Patrick Swayze Dead at 57: A Retrospective of His Film and Television Career

After a two-year bout with pancreatic cancer, Dirty Dancing actor Patrick Swayze passed away on Monday at the age of 57, ABC News reports.

Swayze is best known for his late 1980s, early 1990s roles in such popular movies as Dirty Dancing, Road House, Ghost, and Point Break.

Swayze's struggle with pancreatic cancer was heavily chronicled on the covers of checkout tabloid magazines, as the actor appeared more and more gaunt. Even though Swayze was diagnosed with a life-threatening ailment, he surprised everyone by portraying the intense Charles Barker on the A&E television show The Beast in the last role of his life.

Born in Houston, Texas, Swayze brought his ballet background into an acting career with bit performances. It wasn't until Francis Ford Coppola cast him as Ponyboy's older brother Darrel Curtis in the all-star ensemble movie The Outsiders. A year later, he starred in the cold war parable Red Dawn. His early roles established Swayze as capable of playing strong, protective characters, and this would lead to his career's most memorable roles.

After impressing television viewers in the 1986 Civil War mini-series, North and South, Swayze would use his dancing background to forge the role of his life, in the classic 1980s movie, Dirty Dancing. The movie line that will be forever indebted to Swayze is "Nobody puts baby in a corner" from the film's dramatic climax. Swayze also performed "She's Like The Wind" on the film's soundtrack.

From Dirty Dancing, Swayze perfected his role as the strong, silent type as a bouncer in the B-movie Road House, and certainly gets enough exposure to today's audiences. As reported by Rolling Stone Magazine, Road House was aired 45 times in the past year.

The biggest box office success of Swayze's career was 1990's supernatural chick flick Ghost, featuring Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. Swayze's Sam Wheat was an acting milestone as well, as Swayze had to essentially lead the movie by himself, and keep the audience interested in his metaphysical angst.

The next year, he would play a villain, albeit a likable villain in the surfboard action movie Point Break, starring Keanu Reeves. Swayze brought a strong, zen quality to the skydiving bank robber Bodhi in the classic 1990s action movie.

Patrick Swayze also proved he could do comedy, as served as a memorable Saturday Night Live host. He played an excellent straight man to one of Chris Farley's most famous sketches, the Chippendale audition sketch (watch the video). In 1995, he stretched his comedy muscles as transvestite Vida in To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar.

Swayze encountered some personal problems around this time, including treatment for alcoholism and the mysterious circumstances involving a Cessna crash, in which he may have been covering up for intoxication. His film career was hitting the skids around the same time.

His roles started to skew away from the strong, silent type to the flawed, fragile type, appearing in more mature roles in Donnie Darko and 11:14. He would also make a brief cameo in the semi-sequel to Dirty Dancing entitled Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, in 2004.

In early 2008, Swayze was diagnosed with his pancreatic cancer. The tabloids had all but declared him dead, but he defied rumors, and impressed critics in his role in A&E's The Beast for 13 episodes of the first season. Production on the second season was delayed because Swayze's health situation was still up in the air.

Swayze died with wife Lisa Niemi by his side. The couple had no children.

ABC News, "Actor Patrick Swayze Dies of Pancreatic Cancer"
Wikipedia, "Patrick Swayze"
Rolling Stone (Magazine), "The Next Rerun of 'Road House'", September 17, 2009, Issue 1087, page 78
IMDB.com, "Patrick Swayze Filmography" provided film/character information