"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of her illness during the past 20 months," said a statement issued last night by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.
He had continued working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memory book with his wife and the shooting of "The Beast", a drama series for A & E had already done the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A & E said he had reluctantly decided not to renew for a second season.
Swayze says he chose not to use painkillers while "The Beast" because it would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that the time might be running in response to the severe nature of the disease.
The first time I went public with the disease, some reports were given only weeks to live, but her doctor told her that her situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that.
Thought I'd say five years is pretty optimistic, "Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters, in early 2009. "Two years seems likely that if you will believe the statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means it will be better than a fire underneath it."
The three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad boy Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing. "As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, it seemed natural for the role.
A coming-of-age romance starring Jennifer Gray as an idealistic young man vacationing with his family and instructor Swayze as sexy (and much older than the Catskills resort's) dance, the film made extensive use of his grace, both on their feet and muscular fitness.
It became an international phenomenon in the summer of 1987, spawning albums, an Oscar-winning song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", theater productions and a 2004 sequel "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights "which made a cameo.
Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad "She's Like the Wind", inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the opportunity to utter the now classic line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."
And he was allowed to make fun of himself in an episode of Saturday Night Live, "where she played an aspiring Chippendales dancer with the big - and terribly shirtless - Chris Farley.
A major Crowdpleaser, the film drew only mixed reviews from critics, however, Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times, "Given the limitations of his role, a poor sex but beautiful abused by the Wealthy women in Kellerman's Mountain House, Mr. Swayze also good. ... It is at its best - as is the movie - when he's dancing.
Swayze continued with the 1989 action film "Road House", in which he played a security guard in a noisy bar. But it was his performance in 1990 "Ghost", which showed their vulnerability, sensitive side. He played a man killed trying to communicate with his girlfriend (Demi Moore) - with great frustration and nostalgia - through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.
Swayze said at the time who fought for the role of Sam Wheat (director Jerry Zucker wanted Kevin Kline), but once was on a test and read six scenes, he succeeded.
Why did the part so badly? "It made me mourn for four or five times," said Bruce Joel Rubin Oscar-winning script in an interview with The Associated Press.
"Ghost", provided another indelible musical moment: Swayze and Moore sensuously shaped pottery with the strains of "The Righteous Brothers" Unchained Melody. "She also won a best picture nomination and a supporting actress Oscar for Goldberg, who said he would not have won if not for Swayze.
"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg said in March 2008 on the ABC daytime talk "The View".
Swayze is received three nominations for the Golden Globe for "Dirty Dancing", "Ghost" and 1995 "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," which also allowed him to play with his masculine image. The callback function to play a drag queen on a cross country walk with Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo.
Its status as an idol, almost prevented him from being considered for the role of Vida Boheme.
"I could not get it because everyone saw me as terminals via heterosexual male-chauvinist," he told the AP then. But he turned so completely that when the test was sent to Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Pictures produced "To Wong Foo," Spielberg did not recognize him.
Among his previous films, Swayze was part of the star players and top newcomers in the 1983 adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola's SE Hinton's novel "The Outsiders" opposite Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio , Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane. Swayze played Darrel "Dary" Curtis, the eldest of three whimsical - and essentially the father figure - in a poor family in a small town in Oklahoma.
80 other films include "Red Dawn," "Grandview USA" (for which he also provided choreography) and "Youngblood", again with Lowe as fellow Canadian hockey team.
In the '90s, he made films as eclectic as "Point Break" (1991), in which he played the leader of a gang of surfer bank robbery, and the Western family "Tall Tale" (1995), which served as Pecos Bill. Appeared on the cover of People magazine as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991, but his career declined towards the end of the 1990s, when it also had stayed in rehab for alcohol abuse. In 2001, she appeared in the cult film "Donnie Darko" and in 2003 he returned to New York stage with "Chicago", 2006 found him in the musical "Guys and Dolls" in London.
Swayze was born in 1952 in Houston, the son of Jesse Swayze and choreographer Patsy Swayze, whose films include "Urban Cowboy".
He played football, but also brought to the dance and theater, performing with the Feld, Harkness and Joffrey Ballet and appearing on Broadway as Danny Zuko in "Grease". But he returned to acting in 1978 after a series of injuries.
Within a couple of years moving to Los Angeles, debuted at the roller disco film "Skatetown, USA" The eclectic cast includes Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormack and Billy Barty.
Swayze had a couple of movies in the works when the diagnosis was announced, including the drama "Powder Blue" starring Jessica Biel, Forest Whitaker and his younger brother, Don, who was scheduled for this year.
Off screen, an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on the greed "of man and the absolute unwillingness to operate under the laws of Mother Nature", told the AP in 2004.
Swayze was married from 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took classes with her mother, who met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot Niemi her husband would fly from Los Angeles to northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center, reported People magazine in a cover story
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