Patrick Swayze

I never saw Patrick Swayze in his breakout role in Dirty Dancing (1987), which seemed to dog him for the rest of his career. But I'm sure it was a great example of the stunning physicality and grace he seemed to bring to each of his performances. That grace helped elevate what could have been a silly role in a B-movie—the spectral Sam Wheat in Ghost (1990)—to one with which the romantic in all of us could identify. My first exposure to the sweet, yet volatile, actor was in Coppola's underrated classic The Outsiders (1983), where he brought a gravitas to the role of oldest brother Darrel that helped set an example for the rest of the cast, mostly made up of then unknown Brat Packers like Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and a young goofball by the name of Tom Cruise. Swayze would again be the anchor amongst his younger cohorts—Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey and others—in the right-wing Soviet invasion fantasy, Red Dawn (1984), where his horrified reaction to the thought of executing a friend who betrayed him ran counter to the movie's sensibilities, and generously provided a scene-stealing moment for fellow actor Howell. Because that was just the kind of actor he was. He'd take the backseat if he knew a fellow performer had a shot at stealing the show. How else can one explain his receding from view on a now legendary Saturday Night Live sketch, where Swayze—an athletic dancer—competes with the obese late comedian, Chris Farley, for a slot as a Chippendale dancer, and Farley wins the slot. However, Swayze was not above taking the spotlight when the situation called for it. As Southerner Orry Main in TV's Civil War miniseries, North and South (1985) and its sequel, he ran circles around his co-star James Read, who wrongly decided to underplay the part of his former best friend and Northerner, George Hazard. And he shone in an episode of Spielberg's Amazing Stories called "Life on Death Row" (1986), where—years before Stephen King wrote The Green Mile—he played a convicted murderer on Death Row who miraculously acquires the power to heal. All of this, Swayze accomplished before he hit it big with Dirty Dancing... which I did not see. Yes, Swayze had plenty of misfires after that, as many actors do in pursuit of the next big hit. Road House, Next of Kin, City of Joy are all... forgettable. But if there's one part that demonstrated that there was a powerful actor in there whose depths had not truly been plumbed, it was his role as the surfing philosopher/bank robber Bodhi in Point Break (1991). It even sounds funny when describing it. But Kathryn Bigelow's marvelous genre mash-up of surf movie by way of crime thriller is deservedly a cult classic, and it afforded Swayze his best chance yet to exhibit both his intensity as an actor and his physical ability. Instead of using a stunt double, he ended up doing all of the skydiving and most of the surfing himself. He never again had another part that quite harnessed his unique brand of energy in that way again. But as his determination to keep acting (in the daily grind of a TV series no less) while he fought with pancreatic cancer over the final years of his life demonstrated, and his near-40-year-long romance with wife Lisa Niemi attested, the man walked it like he talked it in his personal life also. Patrick Swayze died today at the age of 57. Recommended Films - The Outsiders, Red Dawn, Ghost, Point Break