Jennifer Grey has paid emotional tribute to her late mother, Jo Wilder, after her death at 94.
The 66-year-old star, best known for her roles in Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, revealed that Wilder had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer.
In a post on Instagram, Grey wrote: “My mother, Jo Wilder, passed away on July 4th at 94 — by her own choosing, on her own terms, exactly as she lived.” A cause of death wasn’t disclosed.
She continued: “A week earlier, she learned she had lung cancer. True to who she was, she chose grace over fear, understanding that leaving this world with dignity is an honor, not a tragedy.
“She was gorgeous and talented — a promising young actress on the New York stage in her youth. She used to say she never fully answered that calling; she became a mother instead. If she’d chosen ambition over my brother and me, we never would have had the mother we had.”
Grey went on to say that her mother’s “passion found other outlets,” explaining: “She was a lifelong activist, fiercely attuned to right and wrong. And for years, many people discovered her extraordinary eye through Wilder Place, her store on Melrose. She was brave and deep. I love you, Mom. Thank you for showing me how to do it all, even this, with grace.”
Wilder was born in Brooklyn and in her youth, she attended the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where she was taught by legendary acting coach Sanford Meisner alongside rising stars including Steve McQueen and Peter Falk.
She had a career on Broadway that included a run as Polly in a production of Threepenny Opera. She also had stage roles in She Loves Me, Peter Pan, Gypsy and The Merchant of Venice, among others.
On television, she had guest roles in a string of 1960s shows including The Defenders, The Nurses and The Detectives.
She married the Oscar-winning actor Joel Grey in 1958, and they had two children: Jennifer and the chef James Katz. The couple divorced after 24 years in 1982.
On Instagram, actors including Richard E. Grant, Maggie Wheeler and Tracy Pollan offered their condolences to Grey.
Pollan wrote: “What a moving tribute. I am thinking of you and the radiant Jo Wilder today. I feel so blessed to have had your beautiful mother in my life. I will cherish my memories of her warmth, love, and guidance. So heartbroken she is gone, but grateful she left us with the dignity she lived with. I love you both.”
