For years Grease 2 was a critical and box office flop. One of the worst sequels ever made they said. But then a funny thing happened. Younger generations started discovering the movie. VHS and DVD sales began to rise. People now felt free to vocalize their love of Stephanie Zinone and the ‘new’ Pink Ladies. We hummed Reproduction, and Let’s Do It For Our Country. Michelle Pfeiffer became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the 1980s. The once-maligned sequel is now a bonafide cult classic.
Many young soon-to-be-gay men would sit on a step stool in their bedroom singing Cool Rider hoping Michael Carrington, the dreamy English transfer student would walk in and sweep us off our feet! (Wait, am I the only one that did that?) Well, Grease 2 is celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year so we here at Instinct thought we would find out what actor Maxwell Caulfield has been up to since he rode onto our screens and made millions fall in love with him.
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The Butlers in Love actor who is now 62 recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly on all things Rydell High, including that infamous ‘balls out’ scene. Instinct Magazine reported last year on the blink and you will miss it wardrobe malfunction during the hurlders on the high school track scene. Caulfield, shocked that the scene made it into the final cut had this to say,
“Knowing who was jumping those high hurdles with those unfortunately short shorts, he was a flasher. He flashed us all. He broke up the entire set when he did it. When we’re all doing those end credits where we’re all throwing the mortar boards in the air and jumping off a trampoline below camera up into frame, he came tearing across the campus with a black cape on and a black helmet. He was streaking. The crown jewels were there for us all to see. But he had good reason to be proud of himself.”
I spotted a wardrobe malfunction in Grease 2 🍆 🥔 🥔 pic.twitter.com/S88naYVeQu
— Justin Root (@JustinWRoot) May 8, 2021
Caulfield made his film debut in Grease 2, after being discovered in an Off-Broadway play. The British actor has since been on both the West End and Broadway playing Billy Flynn in Chicago. He credits his costuming in that Off-Broadway play with helping him win the role of the shy student transformed into a leather-clad biker in order to win the heart of the girl of his dreams commenting,
“in the second act of that play, I spent the whole of it wearing black leather trousers and tight-fitting white t-shirts. It endeared me to the theatergoers of the West Village of New York, and apparently the producers of Grease 2 as well. I think maybe that early flash in black leather did the trick.”
Since Grease 2 Caulfield has been cast in shows including Dynasty, The Colbys, Emmerdale and Casualty. He famously appeared in a Modern Family episode playing Claire’s old college professor who she had a fling with while she was a student. He has been happily married to actress Juliet Mills since 1980 and he is a stepfather to her two children from a previous marriage. He was most recently seen in Hulu’s Pam and Tommy, playing Bob Guccione.
The Those Who Wander actor was unhireable after Grease 2 flopped. Now 40 years later, he revels in the cult classic status the movie has now attained saying,
“Here we are four decades later, and I’m still talking about Grease 2. It’s incredible. I was living a fantasy making that film. I just wished at the time it had been more successful. It would have made my career a lot easier.”
Sources: Entertainment Weekly
