2009 AO Deadpool Update: Patrick Swayze
Hyfler/Rosner
next three.
Maybe the secret of Patrick Swayze was that he was a dancer
who didn't look like a dancer. He moved and walked and ran
with an accomplished dancer's grace, and he made his bones
in a film called Dirty Dancing, but he came off more like
the bouncers and cowboys and bank executives he played on
film. Swayze defied stereotypes. Not even Fred Astaire
could pull that off. Whenever you saw Fred, you'd say
there's that dancer guy who acts. Swayze was always that
actor guy who danced sometimes.
It's all in the genes. Swayze's mother, Patsy, was a ballet
instructor, and so young Swayze learned ballet. He also
learned how to play football, which he did very well indeed
until he blew out his knee in college. The knee also kept
Swayze from dancing, but he got it fixed up well enough to
go to ballet school in New York when he turned 20. Three
years later he married Lisa Niemi, whom he'd met when he was
18 and she 14, and they stayed married for 34 years.
Around that time, Swayze was principal dancer with Eliot
Feld's modern-ballet company, and he appeared on Broadway in
the musicals Goodtime Charley and Grease. At the end of the
'70s, Swayze made his first film, a roller-disco thingie
called Skatetown USA that starred Scott Baio, Flip Wilson,
the guy who used to be the Unknown Comic on The Gong Show,
and a number of other TV burnouts. Nowhere to go but up,
and Swayze did. He had an affecting role in a ninth-season
episode of M*A*S*H called "Blood Brothers," in which he
plays a private who learns he has leukemia.
Swayze began to get film work. In Red Dawn, he played the
leader of a guerilla group fighting troops occupying the
western United States during World War III. A year later he
drew attention in a TV mini-series called North and South.
He appeared in the sequel the following year as well.
And a year after that came Dirty Dancing. This was a film
nobody cared about. It was about stuff going on at a resort
in the Catskills in the early 1960s, for God's sake, and
nobody cared about crap like that even then. Dirty Dancing
was supposed to go direct to video, but they threw it into
theaters for a weekend, just in case. It clicked with
audiences, mostly because of Swayze. Jennifer Grey was cute
as a button, but she really couldn't dance for shit, and by
the end of the film she's up on a stage smiling and lamely
flipping the hem of her skirt back and forth in time to the
music while Swayze is on the dance floor tearing up the
joint.
Then there was the post-mortem romance Ghost, a huge success
generally and for Swayze personally. Ghost allowed Swayze
to take some risks in later roles. He could have done Ghost
again -- he could have done a dozen Ghosts -- but instead he
did City of Joy, where he played a doctor working in a
miserable Calcutta clinic. In To Wong Foo, Thanks for
Everything, Julie Newmar, he played a drag queen named Vida
Boheme, and he made her real and funny and lovable. Many
consider To Wong Foo to be Swayze's best film.
Other films followed, including Donnie Darko, in which
Swayze played a pedophilic motivational speaker. There was
Three Wishes, in which he played a ghost again. He also
worked on the stage, on Broadway in the musical Chicago in
2003 and then, in London's West End, as Nathan Detroit in
Guys and Dolls three years after that.
Swayze was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer twenty
months ago. He would undergo treatment, and he would rally,
and then he would lose a little. Even in his illness, he
starred in a TV series called The Beast, in which he played
a troubled FBI agent. It was shot during 2008 and ran on
A&E early this year, and Swayze drew rave reviews for his
work. Last June they announced that the series, although a
success, would not be picked up for a second season. They
did not want to continue without Swayze, and Swayze could
not continue. He was finally done, but he had finished on
his own terms.
At the end, Patrick Swayze was still dancing as fast as he
could. It just wasn't fast enough. It never is.
41 poolers got together on this astonishing pick. They are,
in alphabetical order (one hopes) Abby, Allen Kirshner,
Allezblancs, Another Lurker, Bill Schenley, Buford, Busgal,
Bushwhacker, Charlene, Constant Irritant, DDT, Dead People
Server, The Death Eaters, Deepstblu, Denise, DGH,
Direcorbie, EdV, Erik, Eternity Tours, Garrett, Hulka, I
Drink Your Milkshake, Jazz Vulture, JD Baldwin, Kathi,
Kathypig1, Kixco, Mark, Max Weder, Monarc, Moldy Oldies, Mr.
Brink, Nova Cassius, Philip, Ray Arthur, Sis, Starfish,
Undertaker, The Wiz, and Yersinia Pestis. Each one gets 14
points.
