Why was one of Hollywood's best-loved actors also one of its most spoofable? From the moment he hit stardom in 1987, films, TV shows and home videos have swarmed with parodists and mickey-takers following in the laconic, musclebound footsteps of Patrick Swayze.
Strangely, the mockery was aimed not where it was most deserved – his dodgy roles as a leather-headbanded desert warrior in the post-apocalyptic nonsense Steel Dawn (1987) or as a bow-and-arrow-wielding teenager defending America from marauding communists in Red Dawn (1984). The real targets were his classic turns in Dirty Dancing (1987), Ghost (1990) and Point Break (1991). Part of the attraction must be the Swayze look – the vest-and-bouffant combo of his late 1980s prime, or the surf ganster pose cultivated afterwards. But there was something about the shameless hamminess of his acting – his ability to intone "If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price" without flinching – combined with his earnest sweetness that prevented the mockery from turning sour. The parodies are never less than affectionate, and most often downright adoring.
Whatever it is, Swayze inspired millions of imitators. Spoofs range from the amateur – see the hundreds of YouTube videos recreating the ecstatic "Time of My Life" finale of Dirty Dancing – to the semi-professional - the most recent Dancing spoof featured the GI Joe star Channing Tatum who, as a former Abercrombie and Fitch model, is no stranger to hunky typecasting himself. Point Break Live!!, meanwhile, is an unscripted theatre show that "rides the gnarly breakers of travesty" with its (surely superfluous) "priceless deadpan" take on the spaced-out surf guru Bodhi. On the small and large screen Swayze-references have become a shorthand for adorable kitsch – most recently, his late-night radio ballad She's Like the Wind featured as an ironic karaoke standard in the indie-minded romcom (500) Days of Summer. Even Family Guy – in which Demi and Patrick lovingly craft a pot from Peter's back fat – doesn't really stick the knife in.
Any man unlucky enough to become the favourite sensitive beefcake of the 1980s was doomed to permanent sending-up. But it was Swayze himself who provided the ultimate parody of his romantic lead-dom in his funny and accomplished turn as the drag queen Miss Vida Boheme ("Where is … The Body!") in To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (1995). With such a willingness to camp up the sex appeal that made him famous, it's not surprising fans share Pauline Calf's love for the brooding hero of her romantic novel Stallion Heart – "Lord Patrick of Swayze".
