lifted her, she posed beautifully, and I lowered her slowly to the ground, with our eyes locked on each other. It was a lovely moment, and very sexy. The room was absolutely silent—everyone was just staring at us.

Jennifer smiled when I put her down, and from that moment on, I knew we had it. We did a couple more sensual dance moves, and when the audition was over, Eleanor had made up her mind. As she told us later, at that point she felt that if they didn’t get me for the role of Johnny, they didn’t have a movie.

As perfect as the role of Johnny was for me, the role of Penny was equally perfect for Lisa. She auditioned for it, and wowed everyone. But ultimately, Cynthia Rhodes was cast as Penny. Cynthia was also a good choice, but what tipped the scales was the fact that she’d had a starring role in
Staying Alive,
with John Travolta. Cynthia had some momentum, and momentum sells in Hollywood.

What we didn’t know, but found out much later, was that Eleanor expected me to insist on casting Lisa as a condition of getting me. But I really didn’t think of myself as having that kind of power as an actor, so it never even occurred to me to ask. As Lisa now jokes, because she and Cynthia are both slender and blond, half the time people think it’s her in the movie anyway.

Once I’d been cast as Johnny, Lisa and I started looking at how the script might be improved. Eleanor, Emile, and others were doing the same thing, so it was definitely a group effort,
but I was as grateful as ever for Lisa’s insights. Whether rewriting scripts or honing my performance, she and I have worked together on every movie I’ve ever done—she has an amazing ear for dialogue, a great sense of story, and knows how to zero in on performance. More important, she’s absolutely truthful, even if it’s something I don’t want to hear. I always knew I could trust her completely—which became more and more important as time went by and my stature in Hollywood grew.