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Patrick Swayze: Friends, Colleagues Send Support
Patrick Swayze by Richard Lewis/ WireImage.com
In the wake of the shocking news that Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer, many friends and colleagues rushed to make statements of support for the star of Dirty Dancing.
• Swayze's physician, Dr. George Fisher, expressed optimism, saying that the actor "has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far."
• Whoopi Goldberg gave Swayze credit for her Oscar win. It seems that Swayze lobbied hard for Goldberg to play Oda Mae Brown in Ghost, even going as far as to threaten to back out of the film unless she was cast. "When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg said Thursday on The View.
• A&E chimed in to announce that while The Beast, a pilot that stars Swayze as an unorthodox FBI veteran, is still in contention for pickup, "at this time all of our thoughts are solely with Patrick and his family. We are all wishing for a speedy recovery to a truly gifted actor."
• Swayze's Dirty Dancing partner was shocked upon learning the news. "That makes me feel very sad," Jennifer Grey told the New York Post. "If I saw him on the streets today, I'd throw my arms around him and love him up."
• OK! Magazine went a different route, choosing to contradict a statement by Swayze's rep that said the actor was returning to work on future projects. In fact, OK! sniped, Swayze has been replaced by John Michael Higgins in the upcoming comedy Fired Up! Stay classy, OK! — Mickey O'Connor
Related:
• Patrick Swayze Diagnosed with Cancer; Doc Calls Grim Prognosis "Untrue"
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Mar 7, 2008 12:25 PM
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It's very unusual for me to defend scum-rags like OK!, but if what they are reporting is true, then it's a small kernel of actual news in this story, and I wouldn't slam them for reporting it. After all, all news organizations are reporting the statement from Swayze's doctor as factual news, even though most of us (especially those who've known someone with pancreatic cancer) have an inkling that his public comments are overly optimistic.
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Mar 7, 2008 12:41 PM
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While I know the stats for pancreatic cancer aren't good, I do know of someone who was aggressively treated for this disease when it wasn't caught as early as Swayze's seems to have been. That person is doing very well. Researchers have been working hard on this form of cancer with a much higher cure rate than previously achieved. (As both of my mother's siblings died of pancreatic cancer, I keep a close watch on this research for obvious reasons.)
As for the OK! magazine story, I wouldn't be surprised if Swayze was replaced in the film, because the treatment of his cancer has to take first priority. As I haven't seen the article, I'm not sure what tone the writer took. But, if they truly "sniped," they were out of line.
I hope Swayze does have a lot of future projects ahead of him, though. A long life and career would prove the naysayers wrong.
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Mar 7, 2008 1:16 PM
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"Stay classy, OK!" Interesting advice from Mr. O'Connor considering his classless blurb last week on the passing of William F. Buckley. Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
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Mar 8, 2008 12:43 PM
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Good point, Liz, but I left a poitn out of my original post that hits a little closer to home than the Buckley comment (which made me wince when I read it, too).
The mere fact that this tvguide.com story mentions the presumably attrocious observations of OK! magazine automatically descends this story into the same muck that it purports to turn its nose up at (never end a sentence with a preposition).
I am often (usually, as my critics would say, if they cared enough) the first to defend this website, but in this case, I'm at a loss to understand why the choice was made to include the OK! details, unless they wanted to spread the:
a) malicious gossip; or
b) factual information, which should not be denegrated, since it is news.
It goes without saying that there's a thin line between hard news and gossip these days, but it's particularly insidious (to me, anyway) when reporters try to hop-scotch across that line. I'm not saying it's a crucifiable offence, but I do believe everyone should look carefully at which side of the line they are on.
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Mar 8, 2008 1:10 PM
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