[Ankeseiband]

from eonline:


Patrick Swayze, Hollywood's Dirty Dancer, Dead at 57

Mon., Sep. 14, 2009 8:30 PM PDT by Joal Ryan
Courtesy: Brian Braff
Johnny Castle. Sam Wheat. Fighter.
Patrick Swayze, the movie star whose iconic roles in Dirty Dancing and Ghost transcended and the man whose perseverance in the face of advanced cancer inspired, died today in Los Angeles. He was 57.
"One thing I'm not gonna do is chase staying alive," Swayze told Barbara Walters in January. "You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won't live."
At the time, Swayze guessed he had two more years to live.
Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early 2008. Despite the gloom and doom of initial tabloid reports, Swayze went on to star in the A&E cop drama The Beast.
"I'm a miracle, dude. I don't know why," Swayze was quoted as saying shortly before he began work on the series.
Still, not one to sugarcoat the toll the disease took on him, Swayze told Walters the show's summer 2008 shoot was hell.
By the third episode in, at one point I didn't know if I was gonna finish this thing and I thought I'd made a big mistake," Swayze said. "It just made me angry at myself, though." Days before the Walters interview premiered, Swayze was hospitalized with pneumonia. He was released within a week and announced plans to write a memoir with his wife of 34 years, Lisa Niemi. The book was due this fall.
"I will write from my heart about these experiences and, aside from the sheer pleasure of doing it, if people happen to garner inspiration from it, or incentive, or find a new way to love, it would be wonderful," Swayze said in May. The statement was issued shortly after a radio-fueled Internet death rumor prompted the never-say-die actor to declare himself "alive and well."
Born Aug. 18, 1952, in Houston, Swayze was in his 30s and already something of a familiar face when he swiveled his hips to leading-man stardom in 1987's Dirty Dancing.
As Johnny Castle, the dangerous dance instructor from the Catskills who romances rich-girl pupil Baby Houseman, Swayze was able to showcase the moves that had been drilled into him since he was a boy, growing up as the son of Patsy Swayze, the choreographer of John Travolta's Urban Cowboy and other films.
Dirty Dancing became a sleeper hit and made brand names of Swayze, Jennifer Grey and choreographer Kenny Ortega. Swayze even scored a hit single, "She's Like the Wind," off the movie's blockbuster soundtrack.
Swayze had a bit in the franchise's belated 2004 sequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, but for the most part expanded his repertoire beyond the dance floor. He knocked heads as Dalton the bouncer in 1989's Road House, a beloved, if critically dismissed, popcorn picture, protected Demi Moore from beyond the grave as the slain Sam Wheat in 1990's Ghost, his biggest box-office hit, and surfed with Keanu Reeves in the 1991 caper film Point Break.
In 1992, Swayze went for Oscar gold as an American doctor working in the slums of India in City of Joy. But the film was a commercial and critical disappointment, and Swayze's film career never really recovered. Still, he continued to work, through good times and bad.
In 2002, Swayze, a longtime pilot, walked away from a crash of his Cessna 414 in Arizona. Witnesses said the actor seemed impaired and asked them to help dispose of an opened bottle of wine. The National Transportation Safety Board found that Swayze had possibly been made loopy by carbon monoxide gasses.
Other credits include: The Outsiders, Red Dawn and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, the drag-queen comedy-drama that brought Swayze a Golden Globe nomination. The Beast, during which Swayze made his last stand on screen, was canceled in June after one season.
To the end, Swayze kept his eye on new beginnings.
"I keep dreaming of a future," he said in January, "a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light."
(Originally published Sept. 14, 2009, at 5:01 p.m. PT)

[rfceicizgm]

My dad died from pancreatic cancer, and he was only 59.

Patrick will be missed by all. R.I.P.

[KinicsBonee]

Had uncles die of lung cancer, Grandmother and Mother had breast, and I was diagnosed when I was 25 (later turned out benign AFTER We went out of network).

Cancer sucks.

[RogHammon]

Lost a long-time best friend of almost 30 years to breast cancer last fall, almost a year ago. She was in remission for a while, then the cancer came back. One breast was removed, but the other one became affected a few years later.

It got her ovaries, Fallopian tubes, uterus, colon and whatever else. She DID have lupus which is also a form of cancer. During her last six months she was suffering very badly, but she was hiding it very well. But the diease had already spread through her body like wildfire! Things were shutting down.

Her daughter and granddaughter told me that her doc had already given her the sad news that she would only be alive for six more months or so, if that at all! She died just before the holiday season came in.

I'm told that when the disease returns for a 2nd time, it is with a serious vengeance! Her mom also died from breast cancer several years ago!

[OrefZorremn]

R.I.P.

Although I was a bit too young to be personally touched by his earlier works, he had a significant part in what may be my favorite movie -- Donnie Darko -- and for that I'll always have a soft spot for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2lBk1apr-w ..... "is that all the guster you can muster?!"

[adariseediups]

I'll always remember him for WOLVERINES!

[myhackingtosh_ws]

I'll remember him best for this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RajNvJ3bCU

[Apparpsmose]

Yeah, I remember Chris Farley from his SNL days.

Those pants looked too tight for him, and his butt crack was showing! Sadly, they're BOTH gone now.

[Alex]

...The cheeks?

[WFSdZuP3]

Just the top part. But he was also flapping his flab on his stomach around. Utterly gross!

[Jackson]

this cancer is one of the most highly corollated with smoking, even more than lung cancer. too bad he was so addicted to the smokes.

i saw most of roadhouse again recently, that was a good one too. wolverines! haha yeah that was another great flick -- ahh those cold war days. of course most people will probably remember him for dirty dancing.

[TaxSheemaSter]

Who was that, Christopher Reeves' widow who never smoked a day in her life, yet she died from lung cancer!

Tho boy (son), 14 at the time, must have been very devestated having lost BOTH parents at such a young age!