Patrick Swayze, Who Went from Broadway to Film Stardom, Dead at 57

Patrick Swayze, who got his start on Broadway and went on to headline iconic Hollywood movies like Dirty Dancing and Ghost died on September 14 after a public battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," Swayze’s publicist Annett Wolf said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Although he’s best known for his work on the big screen, Swayze got his start as a dancer in Houston, Texas, where he grew up and studied at the dance school of his mother, choreographer Patsy Swayze. He moved to New York City in his late teens and studied ballet with the Joffrey and Harkness Ballet Companies and was hired as a principal dancer at the Eliot Feld Ballet Company.

Swayze soon found the lights of Broadway, appearing as a dancer in the 1975 Joel Grey vehicle Goodtime Charley at the Palace Theatre and as a replacement Danny Zuko in the original Broadway production of Grease.

Swayze made a brief return to Broadway in 2003, appearing as Billy Flynn in Chicago (a role he also played on the road) for a two-week holiday run. In 2006, he played Nathan Detroit in the hit London revival of Guys and Dolls.

Hollywood beckoned Swayze, who found small, memorable roles in 1980s fare like The Outsiders, Grandview, U.S.A., Red Dawn and the Civil War miniseries North and South. But it was Dirty Dancing, the smash summer hit of 1987, that made him a star.

As Dirty Dancing’s Johnny Castle, a sexy dance instructor romancing a shy girl vacationing at a Catskills resort with her family in the 1960s, Swayze found a role that fit him like a glove and turned him into one of Hollywood’s leading stars. His romantic pairing with Demi Moore in 1990’s Ghost only cemented that status. Swayze was honored with Golden Globe Award nominations for both roles, as well as for his surprising motherly turn in drag in To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar in 1995.

His other credits include Road House, Point Break, Donnie Darko, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights and the recent series The Beast.

Swayze is survived by his wife since 1975, Lisa Niemi, his mother and a brother, Don Swayze.