Patrick started his professional career as a dancer and  starring as replacement for Danny Zuco in the long running original production of the Broadway musical “Grease”.

His breakthrough in the Movie industry came with  Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders”, a generation cult movie which included in the cast young actors such as Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and  Thomas Howell. The following year he starred in the hit movie “Red Dawn”.

Despite the success of these movies, Patrick Swayze was still  not-known to the large audiences, but in 1987 he starred in a low budget movie that was intended to be shown in theatres for one weekend and then go directly to video. The name of the movie was “Dirty Dancing” and Swayze played the role of dancer instructor Johnny Castle.  Surprisingly the movie became a hit and earned more then $300 million worldwide. Swayze sang one of the songs of the movie “She is Like the Wind” that reached the top of the charts and for which he also received a Golden Globe Award nomination for his role in the movie.

In 1990 came his biggest success “Ghost”, playing the character of Sam Wheat. The movie, which included in the cast Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, was one of the most seen movies of the year and Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for her role.


The movie career of Patrick Swayze continued in the early ‘90s with movies like “Point Break” and in 1991 he was name by People Magazine “Sexiest Man Alive”.
In 1995 he received another Golden Globe Award Nomination for his drag queen character in “To Wong Foo”, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar”.


Unfortunately in 1994 Patrick Swayze was hit by a family tragedy, his sister, Vicky, committed suicide, and he started to have alcohol problems, that influenced his growing acting career.

Swayze will be always remembered for the roles of Sam in “Ghost” and Johnny in “Dirty Dancing”.



"Nobody puts Baby in a Corner." Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing”