The Real Reason Frenchy Disappears Halfway Through Grease 2

So what happened to Frenchy? For an accurate assessment of her fate, you have to look behind the scenes.

The original Grease was a phenomenal success, the high water mark of John Travolta's time as a song and dance man, which wound up being the highest grossing non-Disney musical of all time. Yeah, you read that right — it made more money than 2018's Mama Mia! Here We Go Again. It was a bona fide song-sation — according to Box Office Mojo, on a budget of $6 million, Grease pulled a worldwide gross of over $366 million. Paramount, pupils suddenly shaped like dollar signs, began work on a sequel. More specifically, they started work on a sequel that didn't yet have a script, story, or really much hope of bringing back the stars of the first film. In a creative process which has since been described by Frenchy actress Didi Conn as "rushed, frantic, and unorganized," a follow up began to gestate.

What seemed like easy money quickly morphed into a difficult, ill-advised production. Grease director Randal Kleiser wouldn't return for Grease 2, so Patricia Birch, the first movie's choreographer, was tapped to helm the project, despite having never directed a feature film before. Slowly, other names from the original movie began to drop off. Plans for a John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John cameo fell apart. Grease's composers were also less than interested in going back to school again. With the creative team ducking out, it came time to find a new writer, and the responsibility was heaped upon the shoulders of Ken Finkleman, whose other credits include Airplane II: The Sequel and... well, that was about it.

As production commenced, new drafts of the script were pumped out by Finkleman. With those drafts came changes. With those changes came the realization that scenes which had already been shot, and actors who had already been contracted, were no longer, strictly speaking, necessary.