After nearly two-years battle with virulent Pancreatic cancer, Patrick Swayze has finally succumbed and died in Los Angeles with his family on his side. His battle was played publicly as his photos, looking emaciated and crumpling, covered front pages of gossip magazines. He was 57.
Swayze is best-known for his role in the steamy “Dirty Dancing”, playing the dance instructor opposite Jennifer Grey in 1987, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, and later in “Ghost” romancing and haunting Demi Moore after he was murdered.
The half-Apache actor was raised in Houston, Texas, where his mother owned a ballet school. He trained as a dancer in Joffrey Ballet School in New York, where he also started his career in theatre and made his film debut in 1979 in “Skatetown, U.S.A.”
Other films he starred or played in are the surfing picture, “Point Break”, opposite Keanu Reeves, “Keeping Mum” opposite Kristin Scott Thomas, “Donnie Darko”, “Waking up in Reno”, “King Solomon’s Mines” and “Forever Lulu.”
Most recently, he starred as a tough FBI agent in the TV series “The Beast”.