Dirty Dancing no more....

Hollywood actor Patrick Swayze has lost his battle with cancer. His publicist Annett Wolf confirmed it a short time ago.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," the statement said. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2008, Swayze fought a very public battle with the illness and hoped for a miracle cure.

In an interview with US journalist Barbara Walters earlier this year, Swayze said he was not giving up.

"Am I dying? Am I giving back? Am I on my death bed? No way."

"I want to last until they find a cure."

Born Patrick Wayne Swayze in August 1952, he was always destined for stardom.

His mother was a dance instructor and taught him how to move.

In 1972, he packed his bags for New York to train as a professional dancer and after scoring a few roles on television, Hollywood came knocking.

In 1983, following his film performance in The Outsiders, the roles kept coming.

He starred in the action film Red Dawn and opposite Rob Lowe in Young Blood but then he became an international pin-up boy for his role as Johnny in Dirty Dancing.

His fame continued to rise and he managed to make even the toughest of men shed a tear in the romantic box office hit Ghost, starring alongside Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg.

Swayze's star status was confirmed when he played Bodhi in the action blockbuster Point Break and it was following that role when People Magazine dubbed him the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991.

In the late 1990s he featured in smaller movies before making a comeback in 2001 as the motivational speaker and closet paedophile Jim Cunningham in Donnie Darko, featuring the up-and-coming actor, Jake Gyllenhaal.

His most recent on-screen performance was in a US television series, The Beast.

But Swayze's best role of all was that of husband to his wife, Lisa Niemi.

The couple met in 1970 as teenagers and had been married since 1975.