The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi Swayze Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Time of My Life
Book Review: Beautiful and honest
Summary: 5 Stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'm so sorry he's gone now. His work will always be remembered. I had to go out and buy One Last Dance. That movie is wonderful. You all should grab yourself a copy and you'd see really how much Lisa and Patrick loved each other!Book Review: Beautifully Written
Summary: 5 Stars
In his beautiful memoir "Time of My Life," legendary actor Patrick Swayze along with his wife Lisa Niemi, poignantly looks back on his life and career. Growing up in Texas in the fifties and sixties, Swayze was very energetic and multi-talented from the very beginning--engaging in football, gymnastics, music, and dance. He first met his future wife Lisa, when she was fifteen and taking dancing lessons from his mother. The pair were later re-united in New York, where Swayze was pursuing a ballet career. However, due to a severe knee injury dating back to his high school days, Patrick had to quit ballet and turn to a path that would ultimately make him a celebrity--acting. After starring in a couple of musicals, Swayze contacted an L.A. based talent manager who had Texas roots and knew his mother. This resulted in Swayze's Broadway portrayal of Danny Zucko in "Grease," and Swayze's rocky relocation to Los Angeles. Through it all, Lisa was by his side as they struggled to survive on little money by freelancing in carpentry and waiting for Patrick's acting career to take off. I found this book very well-written and hard to put down. Some of the things included were intimate such as Lisa's letters and Patrick's memories of losing his father and later his unborn child. Swayze also recounts his involvement in various movies--everything from "Ghost" and "Dirty Dancing" to "City of Light" and "Road House." Overall, this book was a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the life of a Hollywood heartthrob whose iconic movie performances and great personality will be remembered for a long time to come.Book Review: Best Autobiography I Ever Read!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I started reading this on a plane & could not put it down. From start to finish, it is an interesting & astonishing read. I am filled with such wonder & amazement at all the wonderful things Patrick Swayze did with his life. And that doesn't even include his courageous battle with pancreas cancer. He was a great football player til a knee injury put an end to that dream. Then he went to New York & became a dancer until that same knee injury squashed that dream. He was superb in gymnastics & at one time, b/4 the knee injury, had wanted to train for the Olympics. He then went on to become a famous actor & even a pilot! He could sing & was also a songwriter. He could ride horses, take any motor apart, could box with the best of them & very experienced with martial arts. He would research each & every acting part he had & even rewrite the scripts with his wife Lisa to make them the best they could be. He also was a faithful & adoring husband who loved his wife more than anything. I was SO impressed by this book & with this awesome man that could do anything! This is the reason you write an autobiography, when you've done great things to back it up.
The only thing I wish he would have admitted (& maybe he does, I still have about a dozen pages left) is that his 3 pack a day cigarette smoking & his heavy drinking throughout many periods of his life, is what he could have done differently & he may not have gotten pancreas cancer. Michael Landon also drank & smoked heavily & he died of the same disease. Patrick asks in the very beginning of the book what he could have done differently & why this happened to him & I think those 2 things are what happened. Anytime a person smokes that heavy & drinks heavy, they are not going to live to a ripe old age. Especially smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day almost their entire life. He would have ended up with lung cancer eventually anyway. My father died of lung cancer at 53 yrs. old & it's a terrible way to die. I don't understand why he never tried to give up the smoking.
This book is a wonderful book though & shows what a dedicated, kind, sensitive, loving, intelligent & generous man Patrick Swayze was. I wish he could have lived to a ripe old age. I have so much admiration for all the things he did with his life. I recommend this book highly, I just can't say enough good things about it. I could not put it down literally & every page was so interesting. He was one of the greatest men that ever lived & Lisa was a very lucky woman to have been so loved by this wonder of a man. He also could bear so much physical pain it was quite extraordinary. Sometimes it seemed he was almost super human. Rest in peace Patrick. You were a good man & I believe you have a place in Heaven one day. You made the world a much better place & your time to leave here was way too soon.
Book Review: Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
From what I can gather Lisa gave up smoking, yet I'm not 100% sure of that, but he was a very heavy smoker, at least 3 packs a day at one time, plus the drinking when he was feeling sorry for himself, which seemed to be most of the time.
