“Nobody Puts Baby In A Coffin!” – R.I.P. Patrick Swayze

Once when we asked a female co-worker why women liked Dirty Dancing so much, she answered succinctly, “Because it makes us horny.” Those of us who were prepubescent when Dirty Dancing came out in 1987, caught the undeniably sexy swerve of leading man Patrick Swayze’s hips, but missed the deeper message of “dance = sexual awakening” in a wash of bad oldies music and late 80’s estrogen.
But the older homos knew better. Swayze was the child of a draughtsman and a choreographer—the perfect mix of blue collar and pink lace. He knew those dance moves for a reason and it wasn’t because of Dancing‘s homely female lead and it wasn’t because he was light on his feet. The man was electric sex, mullet and all. The music moved to his hips, not the other way around, and you watched Dirty Dancing just to see what those hips would do next.
Some of us didn’t catch on to Swayze’s allure until we saw him shirtless at the potter’s wheel in Ghost. Demi Moore basically looked like a dude in her short hair and overalls; watching them kiss gave us hope for our own arts and crafts hour. Then, when we saw Road House half-drunk in a college bar, we finally understood. Road House is an 80’s action camp classic and hands down his masterpiece.
Yes, Road House is also his biggest box-office flop, but it also showcases Swayze’s every talent: his intense eyes, his muscular body, his lightning quick kung-fu moves executed with a bouncer’s grip and a ballerina’s grace. He protects the dignity of his friends in back-to-back bar brawls, he fucks a female doctor against a wall like some sort of manimal, and later he tears out a man’s throat with his bare hands.
Watching it, you get the sense that he knew just how campy and laughable it was, just like he did in the Chippendale’s sketch for Saturday Night Live—he did it with a grin and his mullet held high. Road House has since been turned into a drinking game, but everyone who watches it agrees—it is a fun movie, just as Dirty Dancing is a sexy movie, and Ghost is a heartbreaking love story. Swayze’s own life ends with a bit of a heartbreak.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer barely a year ago in January 2008 and died at 57, a relatively young age for one with such vitality. He met his wife, Niemi, when he was 18; she was a 14-year-old taking dance lessons from his mother. They got married in 1975 and she stayed with him through his alcoholism, his repeated changes of religion, his playing a pedophile in Donnie Darko, his painful chemotherapy treaments, and was at his bedside when he finally passed on.
She’s not the only woman left heartbroken in his wake. Many gay men and horny straight women alike wished we could have seen his hips gyrate in just one last dance. But he had a good run and we had “the time of our lives.”
See his SNL Chippendale’s sketch, his Road House fight, and final dance scene from Dirty Dancing, after the jump!