We take the good w/ the bad

JUST a few minutes after we rejoiced that the MV Irene crew had been freed, we found out that one of our favorite actors, Patrick Swayze passed away, after a 20-month bout with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

I had been looking forward to the second season of The Beast, an excellent TV show where he plays an undercover FBI agent but read that Patrick was just too sick to carry on another season. He made a few memorable films like Ghost (which I actually hated for being uber-cheesy) opposite Demi Moore as her dead husband trying to contact her through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg, and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar where he sashayed as a drag queen w/ Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo.

But we will forever remember him as the sexy dance instructor in Dirty Dancing, a coming-of-age film for many of us who grew up in the '80s. Nobody puts Baby in a corner," he said, as he sweeps Baby (Jennifer Grey) away from her family and twirls together in front of the other resort guests in a grand finale to the tune, Time of My Life. (Embedding disabled so just click on the song title.)

Here's a memorable scene from another favorite Swayze starrer, To Wong Foo:



And here's Patrick with his wife Lisa Nieme at the World Music Awards in 1994. He was such a graceful dancer.



Keep on dancing Patrick.