Patrick Swayze's best bits: Dirty Dancing to Ghost

Actor Patrick Swayze's Dirty Dancing co-star Jennifer Grey is leading tributes after the actor lost his two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Grey said: "Patrick was a rare and beautiful combination of raw masculinity and amazing grace. Gorgeous and strong, he was a real cowboy with a tender heart. "He was fearless and insisted on always doing his own stunts, so it was not surprising to me that the war he waged on his cancer was so courageous and dignified." Swayze shot to fame in 1987 with his performance as dance instructor Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing, a coming-of-age story set in a Catskills resort in New York. The 1990 romance Ghost cemented his status as a screen heart throb. He played a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee through a spirit played by Whoopi Goldberg. Goldberg said today: "Patrick was a really good man, a funny man and one to whom I owe much that I can't ever repay. I believe in Ghost's message, so he'll always be near." Swayze kept on working even after it was disclosed that he had a particularly deadly form of cancer. He starred in The Beast, a drama series about the FBI, and said he and his wife Lisa Niemi were working on a memoir. In 2006, he made his debut on the British stage, playing Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls in the West End opposite former Brookside actress Claire Sweeney. Fellow actors were shocked to hear the news of Swayze's death as they arrived at the premiere of Partir in Toronto. The film's star, British actress Kristin Scott Thomas, looked visibly shaken and distressed as she passed reporters after learning the news. Actor Rob Lowe said he had "lost a brother".

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ITN | September 15, 2009

Tags:. .grey. .niemi. .disclosed. .cemented. .stunts