August 18th: The Day Patrick Swayze was Born

Patrick Swayze would have celebrated his 60th birthday today. Born August 18th 1952, Swayze grew up in Houston, Texas, with a dancer, choreographer and dance-teacher for a mother. So that's where he got those moves from in Dirty Dancing! Swayze was most famous for his putting the 'man' in romantic, in roles for movies such as Ghost and the aforementioned Dirty Dancing. It was characters like these that won him the title of 'Sexiest Man Alive' by People Magazine in 1991. Sadly Patrick died in September 2009 after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
   Swayze's early professional career involved being a dancer for Disney on Parade and an understudy for the part of Danny Zuko in the Broadway production of Grease. Not too far away from working in a summer camp as a dance teacher...his role Dirty Dancing may have had some personal significance to Swayze himself after all (maybe)! His marriage to Lisa Neimi lasted from when he was 18 years old until he died, and Patrick has said Lisa was the inspiration for his one-hit-wonder 'She's Like The Wind'. Both Swayze's professional and personal lives had their ups and downs, as with the average human being, but his premature death aged 57 devastated his fan-base, as well as his friends and family.