Who didn’t love Patrick Swayze? Women fell for him in chick flicks like Dirty Dancing and Ghost while men (like myself) rooted for him in guy movies like Road House, Red Dawn, Black Dog, Point Break and others. A few kids might have even caught on through Tall Tales and The Fox and the Hound 2. And yet he never kept up the popularity he had in the 80s and early 90s. He certainly wasn’t that bad an actor, and his constant display of ridiculous hairdos wasn’t any worse than Nic Cage’s.

Wondering why he didn’t remain a big star to the end — was it the horse riding accident and subsequent depression/drinking? — isn’t of concern now, though. Since his death from cancer yesterday he’s at least received a lot of love from around the web, and we can hope that his soul has lingered, a la his character in Ghost, enough to notice. Remember that Sam was able to still use a computer thanks to the tricks he learned from Vincent Schiavelli’s subway ghost.

Check out what the film blogs are saying about his legacy after the jump and pay your own respects in the comments below:

• Kim Morgan at The Huffington Post has a wonderful tribute to the actor in which she partly blames irony for his career’s downfall. Here’s some of her appreciation for Dirty Dancing:
  

  there was something — a definite “it” quality that spiked directly into the world’s romantic fantasy jugular. But for me, that “it” was Swayze himself. He was the movie. He could dance. And was, perhaps, one the last tough guy dancers who could reveal his significant talent without worrying about being feminized by it. In many ways, and through many pictures, Patrick Swayze is the perfect example of pre-1990s irony. It’s not funny he can dance — it’s goddamn lovely he can dance.

• David Edelstein at The Projectionist also blames the rise of irony for his downfall while celebrating his unmatched bi-gender appeal:
  

  In Dirty Dancing, Patrick Swayze combined brawny physicality and feline grace in a way that made millions of women (and a lot of men) weak in the knees. That’s still a singular feat in American movies, where there has always been a schism between hoofers and jocks. Swayze behaved as if the divide never existed. His persona was fluid — and irony-free.

• Chris Hewitt at The Empire Blog offers 30 reason that Patrick Swayze kicked ass. He also addresses the bi-gender appeal in his intro:
  

  Guys liked him because, like The Big Lebowski, he was a Dude, a rough, tough, smokin’, drinkin’ man’s man who rolled with the punches and told it like it was. Girls liked him because he had a sensitive, spiritual side, he was good with pottery and dance moves and could even hold a tune. Together, both sides came together to form a perfect storm of charisma and cool that, for a brief period in the late ’80s and early ’90s, made him one of the most potent movie stars around.

• Joseph Baxter at G4’s The Feed recognizes that Dirty Dancing and Ghost were good for helping “many-a-guy score on date nights,” but he focuses his memorial on Swayze’s greatest gift to male movie fans:
  

  the best way to offer our respects would be to post what is perhaps one of the most testosterone-laden scenes in the history of cinema. What else could it be from, but Swayze’s awe-inspiring performance in 1989’s Road House? It was in many ways, the apex of the golden age of mindless, awesome, and unapologetically un-PC, 80’s “guy flicks.” This scene is SO freaking manly that it makes you want to put on a flannel shirt, grab an axe, and chop down trees in the nearest forest while the hairs on your chest inexplicably grow.

• Movieweb introduces a video retrospective by spotlighting Swayze’s unequaled achievement and appeal:
  

  Not many celebrities have racked up the amount of true cult classics that he has under his belt. Some actors only get to star in one great film during their entire career. Not Swayze. He was the unique every man. An action hero macho enough to admit his affinity for dancing in tights. Women loved him for his rough-hewn sexiness. Men identify with his hometown heroics. He was an American original, and contemporary cinema would have been at a loss without him.

• Nathan Rabin at A.V. Club believes he appealed to everyone:
  

  On a personal note, I’ll always remember how besotted my step-mother was with Swayze after Dirty Dancing. Swayze belonged to everyone. He was a pin-up, a major movie star, a teen heartthrob, camp superstar and ultimately a tragic figure who died before his time. He will be missed.

• Anna Pickard at the Guardian Film Blog claims to be his first fan — or is it that he was her first crush?:
  

  I’m not being competitive when I say I fancied Patrick Swayze first. I wasn’t even three when he first starred in an episode of M*A*S*H. But when I saw it, much later, in my teens, I had a crush. And I couldn’t say why – just because of his Swayzeness. Because behind the big square jaw and the puff of hair that was forever the Eighties there was something so strong and painful about him, always.

• Will Harris at Premium Hollywood shares a story of an interview attempt and tries to explain some of his favor for the actor:
  

  I really, really liked Patrick Swayze. I didn’t necessarily love every movie he ever made, but there was just something about the guy that was cool and likable and yet still pretty damned bad-ass, but…well, I don’t believe that the term “big-brothery” actually appears in the dictionary, but that’s how I saw the guy. (It probably stems back to my having seen “The Outsiders” during my formative years.)

