After hearing about Patrick Swayze's death on September 14, 2009, I was more saddened than I could have ever imagined. I had really taken for granted the impact he had on my life where it concerned love and romance. Not only was he the man that captured some of my all time sensual and loving moments on film, but he was the man that accomplished the impossible by maintaining a strong real life love story with his wife, Lisa Niemi, for over 30 years.
Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I'd like to celebrate his life by taking a moment to remember two pop culture classics that made the women pray to god that the sort of passion and love he exuded on the screen wasn't just celluloid fairy tales.
Dirty Dancing (1987)
After all these years, I can still remember my reaction to the dirty dancing club scene towards the beginning of the film. The raw sexuality that flowed from Swayze's character, Johnny Castle, was enough to make a naive young girl want some of that titillating energy once she became a woman. But beyond the obvious sensual currents in the film, the powerful romance of the finale has forever shaped my dream of the modern day knight saving the damsel. When he uttered the memorable phrase, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner.", I knew with every fiber of my being that I wanted a man of my own just like him someday.
Ghost (1990)
Although I'm not actually in love with this film as a whole, I am in love with Swayze's character, Sam Wheat, in it. Yet again, he had a marvelous way of bringing the ladies to their knees with another steamy scene. Who knew that anyone could make a pottery wheel sexy? As someone that has played with plenty of clay, I can tell you it isn't the most romantic environment.
However, any woman that saw that seen would tell you she would have given her right arm to have been that lump of clay in his hands. The scene was both extremely sexy while simultaneously being one of the most loving depictions of a couple I have ever seen. Needless to say, Swayze's portrayal of a man so in love that even death couldn't dilute his passion will always hold a special place in my heart.
So, cheers to Patrick Swayze. He immortalized the high capacity of love that a man can have for a woman in fiction while showing that sometimes art imitates life in a most beautiful way.
Vaya Con Dios.
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