Swayze at the Donnie Darko premiere in Los Angeles, 2001. *Credit: WWD.*Sad news, although we knew this was coming for a long time now. The actor Patrick Swayze has lost his battle to pancreatic cancer and died at the way-too-young age of 57. Swayze is best known for his roles as a sexy dance instructor in Dirty Dancing and as a sexy specter in Ghost, but he will also be very fondly remembered for his roles in films from The Outsiders to Donny Darko. For the past year, he worked away on one last project, the A&E series The Beast.

Swayze was almost comically handsome—a trait he made the most of in his romantic roles but also wasn’t afraid to make fun of from time to time. Who can forget his famous Chippendales dance on Saturday Night Live with the corpulent Chris Farley? (It’s more than a little bit strange to think that both men are no longer with us.) But he was no lightweight pretty boy. He was a man of talent, courage, and substance, who took his spirituality and environmentalism seriously. Swayze is survived by Lisa Niemi, his wife of 34 years.