Patrick Swayze

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Patrick Swayze was an American actor, singer-songwriter and dancer who collected three Golden Globe nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1991, People magazine named him Sexiest Man Alive. Behind the glossy résumé sits an unlikely story. He was a Texas kid whose first ambitions had nothing to do with movie screens. He later wrote a hit song, and he became famous in a film that almost nobody expected to last. This documentary asks where his unusual mix of toughness and grace came from. It asks why one low-budget picture changed everything for him, and why so many of his biggest moments came with physical risk attached. And it asks how he faced the final stretch of his life in front of the public.

  14287

• 2. A Dancer's Son

  ›

  Patsy Swayze, born Patsy Karnes, worked as a dancer, choreographer and dance instructor, and her second child, Patrick Wayne Swayze, was born in Houston, Texas, on the 18th of August 1952. His father, Jesse Wayne Swayze, was an engineering draftsman. The family grew to include an older sister, Vickie, two younger brothers, Don and Sean, and a younger adopted sister, Bambi. Don would also become an actor.

  The family name has a long trail. A paternal ancestor, the Englishman John Swasey from Bridport in Dorset, sailed on the Recovery during the Puritan migration and reached the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John's grandson Samuel, a judge, was among the first to spell the name Swayze. Patrick's uncle Bruce made his living as a professional wrestler.

  Patrick grew up in Houston's Oak Forest neighborhood. He attended St. Rose of Lima Catholic School and Frank Black Middle School, then graduated from Waltrip High School and went on to San Jacinto College Central. In those years he took up ice skating, classical ballet and school plays, and he also played high school football in the hope of a college scholarship. A knee injury ended that plan.

  The injury touched another part of his life. His draft lottery number for Vietnam was 141, a number called in 1970, yet the seriousness of his knee may have kept him out. Meanwhile he trained in Wushu, Taekwondo and Aikido, which he used to channel what he called his self-deprecating rage.

  In 1972, at age 20, he moved to New York City to finish his formal dance training at the Harkness Ballet and Joffrey Ballet schools. The choreographer Eliot Feld soon planned a ballet for Swayze and Mikhail Baryshnikov together. Swayze's knee reconstruction stopped it before it could be staged.

  12348

• 3. The Long Road to Leading Man

  ›

  His earliest paid stage work was as a dancer with the Disney Theatrical Group, in a show called Disney on Parade. Next came a spot in one of the replacement casts of the long-running Broadway production of Grease, where he played Danny Zuko. His film debut followed in 1979, when he played Ace in Skatetown, U.S.A.

  The early years were scattered. At the height of disco, he appeared in a Pabst Blue Ribbon commercial, going on a date at a disco-themed nightclub to a disco version of the brand's jingle. In 1981 he turned up on MAS*H as Private Sturgis, a soldier with minor wounds who turns out to be terminally ill with leukemia. He also played a gang member in the video for Rosanna by Toto, and appeared in the TV movie Return of the Rebels with Barbara Eden. In 1983 he had a short run on the series The Renegades, as a gang leader named Bandit.

  The turning point came in 1983, when he won the part of Darrel Curtis, called Darry, in Francis Ford Coppola's film of S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders. The ensemble around him included Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Leif Garrett, C. Thomas Howell, Diane Lane, Rob Lowe and Ralph Macchio. That same year he played a Marine Corps trainer opposite Gene Hackman in the Vietnam rescue film Uncommon Valor.

  In 1984, Swayze reunited with Howell and with Darren Dalton, another Outsiders actor, in Red Dawn, which also starred Jennifer Grey. His first major dramatic success arrived with the 1985 television miniseries North and South, set during the American Civil War. In 1986 he and Rob Lowe teamed up again in Youngblood, a film that would matter later for a different co-star.

  182029353

• 4. The One-Week Movie

  ›

  Dirty Dancing came out in 1987 as a low-budget film with modest plans. It was meant for a one-week release, after which it was to head to video. Swayze played Johnny Castle, a resort dance instructor, opposite Jennifer Grey. The story let him dance, romance his co-star and use all of his professional training.

