As the banker who solves his own murder mystery, he speaks from the dead to his living sweetheart, Demi Moore. Mr. Swayze, impossibly sexy and throbbingly sensitive, tells her: "It's amazing, the love inside. You take it with you."
That's a reassuring thought for Lisa Niemi, Mr. Swayze's wife of 34 years, and for his many fans who greeted the actor's March 2008 announcement that he had Stage IV pancreatic cancer with prayers and prayer circles. (See patrickswayze.net).
There are great actors and there are great screen personalities. Mr. Swayze was the latter. His reputation rests on Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and what made them beloved was his gallantry. Quite simply, he radiated Galahad-like honor. "Patrick possessed a depth of nobility," said his Point Break director Kathryn Bigelow.
Even while undergoing chemotherapy, Mr. Swayze put in long hours on the television cable drama The Beast on A&E.
Along with Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Ralph Macchio, Mr. Swayze was cast in Francis Coppola's The Outsiders, the 1983 teen-angst drama considered the first "Brat Pack" film. Although Mr. Swayze opted for neither the commercial path taken by Cruise nor the trailblazing one of Dillon, the late actor possessed a spark - and a sparkle - that few of his peers could match.
Even as a teenager, this firstborn son of a cowboy and a choreographer boasted a rugged grace, excelling both on the football gridiron and at the ballet barre. Like John Travolta, whose mother was also a choreographer, Mr. Swayze had swagger and sincerity.
But he wasn't one for locker-room bragging, which he disdained as "kill-that-guy" talk. Between that and the ballet lessons, he was frequently roughed up by the local bullies for being a sissy. Mr. Swayze followed the counsel of his mother, Patsy: "Take your ballet slippers outta your pocket and beat the stuffin' out of them" - them being the bullies.
