3. Patrick Swayze
Patrick Swayze was all set for stardom after his breakthrough with
Dirty Dancing as dance instructor-cum-lothario Johnny Castle.
Road House, though a flop in finanical terms, is a hoot and has earned a place in the hearts of men everywhere as well as being a TV favourite. After all, who can not love the gloriously-so-bad-its-awesome paradox:
"pain don't hurt"? Or my other favourite:
"be nice - until it's time to not be nice"? Move over, Plato! And just as the flops were taking their toll, he strikes back with the mega-hit
Ghost - a film so good not even Demi Moore's basin bowl hair cut can spoil it. Then a year later he strikes gold yet again with
Point Break. His performace as Bodhi was so good that the audience fell in love with him and the film's attempts to paint him as a bad guy in the final 20 minutes just seemed tacked on. The world was his oyster. He could dance, he could fight; he could be the hero, he could be the villain and so either he had the world's worst agent or the world's worst nose for sniffing out projects because the next fifteen years was filled with namelss wonders such as
Black Dog, Three Wishes, Forever Lulu, Tell Tale and
City of Joy. His most notable film during this period was
To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar - a film memorable only for the fact that John Leguizamo was a little
too convincing as a transvestite. Sad to say he only returned to public attention when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2008.