I think he probably did love Lisa, but he loved himself more and I feel he 'used' her for his own gain; maybe not at first but definitely later on. Look at all she did for him and here & there in the book he gave her credit but not often. She most likely would have had a terrific career had she not married him.
Very, very self-centered and yet insecure at the same time. Maybe the insecurity made him self-centered, I don't know. From what he wrote I'd have to say he got his insecurity from his mother because he nor the other sibs could ever quite meet her expectations.
I think the best word I can find to describe him is, Whiner. It seemed he was always whining about most everything.
When he was filming in India portraying that doctor, he told of things he'd done in the charity hospital to "help out" and in the leper colony etc. but in my mind it was more the attitude of "Look at ME ME ME. I'm really helping these people." Everything he may have done over there to help out was for his own benefit so the focus remained on him. When I read that part I said to myself: "Patrick? what did you really DO? If you cared so much for those poor people and you had this gorgeous ranch back in the States, why didn't you get antibiotics for those clinics in India and actually DO SOMETHING that would benefit them?"
He's still one-sexy-dude but in truth, I wished I hadn't read the book. I'd rather have been the ostrich with its head in the sand. The book in my mind has diminished him in my eyes.
Book Review: Each page is filled with Swayze's passion for life
Summary: 5 Stars
Depending on your perspective, THE TIME OF MY LIFE will read like a biography or a swashbuckling adventure story. We all know Patrick Swayze as a dancer and an actor, but few realize that he was a horseman, pilot and daredevil. In this memoir, his life story is presented with somber pathos juxtaposed with a sense of humor that was true to Swayze himself.
Swayze's story begins when he was young. His aptitude for dancing (which he learned from his mother) and the arts eventually led him to seek a career in acting. But stardom is rarely bestowed immediately, and Swayze was no exception to this rule. Nevertheless, after a rocky start in Hollywood, he managed to land some great roles and was awarded the opportunity to work with such up-and-coming talents as Tom Cruise, Charlie Sheen and Rob Lowe, as well as many other big or soon-to-be-big names. One of my favorite parts of the book is reading about all the practical jokes that the actors would play on one another, which gives the reader a sense that they truly loved what they were doing and enjoyed each other's company.
Although he was beginning to make a name for himself, Swayze wouldn't hit it big until the release of Dirty Dancing in 1987, which went on to be one of the highest grossing movies of the year. In 1990, he again proved his star power with Ghost, which earned more than double the total of Dirty Dancing. While he was riding high, the rigors of acting took its toll, and he ended up in a rehab hospital for alcohol abuse. At this time, he had taken on a new adventure: flying airplanes. "I had wanted to be a pilot all my life, and I decided to start taking flying lessons. When you fly an airplane, you're taking on all kinds of responsibility, so there is no room for wallowing in alcohol or allowing your demons to get the better of you." He made a choice, and from that point on, he knew he couldn't let alcohol encumber him any longer.
Although he cleaned himself up, Swayze's life was still marred with guilt and tragedy when his sister, Vicky, committed suicide in 1994. Bipolar, Vicky wasn't able to keep life's ups and downs in balance and decided that death was her only way out. It was a terrible blow to Swayze, and he often wondered if he had done enough to save her or if there was any way he could've prevented her untimely death. But he knew that he had to soldier on and fight through the pain.
And that's what he did his whole life: fight. For as long as anyone could remember, Swayze had been a fighter --- not in a territorial, pugilistic sense, but as a man who would do what it takes to survive. His mantra was "You can't beat me." When he received the news that he had been stricken with stage IV pancreatic cancer, he was faced with the biggest fight of his life. And he did not let it beat him. He continued to act, ride his beloved horses and live a full life with his beautiful screenwriter-director wife, Lisa Niemi. "I wasn't ready to go, and I was damned if this disease was going to take me before I was good and ready." He had to go on living, for if he hadn't, the cancer would have won. Even though it ended up taking his life, it never took away his spirit.
As a pancreatic cancer survivor, I understand the struggles that Swayze faced. The medications, treatments and procedures that are meant to help you survive longer can make you feel like throwing in the towel. Your outlook on life and the love and support of friends and family are the only things that help you get through each day. Each page of this book is filled with Swayze's passion for life, and hopefully it will inspire you to go out and live your own life to the fullest.
--- Reviewed by Marge Fletcher