The Return of Patrick Swayze

When Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January, nobody much expected to see him on the screen. But as Bill Carter reports in today’s Times, Swayze is working grueling days, starring in a TV cop drama called The Beast. “I do find myself, at the end of the day, riding home sort of catching myself with a smile on my face,” Swayze says. Swayze had turned down TV jobs in the past (“I thought I was DeNiro”), preferring to pursue on big-ticket films like Ghost and Dirty Dancing. Now, he wants the job. “How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you’re a dead man?” Swayze asks. “You go to work.”