Patsy Swayze, beloved Hollywood choreographer and mother to the late Patrick Swayze, died at her home in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, Sept. 16, according to her publicist Annett Wolf. The cause of death was not given, though the Houston Chronicle reports that Swayze suffered from a stroke just one week earlier. She was 86.
Patsy first came to fame in the 80s after acting as choreographer for 1980's film Urban Cowboy, teaching lead actor John Travolta how to do the two-step. The Houston native moved her family — which included five children who would all go on to be actors and dancers — to Simi Valley not soon afterward.
"It was rural, like Texas, and the three children still living at home could have horses and dogs," she said of her new home in a 1991 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Patsy's own love for dance — she founded the Houston Jazz Ballet Company and also ran her own studio — was sparked after she began taking dance classes following a childhood car accident, she told a Simi Valley newspaper in 2007.
In addition to Travolta and her own son, Patsy's long list of celebrity students over the years would come to include Broadway star Tommy Tune, Randy Quaid, Jaclyn Smith and Fame director Debbie Allen.
Patsy also notably taught a teenage Lisa Niemi Swayze, who met Patsy's son Patrick at her dance studio and would go on to tie the knot with the late Dirty Dancing actor in 1975.
Patrick passed away on Sept. 14, 2009, after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer, and he was as in love with Lisa till his dying day as he was when he first met her, longtime pal and Ghost costar Whoopi Goldberg revealed at the time.
"The two of them were in love. They were also together," she said on The View at the time. "I can't explain it any other way."
