Actor Patrick Swayze died 14 September 2009 after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Born 18 August 1952 in Houston, Texas, he gained fame for his starring roles as a dancer in Dirty Dancing (1987), a bouncer in Road House (1989), and a ghost in Ghost (1990), for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award in 1991. He was also nominated for three Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical, for Dirty Dancing, Ghost, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). In 1991, People magazine named Swayze the “Sexiest Man Alive”.
Swayze was the son of choreographer and dance teacher Patsy Swayze, and he met his future wife, Lisa Niemi, when she was 15-year-old student of his mother’s. Following his attendance at San Jacinto College, he moved to New York City to continue his study of dance, and began dancing professionally in stage shows. His first such role was in Disney on Parade, and then he played Danny Zuko in the original Broadway production of Grease. His film debut, also a dancing role, was in Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979).
His genre roles include: King Solomon’s Mines (2004), George and the Dragon (2004), Donnie Darko (2001), Three Wishes (1995), Tall Tale (1995), Ghost (1990), Steel Dawn (1987), an episode of Amazing Stories (“Life on Death Row”, 1986), and Red Dawn (1984).
One of Swayze’s very early roles was an episode of M*A*S*H (“Blood Brothers”, 1981), in which he played a private who is unable to donate blood to his wounded comrade when the doctors discover he has leukemia. Echoing that character’s vibrant will to live, Swayze spent his last year and a half optimistically. He starred in a short-lived drama on A&E called The Beast, but refused to use painkillers during the filming because he felt they’d “take the edge off his performance.” Early this year, he told Barbara Walters in an interview that he knew he didn’t have long to live. “I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking. Two years seems likely if you’re going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I’d better get a fire under it.”
He is survived by his wife and his mother (his father died in 1982).