What do you think happened to Baby after she left Kellermans?

[PrincessBiscuit]

Watching Dirty Dancing for the 1000th time, but probably the first time since I've had the DC and it's got me thinking.... what do you think happened after they went home?

Do you think she gave up her place at college to be with Jonny? She was happy and passionate about her future before she met him and it would be such a shame if she ditched it for a boy... even if he is Patrick Swayze!

How pissed off would you be as a parent if your kid did that?!

And yes, I am that bored that I'm spending my time thinking about this!

But yeah, I think she continues with the plan.

Tiny derail, but you might want to read about the woman who wrote the screen play:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Bergstein

I think went to college and had a great career and husband/children and Johnny was just a nice memory. He probably just carried on as before, she wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last.
Lisa ended up unhappily married.

No way did they stay together after that summer. She went to college and became a human rights lawyer and married a hot, wealthy fellow lawyer. He continued to drift along, definitely got divorced somewhere along the way, only sees his kids occasionally.

But she always looks back fondly on that summer.

Lisa ended up unhappily married.

Definitely.

If you'd asked me when I was 16 and saw it, I'd have thought they would be together forever - no idea and hopelessly romantic and unrealistic.

Yeah, maybe after they broke up (not very long after it all) he might have got together with Penny but I think Jonny had a string of failed relationships. He said Baby taught him to stand up for what was important, but being poor and lacking career opportunities, he never really escaped places like Kellermans and was always a bit disillusioned.

Maybe later in life, Baby bumped into Jonny again whilst on holiday with her successful liberal, world changing husband who had never really been out of a middle class bubble. Jonny would have been interested to see a Baby and glad she was successful and a bit sad her life had moved on so much and his hadn't. Seeing Jonny would have brought back memories for Baby and she would have felt really affectionate towards him, but wouldn't have been tempted by him. She'd have moved on and seen him as part of her growing up that she'd left behind. As an adult, she's still idealistic, but it's taken a more adult form and she's also become more of an adult of the world - wanting to change the world still but also much more conformist - successful husband, big house, children in private schools - a more liberal version of her own upbringing.

Looking back on Jonny she's fond of the memories...but they are the memories of the 'bit of rough' lots of teenage girls hanker after but later wouldn't be interested in. Baby grows up - she's inspired to go into college and learn to do stuff to change the world and does work in that, but like most people, conforms more to the world as she grows older. And she's still living in a time of pretty fixed ideas of the role of women and motherhood and she's idealistic within the norms of the day.

Wow....where did all that come from?

@SpokeToSoon

I'm loving how invested some people are being!

Getting!! Stupid wine affecting my grammar!!

Yeah, what monkeys said.

I think she remembers that summer fondly until her own children begin to grow up and then it begins to dawn on her how deeply inappropriate it was for someone in their mid 30s to hit on a 16 yo.

When I was a teenager it was the ultimate romance for me. Now I kind of agree with her dad. Jonny deserved to be fired.

We went to a campsite in France a few years ago that had a row of houses just like Kellermans! I was so excited, I did many baby poses along the walkway. We didn't stay there nor did we see anyone staying there so I concluded that the owners were just scratching their DD itch by having that homage to DD in their campsite

But in answer to your original question OP, I know that Baby is now Frances Houseman-Applebaum, a leading attorney with Wald, Weiss and Rothman in Poughkeepsie. She is married to a suitable Jewish man and has two children.

She is a dutiful wife who does her parents proud but memories of Johnny Castle feature high on the list of how her 'suitable' husband thinks he is a stud in the bedroom.

BTW She has never overstepped the line since 1963 when she brought shame on the family at the age of 17 by fraternising with an unsuitable lad on a family holiday. She has never been allowed to forget this shameful incident though it is never referred to directly. Baby has, to outward appearances, reverted to the good little daddy's girl they need her to be but, of course, she fantasizes, often, as to how her life could have been (broke and following a serial philanderer around while he chased the teen aged daughter's of dance clients though that's not how it plays out in her mind)

I remember being at Haven in Great Yarmouth at about 13, hoping for my very own Johnny Castle to appear at the evening entertainment and sweep me off my feet! Instead there were just chavvy boys with curtains and an earring hanging around the 2p machines who wouldn't even give me a second look 😂

I think Jonny was quite firm that they had no future together, it was a summer romance, and they had to go their own ways. She went on to a career in law, and he decided he was actually more than he realised, and found a path out of poverty, and helped others like he was, find their own way out.

