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

by Tabashnik, Sue

  It’s a feel-good movie. You know, it comes out good in the end. I think it’s going to be a classic. Maybe in another ten to fifteen years there will be a re-make.

  Buzz told me that he took the contestants from the UK dance reality show to the river (twenty minute drive) in a bus for the lifts and got to know them well—got close to them. He said that was the same location that Dawn Porter used for her lifts. (Dawn Porter did the UK Documentary: Seriously Dirty Dancing in 2007).

  Then when they came in the second time (2008), I was really close to the people who were in charge … the producers, the lady that was overseeing everything … you know—the day to day dealing with them.

  Of course, Miranda (who was a judge) I talked to, Sean (Cheesman, who was a judge) I talked to the third judge, Kelly Brook—she is the girlfriend of Billy Zane—who played in Titantic. She played in Smallville. She’s English. But I never really had any long conversations with her.

  How long did they stay?

  About a month … each time.

  Miranda—she was a super nice person when she was here. She talked to the other guests. As a matter of fact, she enjoyed her time here. She was into the movie since she was part of it and you do know the story behind it, you saw part of it in Dawn’s show. It was my understanding, the lady (Lynn Lipton) who was going to play the mother got sick and she wanted to see her personal doctor in New York … so she took off and flew back to New York. So Kelly Bishop, Vivian, the “Bungalow Bunny”—she dropped out of that part and took the mother’s part (Marjorie Houseman). I guess maybe somebody told her she would be better off if she took the mother’s part—it was a better part than playing the “Bungalow Bunny” … Miranda was just here as a choreographer and helping with the dancing. She of course had acting experience. Miranda stepped into that role of Vivian … which is almost like an accident. I thought the best part in the movie was Vivian. I guess because of age and everything … it kind of appealed to me … and I just thought that Miranda did a fantastic job. (NOTE: There is a scene in the beginning of the movie that Lynn Lipton is in briefly, which was shot the first day. She is riding in the car with the rest of the Housemans as they approach Kellerman’s, and you just see the top of her head.)

  They were on such a small budget. I think they had five million dollars (so had to fill the roles quickly). They were on a tight schedule. There was no doubt about it.

  I just came up here to do marketing. Like I said, I wasn’t really involved in making the movie. If you did something like that again, you’re probably better off to almost shut everybody out of the hotel.

  Definitely.

  We’ve had a lot of things come our way because of Dirty Dancing … We did a commercial for Wrangler Jeans on the lake. We did outdoor furniture by the lake—a lot of things. High Rollers, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Concentration … all those things came about to give us free publicity … Piedmont Airlines and PACE magazine … they gave us on a contest, the back cover of the magazine. I mean Piedmont Airlines was pretty big in those days, before US Air bought them out …

  We got a lot of publicity here, there, and yonder.

  And right now, again it has come back because of the stage play in Toronto. We were on the radio up there.

  Oh really.

  … just last year … in fact, the winners of the contest came here in November [2008] to the Dirty Dancing weekend. They flew down.

  What did they win?

  They won an airline trip from Toronto to Roanoke. They were doing it to promote the stage play …

  So anyway, and right now since it is playing in Chicago, we are probably going to try to work out something with the Chicago radio station, and maybe in turn work out something with the radio station in Roanoke to do a contest where the ones in Roanoke win a trip to Chicago to see the stage play, and the people in Chicago win a Dirty Dancing weekend to come to Mountain Lake.

  That would be great.

  I just think it is a deal that really promotes us. We got quite a few people from Canada this year and then England, you know, coming for Dirty Dancing weekends or coming any other time. And right now with the lake being down, our biggest hook is Dirty Dancing.

  When did the lake go down?

  I’m saying this … I may not be exactly right. I think it went down the first time in 2003 or it may have been 2001 … It went down to probably 2/3 its size … It came back and then started down again over a period of time until it went completely dry about the end of August, first of September … it went completely dry. And now of course, it is coming back. So I am hoping that it will fill back up because it just makes it so much nicer here when the lake is full. It is really a beautiful lake and it is pristine … it’s clear water … many, many moons ago, they used to pump the water right straight out of the lake for drinking water … They probably put a little chlorine in it … I wouldn’t drink it now because you know we have a lot of animals around the edges …

  What kind of animals are around here today?

  We have black bear, rabbits, raccoons, umpteen million deer …

  I saw some tracks today.

  You’ve got fox, coyotes, rabbits, skunks, possums, weasels … There’s a little bit of everything in this area … squirrels, chipmunks—they call them boomers and the boomers look like about the size of chipmunks but have thin, fuzzy tails, and they are aggressive—trying to get food off the table … We have a couple of cats that keep the boomers out … The boomers are really the only bad news that we really have … There’s all kinds of snakes … but as long as I have been here, I have not seen a snake on a trail or anywhere.

  I have a question … just to clarify things … Was the gazebo used when Johnny was dancing at night with Vivian? Did they use it also for the line dance when Baby stepped on the guy’s foot?

  Yes, that was in the gazebo—that was when they first came here. The other scene that I can remember right now is the scene when her father was sitting there and she goes up to him.

