(lively music) (narrator) It's October 1986.

Inside an old gymnasium 34-year-old actor Patrick Swayze is about to leap from the stage.

♪ (Kathryn) By the end of the film he was in extreme pain.

In fact, he had ripped up his knee badly.

♪ (Rick) That ... was hurting.

You knew that ... was hurting inside of his body.

He didn't complain.

(Rosemary) He told Kenny Ortega, "I have one more.

One more."

And that was the one that they used.

♪ I've had the time of my life ♪ No I never felt this way before ♪ (narrator) Swayze had just leapt into the hearts of millions and become the sex symbol of his time.

(Kate) If he went like this to you you'd go yeah, okay.

-Where we going?

-This was a different kind of sexy guy, this was a sexy guy who really understood women.

(narrator) Roles in Point Break and Ghost confirmed his magnetic appeal.

(Jane) He was a guy who men admired and women adored.

(narrator) Swayze appeared to have it all.

Yet inside, he was a man in turmoil.

(Kate) With stardom, he said it releases every demon that you could possibly imagine.

(Beeban) Patrick was a man in conflict, you know, but that was part of what he brought to the screen.

(narrator) In this film, we uncover the hidden struggles of Patrick Swayze and reveal how they shaped his life and greatest roles.

From the perfectionism that pushed him beyond the pain barrier.

He wrecked himself, he wrecked his body.

(narrator) To a deep rooted insecurity.

(Jerry) That's part of the sadness of Patrick, that he never felt enough and he always felt -he had to prove himself.

-And his battles... with grief and crippling regret.

Patrick's biggest demon was not having a child.

He felt that being a father would complete him.

(narrator) With extraordinary access to those who knew him best we reveal how Swayze's demons inspired his most heart-rending performances.

(Jerry) We all had tears in our eyes, I mean, he got to that level.

(narrator) And drove him to the brink of destruction.

(Kathryn) Everyone recognized that it was time for Patrick to change -or he was going to die.

-This is the story of Patrick Swayze.

(solemn music) ♪ Patrick Wayne Swayze was born in Texas in 1952 into a family that set him on the path to stardom.

♪ Patrick started dancing young thanks to his mother, Patsy Swayze, founder of the Houston Jazz and Ballet Company.

(Kathryn) His mother used to take him to her dance classes and put him in a playpen when his was three years old.

Patsy Swayze was known in Houston as being a wonderful teacher and that's where I first met Patrick.

And I know him growing up as Buddy and to this day it's still weird to say Patrick.

(Rick) Patsy was like in Buddy's life like she was in so many of us others, she would encourage the death out of you.

"Okay, you didn't get it today, you will get it tomorrow.

But you better be over in that corner working on it -when I get here tomorrow."

-So his mother was constantly telling him "You need to be perfect" and this was the driving force in his entire life to strive to be perfect.

(narrator) Patrick's dad was cut from a different cloth.

He was a former rodeo rider and amateur boxing champ -known as Big Buddy.

-It was important for him for his parents to be proud of him.

So Patsy being proud of the artist and Big Buddy being proud of the football player, the horseman, he had to master those things.

(Kate) Patrick could do anything of anybody that I knew, I've known him my whole life, he was an expert at more things than you can imagine.

He excelled at any type of sport, any physical, you know, swimming, gymnastics, riding a horse, -he was just a natural.

-Buddy could sing.

He could dance, he could act.

He wanted to also be a gymnast for the Olympic team.

(narrator) By 18 the brilliant and driven Swayze was following his father's sporting path and aiming for a college football scholarship.

Halloween 1970, talent scouts descended on his high school for a big game.

(Nikki) I remember being at the game.

He was tackled some horrible way and he blew out his entire knee.

It was just horrible, you know, that hush and the horror of it all happens and I do remember him being carried off the field and I know he was devastated, angry and, you know, that mad--you know, you get mad at that disability happening.

The doctor said "You're not going to walk normal ever again" and he's like, "Oh yeah?

Watch me."

(narrator) Swayze's sporting dreams were over before they'd even begun.

