Sep 14, 2009 10:12 pm US/Central
Swayze's Last Project Filmed In Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
-
-
Actor Patrick Swayze accepts the Independent Career Achievement Award at the Video Software Dealers Association's award show at the organization's annual home video convention at the Bellagio on July 27, 2005 in Las Vegas.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
He was an actor whose films left their mark on a generation. Best known for his roles in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, actor Patrick Swayze died Monday after a battle with cancer. He was 57.
Swayze's last project was "The Beast," a television series shot here in Chicago. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports that Swayze's battle with cancer was quite public, his death even erroneously reported at various times throughout the past 20 months.
He gave audiences the time of their lives in films like 1987's surprise hit Dirty Dancing. Swayze became an instant heartthrob, a muscular and agile actor whose many talents served him well on the big screen.
"My dream growing up was I wanted to be as athletic a dancer as Gene Kelly and as smooth as Fred Astaire, but I wanted the cool of Frank Sinatra," Swayze once said.
It was the 1991 romantic thriller Ghost – in which he played a murdered banker – that turned the Texas-born Swayze into a leading man. In his private life, People's sexiest man alive was married to the same woman for more than 30 years, Lisa Niemi.
In subsequent years, Swayze's career had its highs and lows. At 55, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Still, he kept on working right here in Chicago, filming his A&E series The Beast.
Actor Michael Vieau, who played opposite Swayze on his first day back to work from intensive chemotherapy, remembered how inspiring Swayze could be.
"I think he knew that his time was short and he wanted to go out on his terms and he did it working. He wanted to be an actor," Vieau said. "I was amazed that a person who was going through chemotherapy had that much energy. We were doing really, really long shoots. He would make cancer jokes, um, about his weight loss. He felt it was the funner way to move forward."
During an interview with Barbar Walters after he was diagnosed with cancer, Swayze said, "I want to last until they find a cure; which means I better get a fire under it."
Vieau said Swayze constantly had his wife and family -- even his dogs -- by his side during filming in Chicago. According to Swayze's publicist, they were also at his side when he passed.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
The Tattooed Ladies of Hollywood
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments