The Truth About Melora Hardin's Relationship With Patrick Swayze

She can sing, she can act, but did you know she can also dance?! (Well, probably, given that she's slaying the competition on Season 30 of "Dancing with the Stars" — but nevertheless!) Melora Hardin — best known for her roles as Trudy Monk in "Monk" and scorned lover Jan Levinson in "The Office" — is undeniably talented. The daughter of actor and former "X-Files" star Jerry Hardin, Melora Hardin has had the arts ingrained in her blood since day one.

To be talented at one art is hard enough, let alone three! In "The Office," Hardin showed off not just her acting prowess, but also her singing chops on occasion! In addition to that, she also has a penchant for impeccable comedic timing — a skill of hers that often goes unnoticed. But although her "Office" days are now behind her, Hardid has shifted her attention toward a new goal: "Dancing with the Stars."

A trained ballerina from her youth, Hardin once had aspirations to be a professional dancer. Speaking to The Ringer in 2018, she stated, "I was a very serious ballerina. I would've told you as a child that I was going to be a ballerina, and that acting was just my hobby." She also revealed that she attended the acclaimed Joffrey Ballet School on a scholarship at the age of 13. And as wild as that sounds, just wait until you hear about her dance floor experience with Patrick Swayze!

Ah, the late, great Patrick Swayze. A truly magnificent star in every right. Bold, charismatic, and almost unnecessarily handsome (he was named People's Sexiest Man Alive in 1991!), Swayze just had an intangible way of making people swoon whenever he walked into a room. He, like Melora Hardin, was also a multi-hyphenate in the fact that he was an actor, singer, and dancer.

It's no wonder why Hardin was so entranced by his greatness upon meeting him. As a mere teenager, she attended the prestigious Joffrey Ballet School on a scholarship, and lo and behold, who better to teach you the art of dancing than Swayze himself?! A little under a decade before Swayze's star-making performance in "Dirty Dancing," the late actor taught a jazz class at the famed school while hustling to make his name in Hollywood at the same time.

When asked about her experience with Swayze, Hardin recalled (per Yahoo), "I think he taught for at least six months or a year. Always arriving on his motorcycle." She then gushed over his "tight jeans," both "in the front and the back," along with his "long '70s hairdo." (Honestly, who wouldn't?!) "I think my tongue was out of my mouth the entire class. What a lovely, lovely guy he was," she continued, while praising Swayze for staying "together forever" with wife and "wonderful dancer" Lisa Niemi.

They say the universe works in mysterious ways. There is no brighter example of this than when Melora Hardin was cast in the 1988 television adaption of "Dirty Dancing." The film of the same name, which premiered the year prior, was a massive box-office success and spawned a cultural phenomenon still felt decades later. Oh, and did we mention it skyrocketed Patrick Swayze's career?

The television series, however, was ill-fated. Lasting only one season, the show saw Hardin in the lead role as Frances "Baby" Kellerman alongside Patrick Cassidy, who played Johnny Castle. And despite the high anticipation for the show, Hardin still remains confused decades later as to why it didn't pan out. "I don't know. I remember one critic not liking that I was not 'Jewish-looking,' because she's supposed to be Jewish," Hardin lamented to Yahoo in 2017. "I don't know if that was the thing. I mean, I think the series was good. ... Who knows why these things do catch on or don't," she further added.

She did, however, acknowledge network concerns of the show being too risqué. "I think it's really the first scene where Baby and Johnny dance together ... And the dancers were all dancers that I took classes with, and it was pretty raunchy. They were, like, in there," Hardin laughingly stated. "They were grinding and dancing, and even the stuff Patrick and I did was pretty sexy," she also noted.