PATRICK SWAYZE Wife Lisa remembers
Ten years after the star’s death, his wife Lisa opens up about his private struggles – and his passion for life
Patrick Swayze was a classically trained ballet dancer and a rugged cowboy – a natural movie star who could speak volumes without saying a word. But the man who captured hearts in 1987’s Dirty Dancing and 1990’s Ghost privately grappled with demons, including alcoholism and selfdoubt stemming from his fractious childhood. Swayze was “always trying to control his emotions and the thoughts that were going through his head”, recalls his wife of 34 years, Lisa Niemi Swayze. “It hurt him in a lot of ways.”
Now, Lisa and others close to Swayze are shining a new light on his remarkable life – from his personal struggles and successes to his courage facing pancreatic cancer in his final months – in a new documentary, I Am Patrick Swayze, produced by Derik Murray of Network Entertainment and directed by Adrian Buitenhuis. It premieres in the US on August 18, which would have been Swayze’s 67th birthday, on Paramount Network. Before his death on September 14, 2009, Swayze “showed himself to be a true hero in how he approached his disease”, says Lisa, 63, who spoke further with People about her life with Patrick. “The amount of lovingness and kindness, I saw wisdom in him that was
beyond anything I’d seen before.” Over the last 10 years, “I still feel like he’s in my life every day,” she adds. “When you move past the extreme pain of losing someone you love, you actually become close in a different way.”
Raised in Houston, Texas with his four siblings, Swayze, nicknamed ‘Buddy’, was the product of his parents’ passions – his mum Patsy was a choreographer who founded and directed the Houston Jazz Ballet Co. and his dad Jesse was a champion rodeo cowboy. Swayze credited his mum for his strong work ethic, but her hard-driving perfectionism at times exploded into physical abuse. Swayze’s mum “was really an example of what happens in families in a cycle of abuse”, Lisa says in the film. “She could be very violent, but it was nothing compared to what she
endured growing up and the stories I heard about what she went through with her own mother.” Swayze often privately recounted the story of his 18th birthday, when Patsy was “laying into him” before his father told her he would divorce her if she touched their son again. “She never hit him after that,” says Lisa.
Swayze’s relationship with his mother remained complex for decades. When he moved out on his own, “he became very aware of the positive and the negative aspects of how he was raised”, Lisa says.“But you know what, if somebody pushes you that hard, like his mum did, it could make some people cave, but it made him fight harder.” As his career took off, he and Patsy “came to have a much better relationship”, adds Lisa, who met her husband when she was 15 at his mum’s dance studio and married him in 1975. “Patsy could be extremely critical and negative. But she figured out that if she was going to be around us, she needed to be a little nicer, and that’s what she did.” Swayze and his mum stayed close until his death – Patsy died four years after him at the age of 86 – but they never spoke of the abuse. “I think she would say, ‘Well, you know, sometimes I could be strict, I’m that kind of a teacher’,” Lisa recalls. “She was a complicated woman, intense and an amazing life force. Patrick absolutely loved and respected her.”
The sudden death of Swayze’s father (known as ‘Big Buddy’) from a heart attack at age 57 in 1982 also deeply affected the actor. “His dad was the rock of the family,” Lisa says. “He was wonderful and funny and loving and gentle, but strong.” Swayze began drinking more, and was open about his struggles with addiction – he and Niemi even separated in 2003 before reconciling a year later. As his career ebbed and flowed, “I think it was a way of self-medicating to try and calm himself down and make things a little easier for himself somehow,” Lisa says. But more than anything, grief made Swayze determined to live a life his father would be proud of. “That’s one thing that Patrick said about all the loved ones we lost,” Lisa says. “You honour their spirit for as long as you live.”
A decade after Patrick’s death, Lisa, who’s based out of Florida, has moved on with her life, marrying jeweller Albert DePrisco in 2014. But she says she can still sense Swayze’s presence. “I was driving down the road, and Emmylou Harris’ version of ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ was playing on the radio, and I really got that he’s just on the other side,” she says. “Almost so close I could touch him.” She plans to honour his spirit until the end of her life as well – and has no doubt they’ll be reunited in death. “Yeah. He’ll be waiting for me,” she says softly. “And that’s a wonderful thing.”