For rehabilitation he returned to his mother's ballet class.

(Rick) There were times that you could see that he would do a move and you could just feel that that knee was, you know, maybe going to swell up or something.

-Dance hurts.

-He ended up having either three or more surgeries on his knee after that.

I don't know how he danced.

But Patrick would never be denied.

(narrator) Swayze battled pain to become a better dancer than ever.

And just like in Dirty Dancing, got more than he bargained for -in the rehearsal studio.

-We were in ballet class and we're all doing high kicks one at a time down the floor, I remember Lisa, this beautiful, willowy, gorgeous ballet body, just doing her high kicks down the floor.

But Lisa was different from all the other girls in class that were falling all over him.

She was very cool and kind of, you know, aloof and I think that was the big appeal.

(Rick) From the way I looked at it, Buddy just looked at Lisa one day and that was it.

(narrator) Patrick and Lisa's first date was in 1972.

Within three years they were married and would remain so all of Patrick's life.

Their dance careers blossomed and both took up offers with professional ballet companies in New York.

(Nikki) I remember seeing him after a few years had gone by and going, "Oh my gosh!"

It really was like a true dancer.

(narrator) And when the world's foremost dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, announced his latest show Patrick was one of just two male dancers invited.

(Rick) When he was asked to dance with Baryshnikov that's like asking any dancer would you like to dance with the God of dance.

(narrator) Patrick was 23 and nearing the top of the ballet world.

Then, his old football injury returned with a vengeance.

It was like 1975, I had heard that he had had a horrible infection, nearly lost his leg.

It was a very serious thing, like a staph infection.

I do remember that.

It was very frightening.

(Rick) When you depend on your body you're hardheaded.

-You don't want to stop.

-It must've been really, really, really bad for him to give up those ballet dreams.

(narrator) Injury had destroyed Swayze's ballet and sporting ambitions.

But Patrick was still heading for the big time and he would get there on roller skates.

(Kate) Just to make roller skating sexy, how do you do that, you know?

(narrator) It's 1978 and arriving in LA is a new wannabe star.

26-year-old Patrick Swayze.

He spent the past two years studying acting after injury ended his ballet career.

-Now he gets down to work.

-He came to my mom's house to clean the windows and to clean the screens.

And I remember looking out wondering who was there and thinking "God, that guy's not going to be cleaning windows very long."

(narrator) And within in weeks he was making an impression in Hollywood.

My partner Janet Hirshenson had cast him in what was her first casting job and Patrick's first film.

A movie called Skate Town USA.

He'd learned how to roller skate and showed up in an open call and everybody said, "Well, he's cute."

(Nikki) I can remember growing up always going to the skating rink.

He just took to that like, you know, a duck to water.

So that was so neat to think that they made that movie about skating, who more perfect than him.

(James) It was a cash in.

And cash in on the disco craze.

Even more specifically, the roller disco craze.

Kind of a craze within a craze.

(Kathryn) He was supposed to be playing a bad boy -on roller skates of course.

-And there's a great sequence of a young, beautiful Patrick Swayze in a leather vest, bare chested doing a roller skating sequence.

(Kate) And he was so obviously a star in that to make roller skating sexy, how--how do you do that, you know?

(narrator) Swayze attracted rave review for his erotic gyrations.

Reviews that left him conflicted.

(Kathryn) He had this hunky exterior, as they used to call it but inside, there was an actor dying to show people something else so he started turning down films -right and left.

-When Patrick's offered the contracts that would tie him down to three movies he says no.

I mean, this is ridiculous because this would really make him.

(Kate) Patrick felt like if he took that three picture deal he would be slotted into films that took advantage sort of the sex symbol guy and he always wanted more than that.

-He had more inside than that.

-Swayze's acting work dried up.

For two years, he and wife Lisa struggled to get by.

By the winter of 1981, their only income came from building a kennel for a neighbor's dog.

-Then, came a hammer blow.

-Very suddenly, Patrick's dad had a heart attack and passed away and it was earth shattering for Patrick.

