Cynthia Rhodes

Cynthia Rhodes is an American actress, singer and dancer who began her show business career at Opryland USA in the 1970s. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, she took a small part in the musical Xanadu before joining The Tubes as a dancer, touring with the San Francisco band in the early 1980s. She played Tina Tech in Flashdance (1983) and then Jackie in Staying Alive (1983), the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, opposite John Travolta. Her first non-dance role came in the science fiction thriller Runaway (1984), and she is best known as the dance instructor Penny Johnson in Dirty Dancing (1987). She also appeared in music videos and later sang with the pop group Animotion, whose single Room to Move reached No. 9 on the Billboard charts. In 2002 she co-wrote the track Perfect Day for Chris Botti's holiday album December.