Cynthia Rhodes
Encyclopedia
Cynthia Rhodes is an American actress, singer and dancer most noted for her roles in Dirty Dancing
, Flashdance
and Staying Alive
.
, Rhodes began her career working at Opryland USA
as a singer and dancer while attending Glencliff High School in Nashville
, Tennessee
, during the 1970s. Born and raised in a Baptist
family, Rhodes tried to maintain a clean-cut image in her acting roles and in the media. During her brief career, she turned down scripts that required nudity and refused offers to pose for pictorials in Playboy
magazine. Sylvester Stallone, the director of Staying Alive, reinforced these facts by stating that Rhodes "would sooner quit the business before doing anything to embarrass her parents."
Rhodes played small roles in the fantasy musical Xanadu
(1980
) and Francis Ford Coppola
's One from the Heart
(1982
), both of which were panned by critics. Following a minor part as Tina Tech in the musical film Flashdance
, Rhodes played the role of Jackie, an ensemble dancer, bar band singer, and character Tony Manero's (John Travolta
) love interest in Sylvester Stallone
's film Staying Alive
, the poorly received sequel to the hit film Saturday Night Fever
.
Rhodes garnered her first non-dance related role in Michael Crichton
's science fiction
thriller Runaway
with Tom Selleck
, Kirstie Alley
and Gene Simmons
. Her most notable role was as dance instructor Penny Johnson in the hit 1987 motion picture Dirty Dancing
, with Jennifer Grey
and Patrick Swayze
. Rhodes' final motion picture role was the character of Vickie Phillips opposite actor Jameson Parker
in the sleeper action/adventure movie Curse of the Crystal Eye.
Rhodes also appeared as a dancer in music video
s, such as "Rosanna
" by the band Toto
, "Woman In You" by the Bee Gees
, and "Don't Mean Nothing" by Richard Marx
. She was a dancer for the glam rock
band The Tubes
when they toured in the early 1980s
. Rhodes later joined the 80's pop group Animotion
replacing the group's singer Astrid Plane
for the recording of its third and final album of original material. Though the group's single "Room to Move" rose to #9 on the Billboard charts, the album failed to match the group's earlier success, peaking at only #110 on the pop charts; shortly thereafter, the group disbanded. In 2002, Rhodes co-wrote the smooth jazz
track "Perfect Day" with husband Richard Marx
for December, trumpeter Chris Botti
's holiday album.
. She met Marx in 1983 while she was working on the motion picture soundtrack
for Staying Alive
. Rhodes, seven years his senior, thought Marx was much too young for her to date at the time. Marx and Rhodes didn't start their relationship until two years later, when they both were reacquainted at a party. After a four-year courtship, the couple married on January 8, 1989. After marrying Marx, Rhodes retired from film acting, dancing, and singing to become stay-at-home mother to the couple's three sons They currently reside in Lake Bluff, Illinois
.
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the lead roles, as well as Cynthia Rhodes and Jerry Orbach...
, Flashdance
Flashdance
Another song used in the film, "Maniac", was also nominated for an Academy Award. It was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky, and was inspired by the 1980 horror film Maniac. The lyrics about a killer on the loose were rewritten so that it could be used in Flashdance...
and Staying Alive
Staying Alive
Staying Alive is the 1983 film sequel to Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as dancer Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso, and dancers Viktor Manoel, Kate Ann Wright, Kevyn Morrow and Nanette Tarpey...
.
Career
Born in Nashville, TennesseeNashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Rhodes began her career working at Opryland USA
Opryland USA
Opryland USA was an amusement park located in suburban Nashville, Tennessee. It operated seasonally from 1972 until 1997...
as a singer and dancer while attending Glencliff High School in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, during the 1970s. Born and raised in a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
family, Rhodes tried to maintain a clean-cut image in her acting roles and in the media. During her brief career, she turned down scripts that required nudity and refused offers to pose for pictorials in Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine. Sylvester Stallone, the director of Staying Alive, reinforced these facts by stating that Rhodes "would sooner quit the business before doing anything to embarrass her parents."
Rhodes played small roles in the fantasy musical Xanadu
Xanadu (film)
Xanadu is a 1980 romantic musical fantasy film written by Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the poem "Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is quoted in the film. Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province...
