Swayze Goes Home to Die: Tab

Actor didn't want to be just another pretty face, made sure he wasn't

(NEWSER) - Patrick Swayze, who died today at 57, wasn’t the first choice for the male lead in Dirty Dancing, the BBC notes, but “his performance earned him award nominations and a place on bedroom walls of lovelorn teenage girls around the world.” He eschewed Hollywood’s scene—preferring his ranches—and its bed-hopping—he and Lisa Niemi were married 34 years. Swayze also wanted little to do with a pretty-boy image, he said: “It wouldn’t have been worth it if I had been stuck as the leading man or the dance guy.” More»

Dirty Dancing star diagnosed with deadly pancreatic cancer in Jan. 2008

(NEWSER) - Patrick Swayze died today, TMZ reports, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. The actor, whose credits included Dirty Dancing and Ghost, was 57. Named People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1991, he was diagnosed with the deadly form of cancer in January 2008; he continued film and TV work, and was working on a memoir with his wife, Lisa Niemi, the AP adds. More»

(NEWSER) - "Yeah, I'm scared. Yeah, I'm angry. Yeah, I'm all that stuff," Patrick Swayze tells Barbara Walters in a candid interview that airs tomorrow, the first since his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. "I'm going through hell, and I've only just seen the beginning of it." Swayze was determined not only to live but to act, so for 5 months he doubled up chemotherapy with grueling 12-hour days shooting the TV series the Beast. More»

Lisa Niemi talks of their marriage, his last days

(NEWSER) - Nearly 7 months after Patrick Swayze’s death, “it’s not getting better” for widow Lisa Niemi, she says. She discusses her grief, her husband’s death, and their life together with the Times of London.

• Her emotions: “I have a myriad of feelings. Some are extreme, some are a general malaise, sometimes it’s like someone has poured gasoline on me and set me on fire.”
• His last days: “We told each other we loved each other over and over again. I never left the room without telling him. It still didn’t feel like enough.”

Lisa Niemi, Elizabeth Smart, Maria Shriver take part in Women's Conference

(NEWSER) - Just six weeks after losing her husband, Lisa Niemi spoke publicly for the first time about Patrick Swayze's death at yesterday's Women's Conference in California. "I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again," she said, "and I'm just going to have to go on until then." Niemi will also sit down with Oprah Winfrey on Friday. More from the conference: More»