patrick swayze documentary
patrick swayze documentary

It’s been nearly a decade since Patrick Swayze passed away at the age of 57 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. In a new documentary airing on the Paramount channel, Swayze’s widow, Lisa Niemi, is remembering the final days she spent with her husband of 34 years.

Patrick Swayze’s death.

The new “I am Patrick Swayze” documentary isn’t the first time Lisa has talked about the passing of her iconic spouse.

As Niemi and Patrick Swayze dealt with his cancer treatments and hospice care, Lisa started writing what became the 2011 memoir, Worth Fighting For. In it, she reflected on her and Patrick’s last words to each other.

“My last words to Patrick? ‘I love you,’ and those were his last words to me. After I brought him home, things went very fast.”

Shortly thereafter, Lisa writes that Patrick fell into a deep coma from which he never recovered.

“I cherished our time alone, holding his hand, listening to music, sleeping with my arm around him, my head on his shoulder, wordlessly,” Niemi wrote.

She continued: “In the quiet of Monday morning, September 14, I looked at his face and listened to the tiny sips of air he was taking. There was something delicate, childlike about it. I knew it was time.”

On Sept. 14, 2009, Patrick Swayze died from cancer.

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1980’s icon

Patrick Swayze was a working but little known actor when he starred in 1987’s low-budget-turned-blockbuster Dirty Dancing.

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The role of Johnny Castle was one Swayze seemed almost destined to play as a “triple threat” actor, singer and dancer. Formally trained in ballet, Swayze was a dream to dance with according to his co-star Jennifer Grey.

“As soon as we started dancing, it was just ‘Ahhh’,” Gray sighs in the documentary.

Patrick Swayze also co-wrote and performed the popular hit song from the movie’s soundtrack, “She’s Like the Wind.” The song eventually became a Top 10 hit on the Billboard 100.

Swayze solidified his place as one of Hollywood’s leading men when he played a murdered banker with unfinished business in 1990’s “Ghost” alongside Demi Moore.

Gone but not forgotten.

Swayze playing a ghost trying to communicate with the love of his life is what makes it easy to imagine Swayze in the role his real-life love thinks of him in now.

“When you lose someone, you never stop loving them and it’s … I feel like I have a different relationship with him now,” Lisa Niemi said. “It’s just, he’s not physically present, you know what I mean?”

Yes, we know exactly what she means.

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