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By Kim Morgan
Special to MSN Movies
"Nobody puts Baby in the corner."
How many young girls (and older women, and many men as well) swooned when that hunky yet sensitive, uber masculine yet beautifully graceful Patrick Swayze stood up for the awkward, nerdy Jennifer Grey in the admittedly cheesy but now classic "Dirty Dancing"? Legions. Legions. I remember sitting on the school bus in 1987, wondering what these girls were yammering on and on this 1960s-era story of the mismatched but eventual love between a Catskills dance instructor/bad boy and a sweet, smart but insecure vacationing teenager. When I saw the movie (a huge, sleeper hit; the "Grease" of the 1980s), I thought, wow, kind of cornpone, but there is something here. There was a definite "it" quality to the picture that spiked right into the world's romantic fantasy jugular. And, for me, that "it" was Swayze. He was the movie. Now, 22 years later, the star has died after a nearly two-year battle with pancreatic cancer.
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His dancing was not only erotic swagger; he brought the heart and soul and heat and sexuality and even a wounded vulnerability to his part (and the music, particularly the Otis Redding, helped). Much like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," this was a man (not a little boy, but a man) dancing with such impressive athleticism and grace that, no matter what you may have thought of the movie itself, you could not take your eyes off of him.
Born in 1952 in Houston, this rough-around-the-edges "Road House" toughie was actually (and perhaps, not surprisingly) the son of a choreographer/dancer mother, who influenced young Swayze toward dance. Rounding out his abilities nicely, he took up ice skating, classical ballet, gymnastics and acting. But it's the dancing that stuck, so, in 1972, he completed his formal dance training in New York at the Harkness and Joffrey ballet schools.
And yet the dancing wasn't originally what gave him notice in Hollywood. It was the movie in which I first saw him: Francis Ford Coppola's lovingly made "The Outsiders," in which he played Darrel, the older, greaser brother and concerned surrogate parent for his troubled Tulsan siblings Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) and Sodapop (Rob Lowe). He had a rugged, likable yet stern quality that carried over into works like "Red Dawn," "Youngblood" and the Civil War TV miniseries "North and South," a critical and commercial success for Swayze. This somewhat odd looking yet severely handsome man who could rumble, carry heavy artillery and fight among the blue had arrived. He was well on his way to becoming a huge star. Who even knew this guy was a dancer? By 1987, everyone.
But most Hollywood careers have their ups and downs, and, for a short time, Swayze landed a few duds. He did make "Road House," the story of Swayze's bar "cooler" taking on drunks, a hot blonde and a town run by a ridiculously neofascist Ben Gazzara that has since (and deservedly) become a cult classic.
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