Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
It’s the holidays, which means you probably should’ve watched Dirty Dancing a whole 12 times now already.
Once on Christmas Eve, once on Christmas Day, and 10 more times at regular staggered intervals throughout the festive season.
It’s tradition, after all.
And while the Patrick Swayze/Jennifer Grey film remains nothing short of iconic even after all these years (‘The Lift’ will never cease to amaze), there was always a chance that the movie was never going to achieve cult status.
Primarily because it was almost called something completely different: I Was A Teenage Mambo Queen.
Yes really, that’s what they thought they were going to have to call it.
Here’s why.
The film’s screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein said that when they were crossing the Canadian border with the film, authorities thought it was porn – due to the name, Dirty Dancing.
She told Cosmopolitan that there was a period when they thought they would have to change the title entirely.
“(We were) held up our dailies at the Canadian border because they thought it was a porn film,” she said.
“When we thought we had to change the title, we were going to call it I Was a Teenage Mambo Queen because when I was 11 and 12, I would do the mambo (at) these Champagne contests in the country.
“It was so bizarre to see this little girl doing all these mambo and cha-cha steps. I would win the bottle of Champagne, which my parents could drink … those things came from my life, going to the Catskills as a little girl.”
Well, we’re glad you decided against that one anyway, Bergstein.
