‘Dirty Dancing’ star dies

LOS ANGELES – Patrick Swayze personified a particular kind of masculine grace both on and off screen, from his roles in films like ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Ghost’ to the way he carried himself in his long fight with pancreatic cancer.

Swayze died from the illness on Monday in Los Angeles, his publicist said. He was 57.Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from an especially deadly form of cancer. He continued working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting ‘The Beast’, an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot.Swayze said he chose not to use painkillers while making ‘The Beast’ because they would have taken the edge off his performance.When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was ‘considerably more optimistic’ than that. Swayze acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.’I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking,’ Swayze told ABC’s Barbara Walters in early 2009. ‘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.’And that’s exactly what he did. In February, Swayze wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post titled, ‘I’m Battling Cancer. How About Some Help, Congress?’ in which he urged senators and representatives to vote for the maximum funding for the National Institutes of Health to fight cancer as part of the economic stimulus package.He also appeared in the September 2008 live television event ‘Stand Up to Cancer’, where he pleaded: ‘I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, a life not lived in the shadow of cancer, but in the light. … I dream that the word ‘cure’ will no longer be followed by the words ‘is impossible’.’Many used Twitter to express their sadness. Demi Moore, who played Swayze’s fiancee in ‘Ghost’, wrote: ‘Patrick you are loved by so many and your light will forever shine in all of our lives.’A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad boy Johnny Castle in ‘Dirty Dancing’.As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theatre, he seemed a natural to play the role.A coming-of-age romance starring Jennifer Grey as an idealistic young woman on vacation with her family and Swayze as the Catskills resort’s sexy (and much older) dance instructor, the film made use of both his grace on his feet and his muscular physique.It became an international phenomenon in the summer of 1987, spawning albums, an Oscar-winning hit song in ‘(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life’, stage productions and a sequel, 2004’s ‘Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights’, in which he made a cameo.Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad ‘She’s Like the Wind’, inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the chance to utter the now-classic line, ‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner.’In 1990’s ‘Ghost’ he showed his vulnerable, sensitive side. He starred as a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee, with great frustration and longing, through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.In 1991, he appeared on the cover of People magazine as its ‘Sexiest Man Alive’, but his career tapered off toward the end of the 1990s, when he went to rehab for alcohol abuse. In 2001, he appeared in the cult favourite ‘Donnie Darko’, and in 2003 he returned to the New York stage with ‘Chicago’; 2006 found him in the musical ‘Guys and Dolls’ in London.Swayze was born in 1952 in Houston, the son of Jesse Swayze and choreographer Patsy Swayze, whose films include ‘Urban Cowboy’.Off-screen, he was an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on ‘man’s greed and absolute unwillingness to operate according to Mother Nature’s laws’, he told the AP in 2004.Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. – Nampa-AP