  He contributed to the music as well. Swayze co-composed and sang "She's Like the Wind" for the soundtrack, a song he had first co-written with Stacy Widelitz in 1984 for the film Grandview, U.S.A. It became a top 10 hit and has since been covered by other artists.

  The film itself followed an odd arc. It began as a surprise hit, then grew into an enormous international success. It was the first film to sell one million copies on video, and by 2009 it had earned more than $214 million worldwide.

  Its afterlife ran wide. Derivative versions included a television series, stage productions and a computer game. Swayze earned a Golden Globe nomination for the role, and offers started arriving. One of them was Road House in 1989, in which he appeared with Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara and Kelly Lynch.

  22232445

• 5. Ghost and What Followed

  ›

  In 1990, Swayze played Sam Wheat in Ghost, a supernatural romantic thriller with Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg and Tony Goldwyn. It was the highest-grossing film of 1990, and the most rented videocassette of 1991. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Swayze earned another Golden Globe nomination.

  Goldberg's casting had a behind-the-scenes link to him. Swayze was the person who persuaded the producers to hire her. When she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she thanked him in her acceptance speech. The scene in which he and Moore share a pottery wheel has become one of the film's most recognized moments.

  The next year he teamed up with his Youngblood co-star Keanu Reeves in the action hit Point Break, doing many of his own skydiving stunts. Then in 1995 came To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Swayze appeared with Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo as one of three drag queens whose car breaks down on a cross-country trip, leaving them stuck in a small town. The role brought his third Golden Globe nomination.

  After the 1990s, his career would take stranger turns, including a role in a film that would later gather a cult following.

  2324252628

• 6. Marriage and Belief

  ›

  Swayze and Lisa Niemi met in 1970. He was 18 years old, and she was 14 and taking dance lessons from his mother. They married on the 12th of June 1975, and the marriage lasted 34 years, until his death. They had no children, though Lisa suffered one miscarriage. In a 2008 interview, he said that Niemi was the inspiration for "She's Like the Wind."

  They also worked together. In 2003, Swayze co-produced and starred in the fictional dance film One Last Dance with Niemi, who was his real-life wife. The story is built around an actual dance production, Without a Word, choreographed by Alonzo King. The couple produced it, acted in it and composed some of its music.

  His inner life took in many practices. He advocated transcendental meditation and practiced Buddhism throughout his life. In 1989 he explained that he had always sensed something different in his personality, and he feared that looking for it would turn up nothing. He tried EST training, therapy and meditation. As he put it, "in Texas, there isn't much support for that part of you."

  He finally found what he wanted in Soka Gakkai Buddhist practice. Swayze said he loved exploring different faiths and belief systems, and that respecting other religious teachings was important to him.

  134452945

• 7. Falls and Flights

  ›

  In May 1997, Swayze was filming the HBO movie Letters from a Killer near Ione, California, when he fell from a horse and hit a tree. Both of his legs were broken, and four tendons in his shoulder were torn loose. Filming was suspended for two months, and the movie aired in 1998.

  His recovery was slow. He had trouble getting back into his career until 2000, when he co-starred with Melanie Griffith in Forever Lulu.

  Alcohol had a hold on him too. After his father's death, Swayze fought alcoholism for ten years, a battle he later discussed in public. He entered rehabilitation in the 1990s. Afterward he stepped away from show business for a time and stayed on his ranches in California and New Mexico, where he bred Arabian horses. His best-known horse was Tammen, a chestnut Arabian stallion.

  On the 1st of June 2000, Swayze made the news while flying his twin-engined Cessna 414 from Van Nuys, California, toward Las Vegas, New Mexico, with his dogs aboard. A pilot with an FAA license and an instrument rating, he faced a pressurization problem and made a precautionary landing on a dirt road in a housing complex in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The right wing struck a light pole, and he was unharmed.