(1980
1980 in film
- Events :* May 21 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released and is the biggest grosser of the year ....
) and Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's One from the Heart
One from the Heart
One from the Heart is a 1982 musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The characters themselves do not actually sing but the powerful score dominates the movie. It is set entirely in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and the desert surrounding the city...
(1982
1982 in film
-Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...
), both of which were panned by critics. Following a minor part as Tina Tech in the musical film Flashdance
Flashdance
Another song used in the film, "Maniac", was also nominated for an Academy Award. It was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky, and was inspired by the 1980 horror film Maniac. The lyrics about a killer on the loose were rewritten so that it could be used in Flashdance...
, Rhodes played the role of Jackie, an ensemble dancer, bar band singer, and character Tony Manero's (John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
) love interest in Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
's film Staying Alive
Staying Alive
Staying Alive is the 1983 film sequel to Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as dancer Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso, and dancers Viktor Manoel, Kate Ann Wright, Kevyn Morrow and Nanette Tarpey...
, the poorly received sequel to the hit film Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
.
Rhodes garnered her first non-dance related role in Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
's science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
thriller Runaway
Runaway (1984 film)
Runaway is a 1984 science fiction action film starring Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons and Cynthia Rhodes. This film also features Kirstie Alley in one of her early appearances. The film was written and directed by Michael Crichton. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, and was the...
with Tom Selleck
Tom Selleck
Thomas William "Tom" Selleck is an American actor, and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum on the 1980s television show Magnum, P.I.. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B....
, Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991...
and Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
. Her most notable role was as dance instructor Penny Johnson in the hit 1987 motion picture Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the lead roles, as well as Cynthia Rhodes and Jerry Orbach...
, with Jennifer Grey
Jennifer Grey
Jennifer Elise Grey is an American actress. Her first major roles came in the 1984 war film Red Dawn and the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In 1987 she starred as Frances "Baby" Houseman in the hit film Dirty Dancing for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe. In the early 1990s, Grey...
and Patrick Swayze
Patrick Swayze
Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...
. Rhodes' final motion picture role was the character of Vickie Phillips opposite actor Jameson Parker
Jameson Parker
Francis Jameson Parker Jr. is an American actor, best known as the co-star of the 1980s television series Simon & Simon.-Biography:Parker studied drama at Beloit College...
in the sleeper action/adventure movie Curse of the Crystal Eye.
Rhodes also appeared as a dancer in music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s, such as "Rosanna
Rosanna (song)
"Rosanna" is a song by the American rock band Toto, the opening track from their 1982 album Toto IV. This song won the Record of the Year Grammy Award in the 1983 presentations. Rosanna was also nominated for the Song of the Year award...
" by the band Toto
Toto (band)
Toto is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. The group currently consists of Joseph Williams , David Paich , Steve Porcaro , Steve Lukather , Mike Porcaro , and Simon Phillips . Toto is known for a musical style that combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, progressive rock, hard...
, "Woman In You" by the Bee Gees
Bee Gees
The Bee Gees are a musical group that originally comprised three brothers: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was successful for most of their 40-plus years of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a pop act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as a...
, and "Don't Mean Nothing" by Richard Marx
Richard Marx
Richard Noel Marx is an American adult contemporary and pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He had a string of hit singles in the late 1980s and 1990s, including "Endless Summer Nights", "Right Here Waiting", "Now and Forever", and "Hazard"...
. She was a dancer for the glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
band The Tubes
The Tubes
The Tubes are a San Francisco-based rock band, whose 1975 debut album included the hit single, "White Punks on Dope". During its first fifteen years or so, the band's live performances combined quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism, and politics...
when they toured in the early 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. Rhodes later joined the 80's pop group Animotion
Animotion
Animotion is a 1980s U.S. New Wave/synthpop band from Los Angeles, California best known for their songs "Obsession" , "Let Him Go", "I Engineer" and "Room to Move"...
replacing the group's singer Astrid Plane
Animotion
Animotion is a 1980s U.S. New Wave/synthpop band from Los Angeles, California best known for their songs "Obsession" , "Let Him Go", "I Engineer" and "Room to Move"...
for the recording of its third and final album of original material. Though the group's single "Room to Move" rose to #9 on the Billboard charts, the album failed to match the group's earlier success, peaking at only #110 on the pop charts; shortly thereafter, the group disbanded. In 2002, Rhodes co-wrote the smooth jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
track "Perfect Day" with husband Richard Marx
Richard Marx
Richard Noel Marx is an American adult contemporary and pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He had a string of hit singles in the late 1980s and 1990s, including "Endless Summer Nights", "Right Here Waiting", "Now and Forever", and "Hazard"...
for December, trumpeter Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
's holiday album.
