Patrick Swayze, 1952 - 2009

Dirty Dancing was one of those movies my parents adamantly refused to let me see for years, which only made me all the more determined to watch it. And when I did, it was both less dirty than I'd expected, and more meaningful. "Dirty" to me sounds tawdry, and it definitely was not that. It's a quintessential coming of age story: a young woman, who's unconventionally beautiful (and easier to relate to), smart and compassionate, experiencing love for the first time and realizing she's not her father's little girl anymore, painful as that might be. And yes, the dancing and other stuff is pretty damn hot.

Most hot, of course, was Patrick Swayze as sensitively macho Johnny Castle. During my first finals week in college, my room mate and I unwound every night by watching Dirty Dancing. We picked up on all kinds of random things, like the woman in blue screaming louder than anyone in the final dance scene, or how the third time he kicks the post when he needs to break into his car, it makes a funny popping noise. (Seriously, fast forward to 1:35 in that clip.)

You had to love Patrick Swayze for this, and his other movies. Some of it was cheesy, some of it butch, but he always seemed to be having a good time, and I liked that about him.