  The police report said witnesses found him extremely intoxicated, and that he asked for help removing evidence, an open bottle of wine and a 30-pack of beer. He was unavailable to police for several hours. A later finding was that the alcohol had been in external storage compartments that cannot be reached in flight. The probable cause was impairment from carbon monoxide, from engine exhaust and from heavy tobacco use, combined with lost cabin pressure, which produced hypoxia.

  On the 27th of December 2006, a second scare came while he and Niemi, also a licensed pilot, flew the Cessna toward their New Mexico ranch. They lost power on the climb, and then the right engine failed completely. Niemi, in the pilot's seat, landed safely at Van Nuys. The couple sold the plane and bought a Beechcraft Super King Air through their company, Prop Jocks Inc., in June 2007.

  2947484950

• 8. The Final Decade

  ›

  In 2001, Swayze played Jim Cunningham in Donnie Darko, a motivational speaker whose secret is dark. The film later built a cult following. He then co-starred with Billy Bob Thornton and Charlize Theron in Waking Up in Reno, a story of two couples driving from Little Rock to Reno for a monster truck rally. In 2004 he played Allan Quatermain in King Solomon's Mines, and appeared in a cameo as an unnamed dance instructor in the Dirty Dancing prequel Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.

  The stage called him back. He debuted in London's West End as Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls on the 27th of July 2006, and stayed in the role until the 25th of November that year. His earlier Broadway work included Goodtime Charley in 1975 and Chicago, in which he played Billy Flynn. He also voiced Cash, a dog in a country music band, in The Fox and the Hound 2. In Powder Blue, released in 2009, he played an aging rock star, and it was the first film he made with his younger brother Don.

  His last role was FBI agent Charles Barker in The Beast, an A&E drama filmed in Chicago. In late December 2007, just after filming the pilot, he felt a burning in his stomach caused by a blockage of his bile ducts. Roughly three weeks later, in mid-January 2008, doctors diagnosed stage IV pancreatic cancer. He went to the Stanford University Medical Center for chemotherapy and for an experimental drug, vatalanib, which doctors hoped would cut off the tumor's blood supply.

  Reports swirled. On the 5th of March 2008, a Reuters article said his disease was limited and that he seemed to be responding well. His doctor insisted he was not as close to death as some reports suggested. Tabloids kept predicting the end, yet Swayze kept working. He appeared at a Los Angeles Lakers game in late May, his first public outing since the diagnosis, and in June 2008 he said his treatments were working.

  In September 2008, he appeared on the Stand Up to Cancer simulcast on ABC, NBC and CBS to ask for donations. To a standing ovation he said, "I dream that the word 'cure' will no longer be followed by the words 'it's impossible'." Afterward, he stayed on stage to talk with other cancer patients, among them the executive producer Laura Ziskin, who was herself battling advanced breast cancer.

  On the 2nd of December 2008, Swayze denied tabloid claims that the cancer had reached his liver. In a Barbara Walters interview that aired in January 2009, however, he admitted to a tiny little mass there, and said he wanted the media to report that he was kicking it. Asked about alternative treatments, he mentioned Chinese herbs, and he spoke against unsupported claims made for alternative therapies.

  The Beast premiered on the 15th of January 2009 and ran for one season. The critic Alan Sepinwall wrote that it showed the best performance of Swayze's career, and suggested the role and the illness might be feeding each other. Swayze was hospitalized with pneumonia on the 9th of January, a complication of chemotherapy, and went home on the 16th. On the 19th of April, doctors told him the cancer had again spread to his liver.

  He had smoked for 40 years, once saying he went through 60 cigarettes a day. He acknowledged that chain smoking had probably contributed to his illness, yet he kept smoking during treatment. Patrick Swayze died at home on the 14th of September 2009, at age 57, twenty months after his diagnosis. His publicist confirmed the cause to CNN. That same year, the Houston Film Critics Society gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

  3940546270