Patrick Swayze: lived his life for the momentSeptember 15, 2009 - 10:36AM
'Dirty Dancing' actor Patrick Swayze has died. His top career as an actor, singer and dancer all began with a sports injury.
Patrick Swayze, the ruggedly handsome actor and classically trained dancer who shot to stardom in two hit romantic films, "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost," has died. He was 57.
Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer early in 2008 and went on to film a final television series, the police drama "The Beast," while undergoing chemotherapy. A publicist for Swayze confirmed the death of the actor, the Associated Press reported today.
Swayze lived on a ranch outside Los Angeles with his wife, Lisa Niemi, a professional dancer.
Patrick Swayze ... lived for the moment.
Known almost as much for his many flops as his hits, Swayze in recent years expended as much effort on stage musicals as on movies. His ascent to stardom, though, was born of those two blockbuster movies.
"Dirty Dancing" (1987) and "Ghost" (1990) both made the American Film Institute's 2007 list of the 100 greatest love stories in U.S. movie history -- "Ghost" in 19th place, "Dirty Dancing" in 93rd.
"Dirty Dancing," a surprise hit, showcased Swayze's acting and dancing skills. He played Johnny Castle, a rebellious dance pro at a Catskills resort who wins the affections of a young and innocent guest, "Baby" Houseman, played by Jennifer Grey.
Their climatic dance routine, performed to "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," became a celebrated movie moment. Another of the movie's songs, "She's Like the Wind," was co-written and sung by Swayze.
In "Ghost," Swayze played an investment banker who returns as an apparition, determined to protect his girlfriend (Demi Moore), after he is murdered in a scheme concocted by his business partner. His character, Sam Wheat, finds an indispensable ally in a spiritual adviser (Whoopi Goldberg) who is shocked to learn she has actual abilities beyond conning her clients.
Oscar Nominations"'Ghost' was about living your life for the moment, because that's all you've got," Swayze told People magazine in 1990. "If you don't communicate with the people you love, you set yourself up for incredible pain if you lose them."
"Ghost" earned five Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture, and won two awards, for supporting actress (Goldberg) and writing.
People selected Swayze as "Sexiest Man Alive" for 1991. "He's one Hollywood hunk whose image has always been greater than the sum of his (sometimes awful) movie parts," the magazine wrote.
It described Swayze, then 39, as "both a woman's fantasy and a man's man."
Patrick Wayne Swayze was born August 18, 1952, in Houston, one of four children in an Irish-American family. He was inspired to try ballet at a young age by his mother, Patsy, a dance teacher and choreographer. His father, Jesse, an engineer, died in 1982.
His mother told the UK Sunday Mail in a 1995 interview that young Patrick, an accomplished athlete in boxing, wrestling and football, still endured ribbing when he took up ballet, as well as violin.
Five classmates in particular would rough him up, Patsy said: "He went to the sports coach and arranged to fight them one by one in the gym. He beat them all."
Swayze attended San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas, on a gymnastics scholarship but left before graduating. He toured with "Disney on Parade," playing the role of Prince Charming, then danced with the Buffalo Ballet Company before landing in New York in 1972.
He performed and studied with the Joffrey and Harkness ballet companies, then joined the Eliot Feld Ballet as its principal dancer.
"When I came to New York I was unique in that I looked like a man onstage," he told People in 1984. "I had 19-inch arms. I was the Godzilla of ballet."
In 1978 he took over the lead role of Danny Zuko in "Grease" on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood, California, he made his film debut in "Skatetown, U.S.A." (1979), billed as a "rock and roller disco movie."
In "Red Dawn" (1984), Swayze starred as a leader of a group of Colorado teenagers who organize resistance to a Russian invasion of the U.S.
He played Orry Main, a Southern planter, in the highly rated 1985 television mini-series "North and South."
Between "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost," Swayze starred as the head bouncer in a rough bar in "Road House" (1989), a widely panned film that became a cult hit. He played the leader of a gang of surfers in "Point Break " (1991), which also starred Keanu Reeves.
Swayze was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" (1995), in which he played a drag queen.
Swayze married Niemi, a dancer he met in one of his mother's classes, in 1975. The husband-and-wife team produced and starred in a music-and-dance movie, "One Last Dance" (2003), which Niemi wrote. Swayze said he hoped to prod movie studios to make more musicals.
Swayze generally turned down big roles after "Ghost," including a proposed "Dirty Dancing" sequel that would have earned him a reported $6 million.
"For a while, I got sucked into that whole blockbuster mentality, where you're just living for the box office figures and selling your soul to a machine," he told the London Evening Standard in 2006.
He did agree to a cameo appearance as a dance instructor in the poorly received "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" (2004).
On stage, Swayze starred as Billy Flynn in a Los Angeles production of "Chicago" in 2004 and, on London's West End in 2006, as Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls."
Swayze, who overcame alcoholism in the late 1980s and said he was still trying to quit smoking as of 2004, retreated to a cowboy's mountain life between movies. A 1997 horseback-riding accident resulted in two broken legs and a seriously injured shoulder.
