After a public battle with pancreatic cancer, played out on the stage, screen and in the tabloids, PATRICK SWAYZE died Monday at the age of 57. He was diagnosed with the deadly cancer in January 2008, and later appeared onstage at a televised cancer fundraiser, as "a man living with cancer."
He made a valiant effort to fight it, and to continue working, convincing A & E to go forward with their series, "THE BEAST". after his diagnosis. He shot it while undergoing chemotherapy treatments for the disease.
He was a dancer from the start, being trained by his mother, who choreographed URBAN COWBOY, the 1980 film starring JOHN TRAVOLTA and DEBRA WINGER. PATRICK dropped out of college in Houston to move to New York in 1972 to try and break into a dancing career on Broadway. He danced ballet, with the Joffrey Ballet, and other companies, but was forced to concentrate on acting, as a result of an old football injury.
He got his first movie role in 1979, in SKATETOWN, and the LA TIMES Kevin Thomas wrote, "Not since Valentino did his tango in 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' has there been such a confident display of male sexuality as when a lithe newcomer to films named PATRICK SWAYZE hits the rink." Not a bad debut.
SWAYZE is best known for two films, both now classics, DIRTY DANCING, released in 1987, and GHOST in 1990.
But his career included a wide range of roles, including a skydiving surfer with KEANU REEVES in POINT BREAK; a womanizing bouncer in ROAD HOUSE; a doctor working in Calcutta in CITY OF JOY; a road trekking drag queen in TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR; and a sleazy owner of a strip club in 2009's POWDER BLUE.
In 1991 PEOPLE MAGAZINE voted him one of their 50 sexiest people. But SWAYZE was disillusioned with the Hollywood scene, and preferred life on his 5-acre ranch outside of Los Angeles, raising horses and peacocks with his wife NIEMEI.
" I made a conscious decision to break away from big films when I got alcohol out of my life. I had been sucked into the blockbuster, box-office mentality and it was destroying my sense of purpose in life. The loneliness of fame was messing with my head. Once you've been famous for a while and told your story, it can sound like a lie. You don't know what's true. It sounds like an article someone wrote rather than the essence of who you are."
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