Dinah Manoff — actress turned novelist | Bainbridge Island Review

Having been retired from acting for over 15 years and moving to Bainbridge Island, Dinah Manoff has turned to writing.

She recently released her debut novel — The Real True Hollywood Story of Jackie Gold, a glimpse into the dark side of Hollywood show business during the tabloid era.

Manoff describes it as a “black comedy” and a “serious beach read” but said it is not autobiographical.

“It’s certainly my voice but it’s definitely not my story,” she said. “I was never a big giant Hollywood superstar, but it is the world I inhabited and the world I grew up in so it’s the world I can write about. I think it strikes a balance between comedy and drama. I think Jackie’s story is a very real one underneath all the Hollywood hype.”

Manoff said Jackie Gold is a product of show business raised in Beverly Hills. Her father is a “big mucky-muck” and head of a major picture studio. She then becomes a superstar in Hollywood, and her boyfriend is People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. The novel is told in present-day and in flashback from the hospital where Gold lies in a coma after jumping off a balcony trying to escape the paparazzi, similar to when Princess Diana died in a car accident trying to escape the media in 1997.

“I would like people who haven’t grown up in Hollywood and haven’t been exposed to the kinds of things in show business to really get a flavor of that particular era and what that world is about,” Manoff said. “It’s very colorful and very different than, ya know, living on Bainbridge Island.”

Manoff said she conceived the story during her time on the TV series Empty Nest, when the tabloids were the main source of gossip before social media. She said a few publications used to write “silly, terrible things” about her and her mother.

“Their kind of dark presence always lurked at the bottom of the industry,” she said.

Manoff recalls having just given birth to her first son, and she was at home with him and her soon-to-be husband.

“One of these guys showed up at my front door to ask me some really serious and personal questions,” Manoff said. “I went ballistic on him. I chased him off the lot. Screaming like only a mother bear does with her infant son.”

“It was the beginning of that seed of wanting to write about what is fame, what is the underbelly, who’s responsible for this hyped-up publicity,” she continued. “It just kind of sparked a little seed in me. It began to grow. That’s really the story of how it came about.”

While this is Manoff’s first published book she hopes it is not her last. She previously wrote for television, stage and also wrote several screenplays that were never produced. Manoff is perhaps most known for her role as Marty Maraschino in Grease. She hasn’t had an acting role since 2008.

“I really left,” Manoff said. “I worked from the time I was 17, and I was lucky enough to work a lot. I had a very nice full, juicy career with dry spells here and there. All in all, there was nothing more I felt I needed to do as an actor. For an actress in her 40s, which I was when I left show business, the roles just diminished so quickly. I didn’t want to fight for little guest spots and fight 20 other great actresses. It just didn’t make sense to me.”

Upon having three sons under 5 years old, Manoff said she and her husband were both at “turning points” in their lives and felt they “could do better somewhere else.” That place ended up being Bainbridge Island, where they moved to in 2005.

“I’ve never looked back,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier with my life here.”

Since moving to BI, Manoff said she’s taught some acting classes at Bainbridge Performing Arts as well as directing some shows for them.

“People are thriving here in the arts,” she said. “That was a surprise to me. I didn’t know I would get that when I moved here. There’s some big talent on this island.”

The book was released on July 20. Recently, Manoff had book events at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge where she estimated about 150 people showed up. She also held one at Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo. The book is available at both locations. It also can be found at places like Amazon and Barnes and Noble along with her website dinahmanoff.org.

“It was so much fun,” Manoff said about the Bainbridge event. “It was an amazing turnout. We did the whole event outside in the parking lot so that everybody would feel COVID-happy. It was my fantasy to one day have a book reading at Eagle Harbor. I couldn’t believe I was there.”

Acting career

Manoff began her acting career with a bang, playing the role of Marty Maraschino in the iconic film Grease. She originally auditioned to play Frenchy, who Didi Conn ended up playing, but the casting director saw her more as Marty’s character.

“When I did my audition I decided to do Marty’s character as if she thought she was Marilyn Monroe,” Manoff said. “That’s how I based my funny little character. They put me through a dance audition, which unbelievably I survived just by wiggling my hips a lot. That was it, and I got the part.”

Because it was her first movie, and she was working with superstars like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, she naturally felt a little intimidated.

“John especially was so unbelievable. He was so electric at that time. He was so burning hot with his talent and his sexuality. It was like walking into a force field. I was just tongue-tied around him all the time. If you didn’t have a crush on him you weren’t alive,” she said.

At the time the film came out in 1979, Manoff said it got mixed reviews from critics, and she didn’t think it was going to be as big a deal as it turned out to be.

“Low and behold it becomes this iconic film that every year more people watch,” she said. “I don’t think the industry saw that character of Marty or the film Grease as being such a big deal as the public now sees it all these many years later. At the time, it was just another movie.”

Manoff never thought of that role as her most notable one. She said her role as Carol Weston in the TV sitcom Empty Nest defined more of her career, given the show ran 1988-95.

“A TV sitcom is a fun job,” she said. “You rehearse four days and then you have a live audience on the fifth day. It’s like a little play every week. You have a chance to work out your nerves, get your jokes down. You work three weeks on, and then you get one week off. It’s the greatest job in the history of jobs.”

A few years into the show, Manoff was given the opportunity to direct a few episodes. She said at that point she wanted to pursue more than just acting.

“I loved that,” she said. “It really suited my personality to be able to move into a position where I could do more than just show up and say my lines. At that point, showing up and saying my lines was not rewarding for me creatively.”

Additionally, Manoff said Richard Mulligan, who played the role of her father on the show, was “probably my most favorite actor I’ve ever worked with. He was so caring, kind, professional and interesting. He ran a tight ship on our show. He was the star.”

Manoff also played a supporting role in the Academy Award-winning film Ordinary People as Karen Aldrich and the sitcom Soap as Elaine Lefkowitz, among many other films and TV shows.