Big Buddy, as he was called, had been sort of the rock of the family.

His father was the nurturing side, the less demanding side, the less perfection side.

-You're just a cowboy.

-We were at his parents' house, this was the day of the funeral and he talked about he didn't know how he was going to go on without him.

After Patrick's father died of a heart attack at 57 this was the beginning of this monkey on Patrick's back -called alcoholism.

-Somehow he had to find a way to cope with it but his way to coping with it became sort of self-destructive.

He didn't know where to place it.

He didn't know where to put it.

He didn't know what to do really -and how to cope.

-He thought that he could overcome anything and in retrospect... this day in age, maybe he should've gone to a grief counselor.

(narrator) In the midst of Swayze's personal turmoil came the serious acting breakthrough he longed for.

A new film from revere director of The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola, it was called The Outsiders.

(movie narrator) Capturing all the intensity, all the excitement, all the emotions of youth, The Outsiders.

Directed by Francis Coppola.

You hear talk about the auditions for that movie when it was virtually every young male actor in Hollywood.

You had Tom Cruise, you had Emilio Estevez, you had Ralph Macchio, you had Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe and you could never have got all these people together again by the mid-'80s because it would've cost too much.

(narrator) Swayze played the eldest of three brothers grieving the recent loss of their parents.

(Kathryn) The Outsiders was an opportunity for him to really let him emotions be on full display because of the death of his father.

(Nikki) I could feel his pain.

It wasn't like something that as put on for sure.

(Kate) The weird thing was, everybody though that movie was going to do really, really well.

The movie itself didn't do that well but what it did for the careers of all of those guys that were in that movie was huge.

(narrator) Patrick's acting career began to take off.

He won his first leading role in World War III fantasy Red Dawn alongside future Dirty Dancing costar Jennifer Grey.

(drumming sounds) (country music) And gained TV stardom in miniseries North and South.

-His biggest payday yet.

-As soon as Patrick and Lisa had enough money they bought a ranch outside LA.

(Frank) They named it Rancho Bizarro.

That was a place that was special to him and he could be private there.

(Kate) At heart Patrick was really a cowboy.

There was a poeticness about how he felt about being a cowboy, his dad was a cowboy.

(narrator) Swayze's cowboy father made a huge impact on him.

His perfectionist ballet teacher mother had left an equally big imprint.

(Kate) He always wanted everything to be better.

He wanted to make everything better.

So he was a taskmaster, as was his mother, and I know that's where he got it from.

Patrick, at this point, is early 30s which of course is young but he has all these young bucks that he costarred with in The Outsiders who were doing even better, they're younger than him and they're making bigger movies.

Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, The Karate Kid.

(narrator) One film would change all that.

In early '86 it was just a script that had been doing -the rounds for years.

-Dirty Dancing was the movie that nobody wanted to make.

I had 43 rejections.

Everybody who turned it down used the same two words and they were all men.

They said "It's a soft movie and it's a small movie."

And I think these were guys.

You know, guys liked big, hard movies and you can take whatever inference from that -that you will.

-Finally, a small home video company called Vestron decided to back Dirty Dancing.

So producer Linda needed a male lead and fast.

The guy had to have that ineffable combination of sex appeal and vulnerability.

And that was not easy to find and he had to be a dancer.

So it was really a trifecta that was hard to hit.

Until we of course discovered Patrick.

(narrator) Swayze was dispatched the script.

He though, eh, I'm gonna play a hunky bad boy.

-Been there, done that.

-It felt like fluff to him and that was exactly what he was trying to avoid.

It was, I think, being made by a home video company.

There was certainly no major backing behind it.

There was no tailwind, there was no buzz.

(narrator) Swayze consulted Lisa and poured over there script.

(James) The more he looked at that character of Johnny Castle, who was someone who wanted to be taken seriously, he identified with him and thought, perhaps I can bring something to this role.

Perhaps I can give him a big more weight so that's why he signed on.

(narrator) In August 1986, Patrick Swayze headed to Virginia to start production on the film.

Finally, he was putting his years of dance training to use in a movie and made an instant impression on cast and crew -with his mambo.