Oh yes, Lisa!

Well she's already at college, but not a very good one like Baby because she's nowhere near as clever. She's married within a year to a lawyer who of course isn't really very nice and is lacking in integrity.

He has a series of affairs,nwhicwhich Lisa puts up with for a while and she has 3 children. She's a bored at home housewife who is gossipy and not very nice. Unfortunately her husband is involved in some shady dealing and ends up in prison. LIsa doesn't age very well and quickly looks rather haggard and is a bit of a gold digger looking for. 2nd husband. She actually has 3 further husbands who are increasingly shady and not so respectable. Baby always tries to keep an eye out for Lisa but Lisa is a bit resentful of Baby's lovely life and sees her and a bit self righteous. Later when Lisa has turned to drink and is considering prostitution, after a period of estrangement from Baby, she comes back to Baby and recognises all her qualities, before succumbing to lung disease....because she's always been a serial smoker, much like many women of her time.

I think she remembers that summer fondly until her own children begin to grow up and then it begins to dawn on her how deeply inappropriate it was for someone in their mid 30s to hit on a 16 yo.

DH and I always have this argument, with him saying that Johnny is a total dirty old man.

Baby was going to college that fall so would have been at least 17, probably 18? And I think that Johnny was probably about 23? So still a bit weird given she had only just finished school, but not too pervy?

This is such a great post! Way to liven up lockdown!

It was just a fling for him, and an important and happy memory for her. Of course she went to university.

Summer romance.

Social mobility ain’t that good! Hi

Jonny Sleazeball stayed at Kellermans. Baby went off to be Ferris Bueller's sister.

Baby got pregnant that summer. Tearfully told her parents, but didnt tell Johnny because she didnt want to tie him down and knew he was a free, yet reckless spirit. She never told him about the baby. Years went by, she became a human rights lawyer. Dated as a single mum along the way, got married eventually to another lawyer but divorced a few years later as he was too "safe" and didnt have the passion like Johnny did that she always craved.

Johnny tried to contact Baby after she left but she wouldnt take his calls. Devastated, he carried on at Kellermans dating a string of wealthy cougars trying to save up to buy his own dance studio. He vowed never to allow himself to fall in love again. Scarred by love, he settled for being a sexual plaything for rich, middle aged women. Depressed at being used, he gradually begins a slow descent into alcoholism. He ends up gambling and drinking away all the money he had saved for the dance studio. Inspired by Penny to seek help, and at rock bottom, he travels to New York to go to rehab. On his final day of rehab where he learns alot about himself he stops at a cafe to get a coffee. As he's waiting in the queue he looks towards the back of the cafe and there in the corner sits Baby! She is with their (by now) grown up daughter. He looks at her- she looks EXACTLY like him. He walks nervously over to them, looks directly at Baby and says the immortal words "I thought I already told you- Nobody puts baby in the corner". Baby smiles at him, tears glistening in her eyes. Their daughter looks from Johnny to Baby, a look of realisation lighting up her face.

Fade to credits.

Yes, this has cheered up my Friday night.

I'd like to think Penny made it out of Kellermans. She always looked a bit classy for her role I thought. I think she met a holidaymaker who was a bit older than her - probably a widower and he married her and took her away from that life. She became seemingly quite middle class but she never forgot her poor roots and secretly did work to support girls who needed abortions and tried to get it made legal. She never felt she quite fitted into the suburban middle class area she found herself in, but she had ahappy life with her husband, although there was always a little bit of sad pathos about her - as if in some ways she had 'settled' but knew it was for the best.

She started going by Frances, went to college and it fizzled out. They both retain fond thoughts of each other, but Jonny pretty much stays on the track he's on until his drinking tips over the edge and he can't keep a job anymore.

As PP say it was never about a great love story. It was about learning to do something that scared her, stand up from her principles, separate from her childish adoration of her father, and her sexual awakening.

Johnny has become a famous dancer and Lisa spilled the beans to a tabloid newspaper about her sister for money which she needed to correct her 3rd boob job. Baby is now being hounded by the press and her partner and children have had to go into hiding. Baby takes the newspaper to court.

I bet she marries a doctor just like her father and takes her own kids to kellermans, and shocks them when she has a few ‘moves’ on the dance floor.

Just as the press quietens down Robbie stirs up some more crap. Neil Kellermann learnt from his father for 3 more seasons, then started the brand we all know and love as centre parcs.