Secrets of Dirty Dancing

Dance, Dance, Dance

From the outset, Eleanor Bergstein knew exactly what the premise of Dirty Dancing should be about. When she met with the movie’s producer, Lisa Gottleib, Gottleib asked “‘Well what’s the story?’ And she said, ‘I don’t really have a story, but it should involve Latin dancing…’”

From this, the film was built around dancing with the smaller concepts coming in later. Drawing on Eleanor’s own experiences in the Catskills helped shape the script and bring in the romance between Baby and her older dance instructor.