-I was just shocked with how great he was, you know, that he really was good.

You know, it wasn't an actor who had studied for three months with a dance instructor and they gave him a couple of moves to look good, he was clearly classically trained.

I mean, he was the real deal and that was a shock.

(narrator) Swayze's mother had taught him well but there was one style of dance she hadn't told him about.

Patrick had classical ballet training and he actually did not know how to do dirty dancing at all.

And I remember vividly Kenny Ortega, the choreographer, standing here saying "No Patrick, relax the hips."

He had to unlearn years of technique that his mother had trained him in as a ballet dancer.

It was not "our type of dance" necessarily but um, it was dancing.

I'm sure he was happy as hell to do it.

When I see Patrick Swayze for the first time on screen and start to watch his hips gyrating I remember my eyes were just like wow, wow.

How can you notice this and uh, where in the world do they dance like this?

(narrator) Swayze was excelling as a dancer but a problem loomed across the dancefloor.

(Baby) I can't even do the merengue.

(movie announcer) He teachers her what she can do.

When I first got to the set there was a lot of talk about them not getting along.

Well, for me, it was after we had cast both of them that I began to hear rumors of trouble on the set of Red Dawn and I thought, oh my god, what are we in for?

What can we do?

Patrick and Jennifer were fundamentally different.

Jennifer was in a certain way like Baby.

She was, in a way, Baby-ish.

She was 27-years old but she was--she was all emotion.

-She was all lose ends.

-She liked to laugh and have a good time and you know, she was lovely and had a very light spirit and at that point in Patrick's life -he was not light.

-Swayze was proving utterly believable as Johnny Castle and with good reason.

(Rick) Dirty Dancing for me, this is personal, was uh, one of the closest characters -to Buddy's real character.

-Both had a mask of confidence -that hid deep insecurities.

-Johnny felt that he wasn't good enough for Baby and Patrick, the actor, felt that the wasn't good enough to be where he was.

Even though he was actually the best at what he did.

But there was this huge insecurity.

And he would say, you know, you grow through self-doubt -and I'm full of it.

-But for the film's finale Patrick had to put aside his self-doubt and dance like he was having the time of his life.

At the very end, this is the most we get to see Patrick at his best and he said that's the only part of the film that he really felt like he was dancing.

(Linda) That moment where he jumps off the stage is the one point in Dirty Dancing where you can see the ballet training and the dirty dancing training -come together.

-Patrick had finally expressed himself in dance on the big screen but the high point was still to come, a lift learned long ago from his mother Patsy.

(Rick) Not many women dance teachers can teach men how to do lifts.

Patsy taught us all, that was our lift.

♪ I've had the time of my life You know what that lift is called?

The name of that lift?

The angel.

It's called an angel.

(narrator) With filming ending on a heavenly high there was satisfaction on set but little expectation.

Producers Vestron planned a single weeks run in cinemas but the film quickly became a word of mouth sensation.

(Rosemary) There were clubs that had members that had seen that movie 100 times, 150 times, 200 times.

(interviewer) One of my best friends has seen Dirty Dancing I think about 20 times.

She was the first one in line to get the cassette when it finally was released on cassette and so I want you to say hello to Nancy.

-Nancy?

-Yeah.

(Patrick) Hi Nancy and thanks for seeing it so many times and you're the reason why it's working so well.

(narrator) A film that had cost five million dollars would ultimately take over 200 million at the box office and become the most rented VHS in 1988.

At the heart of this multimillion dollar success -was the appeal of one man.

-This film just came at the perfect zeitgeist for him.

He was the perfect age, he was the perfect look and he had the goods, he could really dance.

(Linda) After Dirty Dancing, Patrick became this super sex symbol in a different way, this was not, you know, John Wayne, this was not Tom Cruise.

This was a different kind of sexy guy.

This was a sexy guy who really understood women.

(narrator) Swayze was now an object of desire to millions of women but the man himself only had eyes for one.

(Nikki) Buddy, no matter what interview he was doing, no matter how he was talking to always talked about Lisa.