Personal life
Rhodes is married to singer/songwriter Richard MarxRichard Marx
Richard Noel Marx is an American adult contemporary and pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He had a string of hit singles in the late 1980s and 1990s, including "Endless Summer Nights", "Right Here Waiting", "Now and Forever", and "Hazard"...
. She met Marx in 1983 while she was working on the motion picture soundtrack
Motion Picture Soundtrack
This article is about Motion Picture Soundtrack, the UK alt-rock band. For film soundtracks see Soundtrack. For the track by Radiohead see Kid A.Motion Picture Soundtrack are a British alternative rock quartet from Canterbury, Kent...
for Staying Alive
Staying Alive
Staying Alive is the 1983 film sequel to Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as dancer Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso, and dancers Viktor Manoel, Kate Ann Wright, Kevyn Morrow and Nanette Tarpey...
. Rhodes, seven years his senior, thought Marx was much too young for her to date at the time. Marx and Rhodes didn't start their relationship until two years later, when they both were reacquainted at a party. After a four-year courtship, the couple married on January 8, 1989. After marrying Marx, Rhodes retired from film acting, dancing, and singing to become stay-at-home mother to the couple's three sons They currently reside in Lake Bluff, Illinois
Lake Bluff, Illinois
Lake Bluff is a village in Lake County, Illinois. It is the closest moderate-sized town near the Great Lakes Navy Base and is North of Lake Forest. The population is 6,056 according to the 2000 census. The town has a police department and volunteer fire department.-History:In 1836, John and...
.
Filmography
- XanaduXanadu (film)Xanadu is a 1980 romantic musical fantasy film written by Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The title is a reference to the poem "Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is quoted in the film. Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province...
(1980) - Ensemble dancer - One from the HeartOne from the HeartOne from the Heart is a 1982 musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The characters themselves do not actually sing but the powerful score dominates the movie. It is set entirely in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and the desert surrounding the city...
(1982) - FlashdanceFlashdanceAnother song used in the film, "Maniac", was also nominated for an Academy Award. It was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky, and was inspired by the 1980 horror film Maniac. The lyrics about a killer on the loose were rewritten so that it could be used in Flashdance...
(1983) - Tina Tech - Staying AliveStaying AliveStaying Alive is the 1983 film sequel to Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as dancer Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso, and dancers Viktor Manoel, Kate Ann Wright, Kevyn Morrow and Nanette Tarpey...
(1983) - Jackie - RunawayRunaway (1984 film)Runaway is a 1984 science fiction action film starring Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons and Cynthia Rhodes. This film also features Kirstie Alley in one of her early appearances. The film was written and directed by Michael Crichton. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, and was the...
(1984) - Officer Karen Thompson - Dirty DancingDirty DancingDirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the lead roles, as well as Cynthia Rhodes and Jerry Orbach...
(1987) - Penny Johnson - Curse of the Crystal Eye (1991) - Vickie Phillips
Songs
- "Room To Move" - AnimotionAnimotionAnimotion is a 1980s U.S. New Wave/synthpop band from Los Angeles, California best known for their songs "Obsession" , "Let Him Go", "I Engineer" and "Room to Move"...
(1989) - "Calling It Love" - AnimotionAnimotionAnimotion is a 1980s U.S. New Wave/synthpop band from Los Angeles, California best known for their songs "Obsession" , "Let Him Go", "I Engineer" and "Room to Move"...
(1989) - "I'm Never Gonna Give You Up" with Frank StalloneFrank StalloneFrank P. Stallone, Jr. is an American actor, singer/guitarist and Golden Globe and Grammy Award-nominated songwriter. He has appeared in many Hollywood films and television. He is the younger brother of Sylvester Stallone.-Early life:...
- Staying Alive Soundtrack (1983) - "Finding Out The Hard Way" - Staying Alive Soundtrack (1983)