  But there was a scene when Baby came to get Johnny to let him know that Penny was upset in the kitchen?

  That was at the gazebo.

  So that’s three right there.

  And if you remember, they crossed the chains on the ballers—what you saw this morning … stepped over the chains … all three of them—Johnny, his cousin, Baby … coming up to get Penny. (Buzz had shown me this morning the wooden fence posts with a chain strung through them that were put in by the movie people.)

  This is just totally amazing!

  They bought furniture that you see in the movie that’s out on the lawn … they were just for the scenes … Of course, they put up those little lanterns—like I showed you right there—all over the place. You see those throughout the movie …

  Another thing I thought was neat, is if you looked at the awnings on the hotel, they were peach and white, and they go all the way across the porch and the entrance way … but when you’re watching the movie, you know they can be here and walk inside and then they’re in Lake Lure. I mean things just go back and forth. And when they’re in Lake Lure, one time, I think when they were playing cards, Moe, who I think was his name, Vivian’s—the Bungalow Bunny’s husband—anyway you can look out the window that’s down there, and you’ll see the peach and white awnings. In other words, they carried the theme through … Also, they had hairdressers. If I am not mistaken, they hired some of the hairdressers out of Blacksburg, and then when they went to North Carolina, they took them with them.

  You said before I think that the dance scenes were done at Lake Lure.

  Yes.

  I think that I am speechless.

  MIKE PORTERFIELD

  AGE 51. VIRGINIA.

  March 2009 (telephone interview) & May 2009 (e-mail follow-up).

  What was your position with Mountain Lake Hotel when Dirty Dancing was filmed there?

  Well, at that time, I was the lead line cook … I ran the dinner line. We worked from 7am until closing at night … with bre
aks.

  How old were you?

  I was about age twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

  How long had you worked there at that point?

  That was my third season there.

  You and your family have a connection with Mountain Lake that goes way back. Could you share something about that?

  My family owned it in the late 1880s.

  Your family owned it?

  Uh-huh. Before the turn of the century. Even after we sold it, I had a great-great uncle that continued to manage it up until it was bought by the Moodys. They built the stone hotel that’s there today. The original hotel was an old wooden building …

  You used to go there as a child?

  That’s where I learned how to swim—when I was about two years old … My grandfather built the house on it … I moved here after school when I got married. I’ve been around the area all my life. We’ve owned the property … We spent every weekend down here. This was like our summer getaway. Mountain Lake was always a favorite trip …

  Was it your great-grandfather who left a mark there?

  He (great uncle) was the foreman of the Italian masons that built the house that is there today. And in the cornerstone of the building, I think he put a $5.00 gold piece or something like that in there.

  NOTE: Per the Mountain Lake Hotel website: “The Porterfield family owned the lake for more than 30 years in the early 1900s and greatly refined the cuisine and hospitality.”¹²

  When Dirty Dancing was filming, were you strictly behind the scenes or were you in any of the scenes?

  No, I was strictly behind the scenes. I fed them—that was my main contribution.

  Well, I’d say that was a big one.

  Well, it was an interesting one to say the least. We didn’t have many guests there. That was fairly intentional because the movie people were paying us more really than having a place full of guests. There were some guests but September especially in those days was a very what we call shoulder season because at that time we closed at the end of October. We had very little business in September.

  I thought I read somewhere that there was a bridge tournament over there?

  That’s a local event. Most people didn’t stay there. They came up and played bridge.

  In terms of feeding them, was there anything that you remember that stands out?

  Most of the women went to a seafood shop in Blacksburg and bought their fish and brought it up and had us cook it. That in particular was Jennifer Grey, Cynthia Rhodes, someone else, who I can’t remember … The rest of the people ate what we put out there.

  A lot of diets?

  It is show biz and I guess they did have to keep up their appearances in some fashion or another.

  Well, the next one is a very big question. What was your contact with the cast and crew?

  Believe it or not, they really didn’t really want us around them very much. They were filming a movie. They didn’t want us guys peaking around the corner and trying to see what was going on all the time naturally. So most of where they were filming was fairly well secluded to us.

  I usually saw Buddy most every evening after dinner. He would come in and buy a six pack or two of beer. At that time, we only served beer and wine. We didn’t have a liquor license. He used to amaze us because all beer we had for the most part was imported. The chef bought very nice imports. At that time, they sold for $2.00 a bottle. That was twelve bucks a six-pack which amazed us. Most of those kids I worked with were college kids. We bought Schaefer’s and Old Milwaukee lights. We were amazed that somebody would spend that kind of money every night and invite us out and have some beers with us.

  I’ll tell you about Buddy. He came in the kitchen one night to get his beers. We had a dishwasher who had just recently gotten out of the Marines. This was a really weird little guy. The only way we could get him to work was to let him drink wine. He brought his own wine. We didn’t provide it. We let him drink it ’cuz he would stay there and work. It was Maddog or Red Lady 21—one of those fortified wines. Buddy came back in there and was talking with him. He asked him, “Do you want a drink of beer?” and he said, “Sure,” and had a big pull on the bottle. We just got a big kick out of that. Buddy was a really down-to-earth guy. He was not in the least bit pretentious. He would invite us out to the library to have beers with him. That’s where I first spoke with Miranda [Garrison] when they were there filming the movie. She was a very nice lady.

