Patrick Swayze greeting fans after Guys and Dolls in 2006. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com)
Today we’re talking about the sad news that actor Patrick Swayze has lost his two year battle against pancreatic cancer, passing away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles yesterday surrounded by his family.
The fifty-seven-year-old actor will always be remembered for his star performance as dance teacher Johnny Castle in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing. As a classically trained dancer thanks to his professional choreographer mother, it was a role he had almost been destined to play and one which he received a Golden Globe nomination for. The film made $300 million and Swayze reputedly turned down $7 million to star in a sequel because he didn’t want to be type-cast.
His subsequent blockbusters include Ghost with Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg in which he played murdered husband Sam Wheat – a part he really wanted because the script had made him cry four or five times; and surfing film Point Break alongside Keanu Reeves, a role he apparently took so he could get his skydiving licence and learn to surf!
In an interview with The Times in 2004, Swayze said he didn’t have much spare time these days. “I feel like I wasted time with stardom back in the ’80s,”he said. “Now I want it all. I want to do as much as I can.”
The actor refused to be beaten by cancer, and only stopped working in June this year on TV show The Beast because his health had deteriorated drastically. When asked why he had decided to do the show in an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters in January this year, Swayze said the show’s character “felt right for my soul.”
“If I leave this Earth, I want to leave this Earth just knowing I’ve tried to give something back and tried to do something worthwhile with myself,” he said. “And that keeps me going, that gets me up in the morning. My work … is my legacy.”
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