“I keep my heart, soul, and spirit open to miracles.”
Patrick Swayze
Introduction
Fifteen years ago, Hollywood lost one of its most prolific actors. A man with chiselled features, a muscular body and the moves to match. An actor who has made many a woman swoon and sums up ultimate romance. Rugged, handsome and endearing, Patrick Swayze was the complete package on the cinema screen, but behind it was a bright and articulate man who sadly was dogged by hardship, loss and addiction. Yet they never seemed to impede his meteoric success. He was a man who his friends and family remembered as being decent, kind and fair. A highly versatile actor, playing the lover or action hero with ease. A movie star forever and someone who promised to take care of business and you.
The Texas Way
Born in 1952 in Houston, Texas, Patrick Swayze grew up in a household with a devoted father, Jesse and a complex and exacting mother, Patsy. His mother was a controlling dance teacher and forced her children to follow in her footsteps. A matriarch who Patrick described as “amazing but demanding” and one they had to work hard to seek her approval. The task was a series of dance competitions they never thought they could win.
Yet despite this gruelling childhood regime, Swayze found love at his mother’s dance studio. A woman who became his soulmate, life partner and wife, Lisa Niemi. It was a perfect love from the day they met—a woman who he loved with his dying breath and one who the sun and moon set on. After knee injuries forced Patrick out of football and ballet careers, he moved with Lisa to Los Angeles in 1978. A city where he would spend many a night driving up to Mulholland Drive, admiring the panoramic view and sitting there, looking over Hollywood’s lights, would plan and dream about his future film career, saying, “ I am going to conquer you.” “If I was going to make it in Hollywood, I had to believe I could do it.”
This inner strength and belief paid off because, in 1983, Swayze landed a breakthrough role in The Outsiders with Tom Cruise. The film also stars Rob Lowe and Thomas Howell, and Patrick teaches Tom how to do a backflip during filming. It was a film where Swayze and Howell would forge a lifelong brotherlike relationship. Patrick was the big brother, protecting Thomas on the movie set they worked on together. Within two years, Patrick worked on the highly successful television network North and South with Gene Hackman. In it, Patrick shows his accurate acting skills, as well as a particular person and a beloved actor.
The Ultimate
Unknown to Swayze, he was about to be propelled into ultimate stardom in a film earmarked initially for straight-to-video release. A film that turned into a global phenomenon. It was, of course, the 1987 film Dirty Dancing. Swayze didn’t like the fluffy script but took the challenge and agreed to take the job. He saw it as an opportunity to stretch himself as an actor; the same mindset instilled in him by his mother and his craft turned the film into an extremely powerful and the ultimate combination of love and dance entwined. The line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” sums up the movie. A poignant line that sums up Swayze’s own life. The name could easily be replaced by his own, spending his early life fighting not to be pigeonholed as the pretty boy dancer and determined not to be forced into a corner in life.
More smash hits would follow with the films Road House and Ghost. Ghost, co-starring Demi Moore, is the ultimate romantic picture. He plays a tough guy who has a sensitive side. It was a part that he didn’t need to express his character; it just flowed naturally and was a delight to watch. Yet, away from the cameras, Swayze was struggling with the death of his beloved father. His passing in 1982 caused Patrick to start drinking heavily. He felt a bottomless pain that no matter how much he drank, he couldn’t feel anything. So he just kept drinking.
Despite this inner pain, more success would follow with Point Break. He got it to play an adrenaline junkie who did his stunts, surfed, drove fast cars and skydived and ran in the movie. A role that he got to choose for himself. He was an actor who was the ultimate risk-taker, pushing himself to the point of no return. It fed him more than any food could. Yet more pain would follow when Niemi miscarried in 1990, and he hit the bottle hard as a result. He ended up going into rehab in 1992. Tragedy struck again when he fell off a horse whilst shooting the film Letters from a Killer. He broke both his legs. He recovered to finish the film but decided to retreat with his wife to a ranch in Mexico for several years.
Patrick was the happiest, surrounded by his wife, horses and dogs. He was magnificent on a horse, and it was when he was at one with life. Moments that were special and breathtaking. For the next decade, his life was peaceful, but whilst filming The Beast, he received the devastating news that he had developed pancreatic cancer. This stage IV diagnosis gave him a 98 percent chance of dying. Yet despite this, he held on to the hole of a 2 percent survival. A cancer that he was determined to beat, kick its arse and win. He continued to work despite aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He was flying back and forth to film between sessions. He fought like a warrior and never lost hope. A battle that he lost in 2009, aged 57.