  On Friday evenings, we had a cookout … The chef was very close with his workers. We were almost like family ’cuz we worked together seven days a week per season. We became real close. We always worked the cookout, which Jerry Orbach came to, and sat and ate with us. He always sat at the table with the chef and his wife, who ran the dining room, that team there, myself, and the other cooks, and we ate together. Jack Weston ate with us.

  This is a very rural county … Things are a little different when a big production comes to town and starts filming. I mean that place was covered with people all the time. They had state police up there to block the roads. All the locals wanted to come up there and see what was going on … It was a big thing. This is a pretty large county with a population just under seventeen thousand. There are four street lights in the whole county … It’s a very rural area. We are twelve miles from Blacksburg, which is a huge metropolitan area for most people around here.

  Is it Giles county?

  Yes.

  What about the motorcycle ride?

  It was one evening. It was late and we were done with dinner, and we had cleaned up and were getting ready to leave. They had a crew that did nothing but drive from Blacksburg to Mountain Lake. It was a lucrative job to have. They paid $10.00 an hour. That was very good pay then to just drive people back and forth. They stopped that around seven o’clock in the evening and Buddy needed a ride to Blacksburg and came through and asked several people. Most of them all rode together and were way up on the other end of the county. So he got to the back dock, and I was up there, and he said, “Can you give me a ride?” I said, “Yep, can you ride on a motorcycle?” “Oh, that’s no problem.” He had the black leather jacket on. He was ready. I had an extra helmet much to the chagrin of my cousin, who also had a motorcycle but didn’t have an extra helmet. So we loaded up on the bike and headed down the mountain. Now you’ve driven up the mountain; you know how curvy it is. When we got on the bike, he was holding on. It has a metal strap on the back and he was holding on to that. We started down the mountain and about the third curve, he grabbed me … and that’s how he held on until we got to Blacksburg. When we got there, he was joking and we were laughing, and he said, “You can tell everybody you gave me a ride.” I said, “No, you can tell everybody you rode down that mountain with me.” The reason I said that was because my cousin and I were known to be very quick on our bikes.

  Were they staying in a hotel there—some of them, some of the time?

  Some of them. They didn’t stay there all of the time but most of the time.

  Kenny Ortega was there. Patrick Swayze did not stay there all the time.

  For the most part, Patrick stayed at Mountain Lake. We did have rooms in Blacksburg if he wanted to go to town and hang out at the college town there. He ate dinner there at a restaurant that is very popular that I worked in … and everybody else worked in at one point in time. The name of the restaurant was Maxwells’ … It was well known for its cuisine and that’s what those people were used to if they wanted real good food. They also ate at Charlos.

  I remember Matthew Broderick was dating Jennifer Grey then. He came there and he stayed for a couple of days with her. The little girls in the dining room were taking everything he touched—silver, saucer, coffee cup, anything he touched, they took.

  What about Buddy?

  You gotta remember these were all young kids. What they had just seen was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to Red Dawn. They were just little girls. Patrick Swayze did attract a l
ot of attention there. He did without a doubt. There were a lot of people who definitely would want to see him, but all the younguns were more impressed with Matthew Broderick.

  Anything else about Buddy?

  He was just a real down-to-earth nice guy. I don’t think a whole lot more needs to be said than that. He was very pleasant to be around. He didn’t turn his nose up to you, which quite a few other people did. It is nice that he was that way. That is what people remember and appreciate.

  What about anything else about any of the other people?

  Well, other than talking with Buddy quite often, and Miranda, Jack Weston, Jerry Orbach.

  Those were the only people …

  Did you think the movie would be successful?

  Quite frankly—no. I had no idea it would be as successful as it turned out to be.

  Probably most people didn’t—right?

  Well, number one, although we know it is a feel-good movie—very popular these days—when I watched it, I kind of thought well you know that’s a chick-flick. It’s pretty well done. It’s OK. I would probably watch Chuck Norris before I would watch Dirty Dancing. Granted, I did want to see it because I was just curious. It was nothing like what I imagined while they were filming. I even have one of the original scripts before they changed it to Dirty Dancing.

  So why do you think Dirty Dancing is so popular?

  That’s a good question. Other than the fact it is a real feel-good movie—the guy gets the girl in the end. I really don’t know. I didn’t think it was going to happen. When it came out, it was popular there for awhile. It seems like it’s been within the, I don’t know, the past eight years, you see it on satellite TV on about four different channels all the time. I was impressed by this time. I was gone from Mountain Lake for awhile. I spent ten years there, and I left for ten years, and I’ve been back for eight. I really noticed the influx in the past eight years of people coming up there for Dirty Dancing.

  An increase, more people …

  It’s really unreal to me. Buzz and I comment on that every time we’re done with a tour. Can you believe that people are coming here for this thing? And it’s a good thing for us.