“From Ballet Dreams to Hollywood Shock: The Untold Ups and Downs of Jennifer Grey’s Iconic Journey”
Post-surgery, her acting career never fully recovered, with the actress largely having been relegated to TV movies by the early 90s. She guest-starred in an episode of Friends in 1995, in which Grey appeared as a school friend of Rachel’s, as well as the sitcom It’s Like, You Know…, a show that ran from late 1999 to January 2000 and which starred Grey as a version of herself.
She triumphed on Dancing with the Stars in spite of health issues
Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Grey has been back in the spotlight as of late, at least in digital television, taking a starring role in Amazon’s 80s-set sitcom Red Oaks. Grey also guest-starred in Grey’s Anatomy earlier in 2019, in a three-episode guest role. It was the year 2010, however, that really brought Grey back into the public eye, as a contestant on the 11th season of Dancing With the Stars.
Despite injuries, stress, and exhaustion (and her advanced age compared to some contestants), Grey won the competition with dance partner Derek Hough. This came not long after Grey had a fortuitous and potentially life-saving medical examination: an MRI scan revealed a cancerous nodule on her thyroid, which was luckily caught and removed before it metastasized.
This wasn’t the only procedure Grey had in 2010: that same doctor, having discovered that Grey’s spinal cord was compressed, inserted a titanium plate in her neck. This neck injury was a result of a tragic car accident 23 years earlier, which caused injury to Jennifer Grey and then-boyfriend Matthew Broderick and resulted in the deaths of two other drivers.