Always.

(Patrick) Hey, I gotta tell you guys.

She just became a licensed aircraft pilot today.

(in unison) Congratulations.

-I'm proud of her.

-Lisa was very strong in her own way for sure and I think she just was her own person.

I think she was secure in her own self in maybe more ways than Buddy in some respects.

(Jerry) She was his rock, he so not only loved her but just appreciated her, she was everything for him.

I think he would've fallen apart without her or at least, you sense that he thought he would've fallen apart without her.

(narrator) But the strength of Patrick and Lisa's relationship was about to be tested to the limit by fan hysteria and personal tragedy.

(electronic music) It's August 1978, the week of Dirty Dancing's release and Patrick Swayze has become a sex symbol.

(Rosemary) I had never been exposed to that kind of hysteria and it was mass hysteria at seeing him.

He hated the--all of the fan frenzy.

He knew it came with the territory but it's not that he hated the fans he hated the frenzy that his presence would cause -and it really got to him.

-I do remember him saying the more people that wanted a piece of him the lonelier he felt.

(narrator) And what fans and Hollywood all wanted was more of the same.

(Kathryn) So of course after Dirty Dancing Hollywood's going to send him all kinds of scripts.

Well, it was the same kind of character he went nope, nope, nope, nope.

Like he had done before.

Low and behold he says yes to Road House.

This violent silly movie, the critics called it and fans were just annoyed as heck.

I think Dirty Dancing he felt was for women -and Road House was for men.

-Can I buy you guys a drink?

Guess not.

(movie narrator) Patrick Swayze is... -Dalton.

-I thought you'd be... -bigger.

-Opinions vary.

So Patrick plays Dalton who is what's known as a cooler.

So he kind of runs the bouncers.

(Kathryn) Road House was violent.

I didn't want to see that, him beating up on people, people beating up on him, I mean, come on.

(narrator) Road House divided fans.

But appeared to satisfy Swayze the macho cowboy.

Now he went looking for a movie to reveal his more sensitive side or at least, his personal assistant did.

(Rosemary) For him to actually sit down and take the time to read anything was like pulling teeth for him.

Ghost came in and I read it and I was totally captivated by it.

Totally captivated and so I said to him, "Go out by the pool, I've cleared your schedule, go out by the pool and read this script."

(narrator) Swayze loved the script and was keen to take the role.

(Rosemary) But he wasn't their first choice for the role so he had to go and read for it.

(Jane) I remember that there were ten actors.

They were very sure that they wanted a name actor of a certain type and so there was a list of names.

(Jerry) I definitely remember Harrison Ford.

He was first choice and I think the studio even took him out to lunch.

They wanted to try to convince him to do it.

(Jane) There was Bruce Willis, -there was Mel Gibson.

-I think Tom Cruise -might've been on that list.

-Everybody when we talked about it they kept on saying, well hold on to Patrick but I don't want to go there first.

Because Jerry kept saying, "I don't believe that he can be a Wall Street broker.

(Jerry) Well I was very impressed with his work in Dirty Dancing.

He was romantic, he was believable.

But then I had seen Road House and thought, gee this guy, is he a thug?

Finally, I convinced Jerry to let Patrick come in and read for it.

-And then, everything changed.

-And the day that he came in, to this day it is one of my fondest, dearest memories you know, of all the films that I've done.

I sat on a couch when Patrick sat next to me and we read the scenes back and forth and the very last scene when Demi says "I love you" and he says "Ditto" the producer was standing in the back of the room with tears flowing down her face and Jerry leapt up and said "That was fantastic, -you got the job."

-We all had tears in our eyes.

He got to that level but there was no question.

After the reading I was like, wow.

This is the guy.

(upbeat music) (narrator) Location filming began in New York in the autumn of 1989.

One of the first scenes shot would become one of the most memorable in cinema as Demi Moore got on with some late night pottery.

I don't think I ever had a sense of what it would become but at the time it certainly felt like it was working.

(Jane) I am now, funnily enough, a potter and I can't tell you how many people who are starting pottery classes talk about that scene.

