Eleanor Bergstein

Eleanor Bergstein (born 1938) is an American writer, known for writing and co-producing Dirty Dancing, a popular 1980s film based in large part on her own childhood.^[1]

Life and career[edit]

Bergstein was born in 1938 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. She has one older sister, Frances, in her Jewish family. Their father, Joseph,^[2] was a doctor who left much of the care of the girls to their mother, Sarah. The family spent summers in the luxury resorts Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel in the Catskill Mountains; and, while her parents were playing golf, Bergstein was dancing.^[3]

Bergstein was a teenage Mambo queen, competing in local competitions. While at college, she worked as a dance instructor at Arthur Murray dance studios.^[4] Bergstein graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1958.^{[citation needed]}

In 1966, she was married to Michael Paul Goldman and worked as a novelist, including Advancing Paul Newman. This novel contains many of the themes of her famous movie. She also tried her hand at scriptwriting and had success with It's My Turn, a film starring Michael Douglas and Jill Clayburgh. During production, the producers cut an erotic dance scene from the script. That sparked Bergstein into writing a more extensive story, focusing on "dirty dancing".

The movie Dirty Dancing was released in theaters in 1987.^[5]

In 2004, Bergstein also adapted the movie into a stage version of Dirty Dancing, which became a musical.^[6] The show opened in 2004 in Australia.

Works[edit]

• Dirty Dancing: The Musical, 2004 stage production
• Let It Be Me, 1995 film
• Ex-Lover: A Novel, 1989 novel
• Dirty Dancing, 1987 film
• It's My Turn, 1980 screenplay
• Advancing Paul Newman, 1973 novel

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• “A Conversation with Eleanor Bergstein, Writer and Producer of ‘Dirty Dancing,’ on its 30th Anniversary”, Sophie Aroesty, Jewcy, August 28, 2017.
• "Private Dancers", June 15, 2005, The Age
• Dirty Dancing, The E! True Hollywood Story, television documentary, first aired September 3, 2000
• "Dirty Dancing: Baby's Out of the Corner", May 2007, USA Today
• Eleanor Bergstein at IMDb