This is the blog I had dreaded doing. I knew it was coming, but I also knew that the day it happened, I would be really sad. When someone lives a long life, you can always say, well, they lived a long life. In cases like DJ AM, you wonder if survivor guilt drove him back to his addiction. With someone like Michael Jackson, we knew for years he didn’t look healthy. And, although we have known for a year that Patrick Swayze was battling a fight he probably wouldn’t win, I think it hurts so much because he did play such virile roles that I remember from my young adulthood. Patrick’s publicist announced late yesterday that the actor had succumbed to the pancreatic cancer from which he had been suffering.
Who can forget Patrick as Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing? And I don’t know a woman that didn’t love his character in Ghost, Sam Wheat. For the men, there was his Road House character Dalton. But, not all of Patrick’s roles were manly. I remember him being the most convincing “female” character in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.
Patrick started out his career as a dancer for Disney on Parade. His mother Patsy was a dance instructor and choreographer and Patrick studied under her. Patrick met his future wife, Lisa Niemi, when the two were teens and Lisa was a student at his mother’s dance school. The two married in 1975 and by most accounts, seemed to be unlike most Hollywood couples – they were happy, in love, and enjoyed spending time away from the limelight at their ranch near Los Angeles.
In 1972, Patrick furthered his dance trained at the Harkness Ballet and Joffrey Ballet schools in New York City. He played Danny Zuko in the Broadway production of Grease. His first film, Skatetown, U.S.A., was a flop, but then he appeared on an episode of “M*A*S*H” and he was on his way. He was in two films in the ‘80s that seemed to star almost every young up and coming actor – The Outsiders and Red Dawn. He starred in the television miniseries “North and South” in 1985.
In 1991, Patrick was chosen as PEOPLE magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” He returned to the theater in 2003 performing in Chicago, then again in 2006, playing Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls.
Even though he was sick, Patrick played FBI Agent Charles Barker in A&E’s “The Beast.” This past June, A&E announced the show had been cancelled due to Patrick’s health.
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