Painting the trees
Rob Price

My heart skipped a beat this week when I read "Dirty Dancing" - the stage musical - is about to premier in London. If "Dirty Dancing" is opening in the West End, can a Broadway opening be far behind?

I have a special interest in things related to "Dirty Dancing." This famous movie, starring Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze and the memorable Jerry Orbach, is the only movie in which my wife and I have appeared together; in fact, it is the only movie that also features appearances by my wife and me. In fact, it's the only movie in which either of us played a role. It also probably will be the last.

The year: 1986. The place: Blacksburg, Virginia. The season: fall. One afternoon, a friend called on the phone to report a movie company was hiring extras for a movie to be filmed at a mountain resort 15 minutes out of town. Were we interested? Of course.

I called a secret phone number and introduced myself as a prospective cast member. The voice on the other end said the movie company was particularly interested in casting "ethnic looking" people, since the story was set in a Catskills resort located in the socalled Borscht-belt.

"Do you look Jewish?' he said.

I thought, Hmmm. In all honesty, I cannot claim to look a bit Semitic. On the other hand, my grandfather on my mother's side of family was a southern Italian. I took a big breath and said, "Sure, I'm Mediterranean."

"How about your wife?"

"You bet," I said. "She has very dark hair."

That did the trick. We were told to meet a bus in Roanoke the next morning, which we did and were driven into the big mountains of southwest Virginia. The movie company had set up camp at a rustic inn. High in the trees, which had begun to turn pretty colors in the chilly fall weather, men were spray-painting the leaves green.

That was because the movie is set in the Catskills during the summer but the movie company didn't have enough money to pay Catskills summer rates. They solved the financial problem by renting the Virginia resort in the fall, gambling the warmer southern climate would keep the leaves green.

The gamble didn't work, which was why men where spray-painting most of the forest. Not only that, a pair of honeymooners had lit a fire in their honeymoon cottage. Smoke from the chimney was in the background of one of the shots, prompting a film crew to interrupt the honeymoon festivities to douse the flames.

What was it like, you ask, to be an extra in a movie? Aside from watching every trace of actual reality reconfigured, it was possibly the most boring experience I've ever had. We spent one entire day setting up the opening shot of the Houseman family arriving at the resort. My wife and I were given careful directions regarding how to stand on the balcony of the inn as the camera panned by us. When the director yelled "Action!" I started jumping up and down.

"Take your role seriously!" my wife said. "Think about your motivation!"

Actually, my motivation was getting my face in the movie, and so, as the camera rolled, I also waved my hands, in a bid to catch the attention of Jennifer Grey and Jerry Orbach, who were just arriving at street level. The idea was to suggest we had all become great friends during our last ethnic holiday together in the Catskills. It was, if I may say so, a beautifully textured performance.

Sadly, when "Dirty Dancing" came out in 1987, my wife and I had basically disappeared from that balcony. And in VHS format, we seem to be just a shadow, as if someone on purpose actually airbrushed us from the entire scene. Why would anyone do that?

All the same, we made a little bit of money, and I learned a lot about the movie business. Some of these lessons have even proved valuable in my work as a journalist.

I have learned, for example, to be skeptical about things people tell me. This is especially true in politics, where candidates - regardless of their actual abilities - say the most amazing things in order to get elected. When they do that, I always wonder what's getting air-brushed out of the real picture. And I like to look around, to see who's painting the trees.