Too clean? Swayze once doubted 'Dirty Dancing'

AP Photo/Lionsgate Home Entertainment

In this image provided by Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Patrick Swayze, portraying Johnny Castle, and Jennifer Grey, portraying Baby Houseman, are shown in a scene from the film, "Dirty Dancing."

By The Associated Press

Published: September 24, 2009

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." Much of "Dirty Dancing" was filmed at Lake Lure, N.C.

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 producer Jeff Zucker to cast him despite Zucker'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.