(narrator) Ghost would see the very best as Swayze as an actor.

Mixing the selflessness of the dance partner with heart-on-sleeve emotion.

(Jerry) There are a lot of actors who are heroes in movies and tough guys but you don't care about them in the way that you care about Patrick and it's because of his vulnerability.

Because you can see that insecurity in his eyes and you can feel what he's worrying about and it's probably the same thing you're worrying about.

It draws you in and makes you attached to him and root for him in a very, very special way.

(Kate) I could see a lot of the loss in his life that he brought to it.

Not only the loss of people but even the loss of his ballet, his serious dancing.

I think all of that informed that loss and that feeling of things being taken away.

No matter what he does you want to see him be whole and in the movie that can happen.

In Patrick's real life, I don't know.

(narrator) Swayze's powerful performance helped Ghost become the biggest film of 1990.

Earning half a billion dollars at the box office and becoming Britain's then highest ever grossing movie.

But Swayze himself would find the immense success overshadowed by another painful loss.

(Frank) It was very important for Patrick to be a father.

He felt he had all of the ability.

Everything that a father should be -he felt he had it in him.

-Lisa had a miscarriage.

It was awful, it was painful on all levels.

Much more painful than I think either Patrick or Lisa imagined.

He would've been a great dad so it's very sad that, you know, there aren't any little Patrick's or Lisa's running around.

(narrator) It's the summer of 1991 in Los Angeles.

Patrick Swayze has just wrapped on a new movie called Point Break.

(Patrick) I do this sort of strange zen, philosophical surfer um, who lives to jam around the world and surf the biggest waves and take a lot of chances and have a great time, -and live 100 percent for now.

-A character who found meaning in death defying thrills was eerily familiar -to Swayze's friends.

-You can see Patrick in all that character.

Patrick had a true rush for adrenalin.

He just couldn't go fast enough or far enough to fill that empty void.

It was as addicting as heroin.

(narrator) The parallels between actor and character were clearest in Point Breaks climatic skydiving scenes.

The first time he did a jump he was hooked.

(James) Before shooting started on the movie everyday he was up there practicing to the point where the producer said "This is too dangerous for our leading man to be doing this.

Can you stop, we'll get stunt people to do it."

After having the stunt doubles jump out of the airplane together he watched that daily that night and said, you know, "This just doesn't look realistic.

-We can do this."

-So what he got them to agree to do was that they would shoot all of the skydiving scenes after the movie was wrapped and I think they reckoned that if he died they'd still have the movie in the can.

So he was okay with that, he said "Okay fine -But I'm going to do it."

-Normally in these situations you can see that they're not quite showing the face of the character because actually it's a stunt double, no.

You really--you can really tell that that's absolutely Patrick Swayze doing those scenes.

(rock music) (narrator) Swayze's daredevil commitment propelled Point Break to box office success but it didn't win him any awards except one, he was voted Sexiest Man Alive.

(Kathryn) Yes, I think Patrick was the sexiest man alive.

Am I bushing again?

He really was the Hollywood hunk with a heart but the fact that he was such a giving, generous, caring, emotionally available person and actor -that made him even more sexy.

-He was embarrassed.

He was incredibly embarrassed about it.

His biggest thing was always that he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor.

(James) He was looking for audiences approval, critics approval and didn't always get that.

The stuff that he did wasn't necessarily the kind of movies that would get critical love.

And he was insecure about that.

(narrator) Patrick was on the hunt for a director who could show he was more than just a Hollywood heart throb.

He found him in Roland Joffé.

(James) Roland Joffé had huge success with The Killing Fields early on in the '80s, Oscar winning success so he was seen as a very serious director and awards worthy kind of director -who made important films.

-Joffé's latest project was City of Joy, about an American doctor in the slums of Calcutta.

Desperate to play the lead, Swayze headed to meet Joffé.

(Roland) Patrick was so open and so, sort of warm as a person that after about ten minutes I felt I'd known Patrick for ten years.

