Patrick Swayze’s leading ladies pay tribute

The American actor Patrick Swayze, star of two of the most popular films of the late 1980s - Dirty Dancing and Ghost - has died at the age of 57, finally succumbing to the pancreatic cancer he had been battling for two years. His wife Lisa Neimi, whom he married in 1975, was at his side.

In a television interview with Barbara Walters in January, Swayze (above, with Neimi) admitted that he might only have two years to live and that he was "going through hell". Yet despite his increasingly frail appearance, he denied he was dying.

"Am I dying? Am I giving up? Am I on my death bed? Am I saying goodbye to people? No way," he told Walters. "I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light."

Among the many tributes paid last night were two from his most celebrated leading ladies - both of whom co-starred in scenes that were unusually hot for mainstream Hollywood films of the time.

Jennifer Grey, who played Frances 'Baby' Houseman, the young Jewish girl who falls in love with her holiday camp dance instructor in Dirty Dancing, 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.

"When I think of him, I think of being in his arms when we were kids, dancing, practicing the lift in the freezing lake, having a blast doing this tiny little movie we thought no one would ever see."

Demi Moore who starred in Ghost as Molly, the girl whose boyfriend dies and comes back to watch over her, said last night: "Patrick you are loved by so many and your light will forever shine in all of our lives. In the words of Sam to Molly. 'It's amazing Molly. The love inside, you take it with you. I will miss you.'"

While Dirty Dancing contained many sizzling dance routines, Ghost became famous for one particular scene - where Swayze and Moore make out at her potter's wheel to the sound the Everly Brothers' Unchained Melody. It was once voted in a Blockbusters video survey "the most romantic film moment of all time".

But of the two films, Dirty Dancing is perhaps the most enduring. The role of dance instructor Johnny Castle was made for Swayze, who trained as a ballet dancer before becoming an actor. The film was never expected to be a huge hit but went on to become the first movie ever to sell a million copies on video.

In a 2004 article for Salon.com, Curtis Sittenfeld, bestselling author of last year's hit novel American Wife - based loosely on the George and Laura Bush story - called Dirty Dancing "the best girl movie ever made".

Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle was "a swoon-inducing heartthrob", she wrote. "His ability to seem tough and rugged while wearing dance pants and tank tops for most of the movie is nothing short of miraculous."