Patrick Swayze Proved that "White Men Can Dance"

Last night, on Msnbc's Countdown we heard the news of Patrick Swayze's death. Swayze's countdown in his battle with cancer was waged valiantly, but as is the case with millions fighting cancer, the disease won out and America lost a true hero.

Why? For decades urban legend had perpetuated the white men can't dance theory. And then along came Patrick Swayze who transformed dancing by incorporating the romantic notion that (sorry Snoopy, I'm paraphrasing) "To dance is to love and to love is to dance."

In Dirty Dancing, Patrick Swayze not only delivered on his dance moves but also demonstrated the power of the dance. Millions of women, young and old, married and unmarried did not merely enjoy the movie but were transfixed by his performance. How does an upper scale young woman from New York fall for the hard livin', cynical dance instructor at the Catskills? Yes, Johnny Castle was sexy, yes he could dance, but it was the relationship Baby and Johnny embraced through dancing that mesmerized us all and made us believe that raw sexual attraction and true love could be found in one package. It took the love of dancing that Swayze inherited from his Mother who owned a dance studio and the sizzling performance to turn this "little movie" as Jennifer Grey described "Dirty Dancing" into a world wide phenomena.

Swayze would later demonstrate in "Ghost" that when vulnerability and masculinity co-exist the end result is irresistible. Gentle power has long been missing in our culture. The likes of Chris Brown and Kanye West have achieved stardom from a thuggish appeal that in real life,sadly, translates into bully behavior and worse, abuse.

Swayze's lesson for all of us is to live in the moment of life's dance, to lead and follow, to move together, in sync, and to truly listen to the rhythms that define our journey and allow us to fall in love all over again. Many people have the ability to touch our lives, but this hero lives on in our hearts and minds and begs us to dance again. The world will miss Patrick Swayze.

Farrah Fawcett: The Mona Lisa of Baby Boomer Generation or Just Another Lovely Work of Art?

Two of the most famous portraits in the world have to be the ageless Mona Lisa painting, done in 1503, by Leonardo Da Vinci, and in more recent times the Farrah Poster, in the 1970's which sold over 12 million copies to the teen/tween offspring of Baby Boomers all over the U.S. and beyond. It is said that Farrah's poster not only marked the beginning of the sexual revolution of the seventies but also introduced the era of athletic sexuality that the likes of Anna Kournikova and Maria Sherapova have made millions exploiting. There have been other beautiful women through out the passages of time but in terms of "Mona" and Farrah , what was it about them that made their images catapult skyward to the iconic level of fame?

Apparently, Andy Warhol saw the connection. His gallery of work includes his interpretation of both Mona Lisa and Farrah. Both show a beautiful yet melancholy even stoic expression. The famous Warhol silk print hangs in Farrah's living room and was visible to the almost 9 million viewers who tuned into Farrah's documentary of her valiant fight with cancer shown on NBC.


Are these visions of Farrah her legacy? Mainly known for portraying one of "Charley's Angels", the Aaron Spelling production that continues to reappear, Farrah lasted just one year and left over a battle of merchandising product revenues....the selling of Farrah's angel image. After leaving "Angels", Farrah made her debut in a horrible movie, Sunburn, with Charles Grodin, the only memorable part of the flic being the beautiful Farrah wearing an equally beautiful white side split tunic over white pants...again a vision.

Later in her career, when the image was reinvented and and that poster, i.e., vision was put in mothballs, Farrah gained respect for her Broadway performance in "Extremities". Fawcett's most critically acclaimed movie was not a big screen splash of beautiful hair, forever teeth and slow motion shots of Farrah jogging braless being blasted across the screen, but a small made for TV production of "The Burning Bed" a tragic story of spousal abuse. Farrah Fawcett, sans make up, was determined to show the world, much like her predecessor, Marilyn Monroe, that she could act, even if it meant the dismantling of the product, the image, the merchandising.Now, as Farrah struggles for a cure of the anal cancer, the question still remains; is it the icon or the heroine that in a two hour documentary showed us, in heart wrenching detail, the battle that millions of Americans know too well, the invasive enemy that is cancer? Farrah's German Doctor stated that cancer is like a terrorist of the body.

Incredibly, we are once again reminded of the remarkable beauty of Farrah when she first learns that the cancer has receded. She looks amazing for a woman of sixty plus who has endured chemo, surgery, radiation and all the pain. But the documentary goes further as Farrah also allows us the intimacy of her devastation when the cancer returned, when she realizes that her options were fewer and fewer. Farrah fought the good fight but the battle is becoming increasingly more difficult to sustain.

I was left thinking how will I remember the Mona Lisa of my generation, Farrah Fawcett? We all pray for her and admire her courage. Farrah, and those close to her, cling to her hope for a miracle. But I can't help but recall that beautiful yet melancholy song by Nat King Cole, "Mona Lisa", which describes the contradictions of beauty and iconic status.

"Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?

Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?"

I believe that our Farrah is all of the above.