2009 - The Year of Dispatches

Patrick Swayze, who sent hearts a-thumping in Dirty Dancing and Ghost has passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer. At just 57 years of age, this is too young an age for anyone to die. Swayze was married to Lisa Niemi for 34 years, and worked right up until the end on US crime show The Beast.


Swayze cemented his acting talents early on (1983 to be exact) in cult-hit, The Outsiders, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring very young Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe.


Later, he appeared as hot surfer-without-a-cause alongside Keanu Reeves in Point Break. God, I loved that movie (it came out during my peak Reeves-obsession). He later dabbled in cross-dressing, appearing as a transvestite in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything.

Things started to tail off after that, although when you can cash in on Dirty Dancing for the rest of your life, who wouldn't? He was lauded for his work on The Beast, particularly given the public announcement of his illness in 2008. It was sad to see him go, but worse was the media maelstrom for his allegedly fake illness. Clearly, not the case.