DIRTY DANCING PATRICK SWAYZE DEAD AT 57

Patrick Swayze

Patrick Swayze has died after a very long fight with pancreatic cancer yesterday in Los Angeles California, his publicist said. He was 57. "Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," Annett Wolf said in a statement Monday evening. She declined to give any more details. The Dirty Dancing star was suffering from an especially deadly form of cancer. He continued working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. Swayze said he chose not to use painkillers while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. The show drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran this year, but A&E said it reluctantly decided not to renew it for another season. Patrick went public with the illness, and media reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that. Swayze acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the horrible disease. "I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters in early 2009. "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it." Then the award winning actor did just that and wrote a Op Ed piece for the Washington Post titled, "I'm Battling Cancer. How About Some Help, Congress?" How About Some Help, Congress?" in which he urged senators and representatives to vote for the maximum funding for the National Institutes of Health to fight cancer as part of the economic stimulus package. He also appeared in the September 2008 live television event "Stand Up to Cancer," where he pleaded: "I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, a life not lived in the shadow of cancer, but in the light. ... I dream that the word `cure' will no longer be followed by the words `is impossible.'" Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot, Niemi would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center.
Photos By: Sara De Boer And Walter McBride/Retna