Patrick Swayze died

[yfcteam]

Patrick Swayze - who for a run in the late 1980s and early 1990s was among the biggest movie stars in the world - died Monday after an almost two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

The hunky actor, who danced his way into viewers' hearts with "Dirty Dancing" and then broke them with "Ghost," was handed his diagnosis in January 2008. Despite a five-year survival rate of 4 percent for that cancer, Mr. Swayze threw himself into treatment while working grueling days on A&E's "The Beast," his final credit.

Mr. Swayze's first lead role in "Red Dawn" (1984) gained him cult notice, but his big break would come on the small screen when he carried the epic TV miniseries "North and South" as Orry Main. Two years later, he would carry a hit film.