NEW YORK – “Dirty Dancing” made Patrick Swayze a superstar but when he first read the script, he found it a little clean.
The actor, who died Sept. 14 of cancer, writes in his memoir, “It seemed fluffy – nothing more than a summer-camp movie.” The memoir “The Time of My Life” comes out next week.
Swayze’s reaction was completely different about another future smash, “Ghost.” He immediately wanted to be in it and persuaded Jerry Zucker to cast him, despite the director’s skepticism that Swayze could play a sensitive leading man.
Swayze also remembered working with a then-little known Tom Cruise in Francis Coppola’s adaptation of the young adult classic “The Outsiders.” Cruise, Swayze said, was so “self-conscious about his teeth” that he resisted magazine photo shoots.