I thought this is a very genuine man actually and if he really wants to do this project he's going to bring his complete soul, if you can use such a word, to this project.

(narrator) City of Joy was released in April 1992 -to a lukewarm response.

-It would've been considered when it was first announced that this is going to be the next big Oscar winner, it wasn't that movie.

(Roland) I think when the film went out and it didn't get the kind of standing ovation that he wanted, I think he would've felt, but I did so well in that movie, you know, I laid out the best of me.

Why hasn't the public embraced it in the way that I've embraced it.

(narrator) Patrick was devastated by what he saw as the film's failure, blaming himself for not being good enough.

He began drinking harder than ever and his inner turmoil only got worse when he took his next acting job, Father Hood, about a career criminal learning to be a dad.

Unhappiness with his career collided with the greatest regret of his personal life.

(Frank) Father Hood was kind of like a pivotal point in his personal life, he and Lisa had previously had the miscarriage and that put a huge rift in their personal life as well as his business life.

And Father Hood brought up a lot of bad memories.

(Kathryn) He started drinking so heavily during the filming of Father Hood that it was effecting the shooting schedule.

In fact, there's one incident where he was doing a scene in the back of a car and he actually would pass out and they would have to wake him up to do the scene.

You know it's getting pretty bad when you get to that state.

It was heartbreaking.

Everyone recognized that it was time for Patrick to change -or he was going to die.

-Father Hood was a low point.

I had never seen him like that.

We got through it and I was glad that he decided that he needed to go and take care of things.

(narrator) Swayze checked himself into rehab.

(Frank) He got sober and felt better and that brought him back up on top of his game again.

(narrator) In search of a new challenge, Swayze pinned his hopes on a new movie about drag queens.

The eccentrically titled, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!

Julie Newmar.

(Rosemary) He wanted that role so badly and they did not want him for it.

Thirty actors read for that film.

(Beeban) At that time, Patrick wasn't actually at the height of his power, he'd had some time out and he'd sort of gone off the boil in terms of the sort of commercial interest in him as an actor.

There was a bit of a resistance for me even looking at him but--but I did and it was almost instantaneous I knew.

I knew the minute he put that wig on.

(Rosemary) Because of his dance background he was able to walk, he had the woman sway of the hips.

Nobody else could do that because they were all intrinsically so macho that, you know, they couldn't go there.

-Patrick would go there.

-He felt that actually a lot of the things that he had perhaps suffered from in his early life, being a boy ballerina, that that experience was suddenly something -a resource for this experience.

-Swayze channeled his childhood as a boy ballet dancer in Texas to portray indomitable drag queen Vida Boheme, he was utterly convincing.

Though the script allowed for one moment of his macho side.

I always loved it when he knocks the blocks off -Stockard Channing's husband.

-To Wong Foo would top the US box office and earn Swayze a Golden Globe nomination.

Patrick was back but his greatest challenge -was still to come.

-He still had so much more to do when he got the cancer diagnosis.

(Frank) He took it like he took everything else, I'm going to beat this.

(narrator) It's the Golden Globe Awards of 1995.

Swayze, nominated for playing a drag queen in To Wong Foo is looking forward to the rest of his career.

(Patrick) You know, I want to see how far I can stretch myself and see if I can become the best actor I could possibly be.

-Or actress.

-Or actress.

(narrator) But for Patrick, the next big role stubbornly refused to come.

(James) In the mid-'90s Hollywood changed a lot.

There was a lot more emphasis on independent movies and what we call cool movies, edgy movies and so a lot of the stars of the '80s started to look a bit old fashioned.

(Kathryn) He needed a Quentin Tarantino in his life but he never had that and he continued -to make the wrong choices.

-Swayze's professional career began to dwindle whilst behind the scenes he faced pain and tragedy.

In 1994, his sister Vicky committed suicide.

Three years later, he was nearly paralyzed when he was thrown from a horse, breaking both legs.

And throughout he continued to battle with the bottle -and bouts of depression.

-Those were tough, tough years and it wasn't a short period of time.

You know, it seemed like it was a long period of time.