Players - Points - Hits
DDT - 157 - Eleven
EdV - 136 - Eleven
Mr. Brink - 120 - Twelve
Erik - 107 - Ten
I Drink Your Milkshake - 96 - Eight
Philip - 94 - Nine
Amelia - 93 - Six
Denise - 89 - Eight
Direcorbie - 88 - Ten
Yersinia Pestis - 84 - Six
Sis - 75 - Seven
JD Baldwin - 73 - Five
Abby - 68 - Six
Another Lurker - 64 - Seven
Undertaker - 64 - Seven
Death Eaters - 63 - Six
Buford - 62 - Eight
Allen Kirshner - 60 - Eight
Ray Arthur - 60 - Eight
Dead People Server - 60 - Six
Max Weder - 56 - Five
Charlene - 54 - Eight
DGH - 52 - Five
Johnnyb - 50 - Four
Starfish - 49 - Five
Allezblancs - 48 - Four
Kathypig1 - 47 - Six
Constant Irritant - 46 - Five
Chaptal - 46 - Three
Jazz Vulture - 44 - Four
Busgal - 43 - Eight
Bill Schenley - 43 - Five
Garrett - 42 - Four
Mark - 41 - Seven
Moldy Oldies - 40 - Five
Fireball - 37 - Six
Kixco - 36 - Six
Monarc - 36 - Five
Bushwhacker - 36 - Three
Sarndra - 36 - Two
DrunkAsASkunk - 33 - Four
Chipmunk Roasting - 32 - Four
Hulka - 32 - Four
Dannyb - 30 - Four
Mort Chewary - 29 - Four
Eternity Tours - 28 - Five
McKie - 28 - Three
Jenstrikesagain - 27 - Three
The Wiz - 25 - Five
Deepstblu - 25 - Four
The Monkey Farm - 24 - Three
Nova Cassius - 20 - Four
Pat Peeve - 20 - Four
Team Bubba - 19 - Two
Dead Batteries - 18 - Six
Kathi - 18 - Three
Exuma - 17 - Four
Koko-Moxie - 16 - One
???Guest - 14 - One
Jim_Thornton - 13 - One
RH Draney - 11 - Three
James Neibaur - 10 - One
King Daevid - 9 - Three
Emily - 8 - One
Excard - 8 - One
Brigid - 7 - Two
Lurker3791 - 7 - Two
Mister Selina - 7 - Two
Hits
1. Maria de Jesus
2. Sir Alan Walters
3. Griffin Bell
4. Olga San Juan
5. Lei Clijsters
6. Mick Imlah
7. Preston Gomez
8. Dai Llewellyn
9. Ricardo Montalban
10. Hortense Calisher
11. Sir John Mortimer
12. Andrew Wyeth
13. Tapan Sinha
14. Kathleen Byron
15. Billy Werber
16. Mary Lundby
17. Kay Yow
18. John Updike
19. Guy Hunt
20. Ingemar Johansson
21. Lukas Foss
22. Paul Birch
23. Philip Carey
24. Blossom Dearie
25. Willem Kolff
26. Edward Upward
27. Joe Cuba
28. Larry Miller
29. Philip Jose Farmer
30. Wendy Richard
31. Paul Harvey
32. Colleen Howe
33. Hank Locklin
34. Anne Wiggins Brown
35. Ron Silver
36. Jack Lawrence
37. Jade Goody
38. Lou Saban
39. Raul Alfonsin
40. David "Pop" Winans
41. J.G. Ballard
42. Ken Annakin
43. The Reverend Timothy Wright
44. Bea Arthur
45. Greg Page
46. Milton Lewis
47. Dom DiMaggio
48. Dom DeLuise
49. Bruce Snyder
50. Ian Cundy
51. Robert Muller
52. Millvina Dean
53. Hugh Hopper
54. Ed McMahon
55. Jerri Nielsen
56. Farrah Fawcett
57. Michael Jackson
58. Huey Long
59. Karl Malden
60. Mollie Sugden
61. Robert McNamara
62. Oscar Mayer
63. Leo Mol
64. Walter Cronkite
65. Henry Allingham
66. Harry Patch
67. Merce Cunningham
68. Sir Bobby Robson
69, Corazon Aquino
70. Sidney Zion
71. Budd Schulberg
72. Eunice Kennedy Shriver
73. Les Paul
74. Virginia Davis
75. Allen Shellenberger
76. Robert Novak
77. Muriel Duckworth
78. Teddy Kennedy
79. Dominick Dunne
80. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
81. Mady Rahl
82. Aubrey Buxton (Lord Buxton of Alsa)
83. Army Archerd
84. Larry Gelbart
85. Frank "Junior" Coghlan
86. Patrick Swayze
You can catch us at www.aodeadpool.com where the scoring
will be accurate, or at least more accurate than I tend to
be. As for Facebook, someone has to update the group.
Matthew Kruk
news:h93hb4$q1u$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> ... defied stereotypes. Not even Fred Astaire could pull that off.
Ghost Story
It Takes A Thief (TV) - Alistair Mundy
Finian's Rainbow
Midas Run
Notorius Landlady
...
Unfortunately, yes, he's stuck in time with Ginger.