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

I saw them around is when they were filming in the kitchen. ’Cuz they were all in there. You know us kitchen guys were pretty much in the kitchen all the time.
I don’t know how many extras they had, but it sounds like you were cooking for a couple hundred people.
It was insane you see, because they would come in and say we need a walking dinner for three hundred people. Walking dinner means a sandwich—something you could pick up and walk away with. I didn’t have ten–fifteen cases of anything in there. We didn’t have three hundred hamburger patties. We were getting ready to close down in a month. We didn’t have a lot of stuff here. The best I could do was make big batches of soup.
That sounds good. Nothing wrong with soup.
It was cold—that worked. But that was what I could do at that time. They catered a lot of pizza. They would go to Domino’s and get a couple hundred pizzas. That made Domino’s real happy . . . That was part of the deal—$10.00 and lunch for all the extras.
Would Buddy pay for the beer sometimes in the evenings?
He always paid for it . . . Of course, we didn’t have $12.00 for a six pack. I think we were making five or six dollars an hour . . . it wasn’t so glamorous. In those days, we had two days off. We worked from seven in the morning until closing at night. So we had breaks in between breakfast and lunch—and a big break between lunch and dinner—and we got to use all the facilities. During that time whenever they were filming, we tried to watch it.
It is so beautiful there. It is amazing.
It is a gorgeous place. I’ve been all over this world—literally. I am not prejudiced just because this is where I’ve been all my life. There is nothing that compares to it. It has four beautiful seasons and it’s just a pretty part of the world. Virtually no crime.

MOUNTAIN LAKE PATRICK SWAYZE MEMORIAL WEEKEND
     
    Mountain Lake Hotel honored Mr. Swayze by holding The Patrick Swayze Memorial Weekend, November 20–22, 2009. On November 21, 2009, a dedication ceremony was held at the gazebo during which an engraved lift stone was dedicated to Mr. Patrick Swayze for his starring role in Dirty Dancing and his courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. The stone had been taken out of the lake at the hotel from the approximate location where the lift scene was filmed in 1986.
    Mr. Buzz Scanland, General Manager at Mountain Lake Hotel, led the memorial ceremony. Ms. Abigail Bartley, Area Executive Director for The American Cancer Society, and Ms. Rita McClenny, Virginia Film Commissioner, also participated. Mr. Scanland and Ms. Bartley announced that Mountain Lake Hotel and The American Cancer Society are co-sponsoring a contest in which people contribute money for their guesses as to how many days it will take for the lake to re-fill. The donated money will be earmarked for pancreatic cancer research. The winner of the contest will get a stay for three nights at Mountain Lake Hotel.
     

     

     

     

Four
     

OTHER FILM LOCATIONS
     

LAKE LURE INN
     
    The second film location for Dirty Dancing was at Lake Lure Inn in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Filming at this 1927 recently restored inn and spa occurred from September 20 to October 27, 1986. The wrap party actually occurred right here also. Even though a fire about fifteen years ago destroyed some of the landmarks from the film, guests may still stay in the rooms where Mr. Swayze and Ms. Grey stayed while filming.
    Scenes that were filmed at Lake Lure Inn include: the interior dance scenes (including the grand finale), the scene in which Johnny and Baby practice dancing on a log, Johnny’s cabin scene, Baby on the rock stairway, and the employee cottages scenes. There are several famous stories regarding some of these scenes. Mr. Swayze (who refused a stuntman) while teaching “Baby” fell off the log several times and had to be taken to the hospital to have his knee drained, and then was back to work the very next day. Ms. Grey was