(Frank) He was fine for months and years and then all of a sudden something would trigger in his mind and usually, the conversation of being a father, wanting a son, so yeah, there were benders and then there were normal times.

(narrator) Patrick and Lisa would briefly separate in 2004.

(lively music) But a new ranch in the wild of New Mexico -offered hope of a fresh start.

-There was something about that land, that particular place that I think filled his soul and where he really could acknowledge that underneath everything he was a cowboy.

(Frank) He realized at that point that there's not going to be a child in his life but this-- this property and I think that made him happy.

I think that made him at peace with his life.

(Roland) I think there was a shift for Buddy.

I think he realized that he'd been so driven, so driven by his family in a way, by his mom and now he'd actually got a chance to sort of sit back a little bit more and not feel he had to fill that hole with work.

Maybe that meant the hole was smaller, I think it did.

(Patrick) It's not easy to be in the moment now and really appreciate it, you know.

(Lisa) Yeah, every moment should be like that.

(Patrick) It's hard not to carry the past with you and make your decisions right now but it seems like that's what we've gotta do.

If you wanna spell the word happy anyway.

(narrator) By 2008, Swayze was feeling positive about his career too and a promising new TV series called The Beast.

(Frank) The Beast was a turning point.

It was a good TV series and that's when he was diagnosed with cancer and um, he took it like he took everything else.

-I'm going to beat this.

-He called me and he said, "I'm thinking of going back to work."

And I said, "Well, I think that's the best thing -you could possibly do."

-It was just like, uh cancer I'm going to beat it, no big deal.

Oh by the way, having a wedding vow reunion at my house in a couple of weeks.

(Kate) A small group of us were invited to the ranch for the ceremony and it was sort of around dusk, that golden, you know the golden hour, and Patrick came riding in on a white stallion bareback.

On a white stallion--this is gonna make me--sorry.

And just the image of him riding in on that stallion and then coming up and jumping off the horse and them renewing their vows was... you know, I don't really have words.

(Frank) Patrick loved Lisa with all his heart and soul there's no doubt about that, she could do no wrong.

-He just really loved her.

-After renewing his wedding vows Patrick began work on his new TV series.

(Kate) I don't know how he did it.

He was working long days, it was freezing cold and he was having chemo on weekends and the idea that he could get up... go to work, do it and come home and not be able to sleep because he was in so much pain is just a testament to his indomitable spirit.

I think that that was the underlying thing, if I just keep going I can win, I can beat this.

And those of us around him... bought into that and hoped that that would be the case.

-And unfortunately, it wasn't.

-Patrick felt that he could beat it and it wasn't until a year later that he realized that time is short.

The last conversation with him on the telephone I realized that yeah, I'm not going to see him again and um... it was about two weeks after that.

It broke my heart and it still does.

I miss talking to him.

(narrator) Patrick passed away on the 14th of September, 2009 at his ranch in New Mexico with Lisa and family by his side.

-He was 57.

-I mean, it was a tragedy that he died so young because he was talented and just decent.

I mean, part of that cowboy thing I guess.

He just was a good, straightforward, decent guy.

-Everyone liked him.

-Patrick should be remembered as a man with a great, great heart.

I think more than anything else he just had a great, great heart.

(Nikki) He never went Hollywood which is, I think, so fascinating.

He truly, truly remained that person he was which I think is so rare in show business, right.

(Rosemary) He was not perfect but what I do know is that he woke up everyday wanting to be.

(Roland) Above all, I think he should be remembered as a dancer.

I think whatever Patrick did, in the end he was a dancer and a very potent and brilliant one.

(Linda) I do think that Dirty Dancing was the greatest movie in his career and I think it shows all sides of him as an actor and shows him in his glorious prime and that's the way he'll be forever remembered.

(Kate) He may have passed away when he was 57 but he crammed so much into those years and it's just a lesson to live every single moment to the fullest that you can.

You might want to sleep a little bit more than Patrick slept but other than that, you know, live life to the fullest.

(piano music) ♪ (upbeat jazzy music) ♪ (electronic logo music)