Lisa Niemi Swayze

Lisa Niemi Swayze (born May 26, 1956) is an American writer, dancer, choreographer, actress, and director. She is the widow of actor and dancer Patrick Swayze.BornLisa Anne HaapaniemiMay 26, 1956 (age 67)Houston, Texas, U.S.Other namesLisa Niemi SwayzeEducationHouston Ballet Dance CompanyOccupationsWriterdancerchoreographeractressdirectorYears active1975–presentSpousesPatrick Swayze(m. 1975; died 2009)Albert DePrisco(m. 2014)Lisa Anne Haapaniemi was born in Houston, Texas, the only daughter of six children born to Edmond, a Red Cross worker, and Karin Haapaniemi, a registered nurse. Niemi has said her father and her mother’s professions were her inspiration and encouragement.She is of Finnish ancestry. She graduated from the Houston Ballet Dance Company in 1974. She shortened her surname from Haapaniemi to Niemi in 1977 for her theatre stage name.The Finnish family name translates to “Aspen peninsula”.In the 1970s, Niemi and her husband pursued dance careers in New York City.FilmsLisa Niemi Swayze wrote, directed and starred in the 2003 film One Last Dance alongside her husband.One Last Dance was based on Without a Word, a successful play written 18 years before which had won six Drama Critics Awards. Niemi said, “It was basically based on our experiences as concert dancers in New York, and it affected people a lot.”At age 14, at the Houston Ballet Dance Company, Niemi met the owner and director’s son, Patrick Swayze; the two eventually got married when she was 19 years old. Niemi and Swayze were married on June 12, 1975, and remained married until Swayze’s death from pancreatic cancer on September 14, 2009. Shortly after they wed, the couple moved to New York City to pursue their dance careers until the late 1970s, when they relocated to Los Angeles, California. In addition to dancing and filmmaking, they ran a construction business and raised horses together.The Swayzes had no children.After her husband’s death, she became the Chief Ambassador of Hope for Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. In July 2011, she was made a Dame of the Royal Order of Francis I of the Two Sicilies.Swayze, Patrick; Niemi Swayze, Lisa: The Time of My Life. Atria Books, 2010. Niemi Swayze, Lisa: Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward. Atria Books, 2012.Niemi Swayze, who married Albert DePrisco in 2014, says getting remarried does not take away from the love story she shared with the “Dirty Dancing” star.Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, leaving behind wife Lisa Niemi Swayze, who managed to find love again.Niemi Swayze, who married Albert DePrisco in 2014, says getting remarried does not take away from the love story she shared with the “Dirty Dancing” star.Lisa Niemi’s heart followed the rhythm of love.The dancer recently reflected on marrying Albert DePrisco in 2014, after her first husband Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer in 2009.”I have a dear widow friend. I fell in love with Albert,” Lisa shared on Today April 28. “I said, ‘It’s really weird because it doesn’t conflict with the love that I still have for Patrick.’ And just because somebody’s gone doesn’t mean you fall out of love.”The 66-year-old tied the knot with the Dirty Dancing star in 1975, and they remained married for 35 years. Yet she felt that, after Patrick’s passing, she still had a part of herself to share with a partner.As she put is, “My wise friend said, ‘That’s because love comes from the same well.’ I thought that’s a really wonderful thing to say. Albert and I both felt like we have a lot of love still left to give and felt very fortunate we found someone to give it to.However, from time to time, Lisa will see one of Patrick’s movies come across the television, bringing her back to memories of him.”Here and there, it kind of catches me unaware and I always have my favorite parts,” she recalled. “I always cry in the same three places in Ghost. I always love him falling out of the back of the airplane in Point Break, going, ‘Adios, amigo,’ because that’s him. That’s so quintessential Patrick.”Lisa even hears Patrick in her thoughts from time to time, encouraging her as he once had.”His voice is in my head. He comments on what I’m doing,” the One Last Dance actress confessed. “When I need a bolstering up or something’s going on, I can ask him in my head, and I hear exactly what he’s saying, which is generally, ‘Come on, girl, get real.'”These days, Lisa is honoring the Powder Blue star’s memory by becoming an advocate for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.”I still care and I know how tough Patrick’s and my journey was with this,” she told host Hoda Kotb. “Cancer may have taken him, but it didn’t beat him. And I’m continuing his fight for him.”Patrick was also vocal about their love for one another. Four years before his death, he reflected on the key to a successful marriage with Lisa after 30 years.”I suppose it’s about keeping love alive, learning how to fall in love over and over again, not taking each other for granted, forgiveness, trust,” he shared in 2005, per the Daily Mail. “Whatever it is, it works for us.”(E! and Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)