• Joe Leydon at MovingPictureBlog is “deeply saddened,” but he shares a funny memory:
  

  I remember an uproarious incident during the press junket for Point Break in the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. I was walking toward my room after a morning of roundtable interviews when I heard Swayze shouting my name from across the atrium. When I turned to respond, I saw he was on a floor two stories above mine, with one leg draped over the railing, pretending he was preparing to dive into the lobby far below. So I had to shout back in response: “Don’t do it, Patrick! You have so much to live for! The movie’s not that bad!” He laughed so hard, I momentarily feared he might lose his balance and really take the drop. I laughed, too, but I didn’t actually smile until he took his leg off the railing.

• Richard Travers at The Travers Take recalls meeting Swayze and being confronted about his opinion on Road House, a film which he includes in a list of the actor’s greatest roles:
  

  Road House (1989) Watch Swayze’s Dalton treat sex as choreography. Nothing as old-hat as the missionary position. He goes at it standing up, slammed against a wall and on a slanted roof.

• Whitney Matheson at PopCandy shares real-life proof of Swayze’s divided appeal to men and women:
  

  Last night when my husband and I were discussing the actor, he said, “Well, at least we’ll always have Road House.” Road House, without a doubt, is my spouse’s favorite Swayze flick. If we’re trying to get out of the apartment, god help us if Road House is on cable.

  I, on the other hand, am a lady of a certain age, so I’ll always remember the man for Dirty Dancing. (Well, that and his sweaty Chippendales sketch with Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live.)

• Tina Dupoy at Fishbowl LA celebrates one role that is often left out of the strictly male- or female-geared tributes:
  

  We are a pro-drag queen blog. We like to remember Patrick for his primped and padded performance in To Wong Foo. We are wearing hooker-red lipstick in his honor as we write this post.

  Yes, other places are recalling pottery wheels and putting babies in corners or something. Here at FBLA, we salute the dude in a dress.

• Maura at Idolator concentrates on Swayze’s contribution to music:
  

  His fame stretched way beyond the pop-star realm, but let’s not forget that the late Patrick Swayze’s star turn in the 1987 Catskills romance Dirty Dancing also spawned the No. 3 hit “She’s Like The Wind,” a velvety, saxophone-enhanced ballad that, thanks to its superglossy ’80s sound, was something of an outlier on the movie’s oldies-heavy soundtrack.

• Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood acknowledges his offscreen appeal, too:
  

  Not only did America fall in love with him in Dirty Dancing. But this multitalented actor was one of the nicest guys working in Hollywood.

• Josh Tyler at Cinema Blend ponders Swayze’s talent:
  

  Was Patrick Swayze a great actor? I don’t know. Probably not. But who really cares? The guy was an icon of the 80s variety, bigger than life and better than whatever you might envision him as. He was the kind of actor Matthew McConaughey wishes he could be. When Patrick Swayze whipped off his shirt it meant something. In later years he became almost a punchline, but even when you made fun of Swayze there was always this strange tinge of respect behind it.

• Beaks at Ain’t It Cool News wonders if any other actors could have pulled off Road House:
  

  Released in the spring of 1989, the Rowdy Harrington-directed masterpiece is a bone-snapping, booze-guzzling, throat-extracting tutorial in the art of cooling - and it’s hard to imagine it working as wonderfully as it does with anyone but Swayze in the lead. Cast Jean Claude Van Damme, and it would’ve been completely silly (and made for half the budget); go with Steven Seagal, and it would’ve been downright creepy. But with Swayze, there’s a strange, goofy sweetness that keeps the film from being a sleazy wallow in gratuitous violence.

• Louis Virtel at Movieline looks at the actor’s five most unforgettable scenes, with an early one being tops:
  

  The Outsiders (1983): Swayze’s best emotional moment is in The Outsiders, the scene where his character Darrel hugs brother Soda (Rob Lowe) in the hospital upon realizing their other brother Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) is still alive following a church fire. The rest of Swayze’s cinematic gems may have been more iconic, but they never bested this.

• Josh Wigler at MTV Movies Blog celebrates Swayze’s most memorable collaborations. Here’s one:
  

  KEANU REEVES (”Point Break”): Only one male pairing could rival Swayze’s dynamic with Charlie Sheen, and that’s clearly his love-hate relationship with Keanu Reeves in “Point Break,” an action movie that still enjoys plenty of pop culture references almost 20 years later.

  The “Matrix” star has had his fair share of iconic co-stars and onscreen nemeses, the rivalry between Reeves and Swayze in “Point Break” remains one of the most watchable collaborations for either actor.

• Catherine Grant at Film Studies For Free links to a lot of film scholarship that might not exist without Swayze’s career. From the intro:
  

  Swayze was an actor of surprisingly slight physical stature, but one who loomed very large and very beautifully, not only in Hollywood and independent cinema, and, of course, in the estimation of his many fans and admirers, but also in the musings of quite a few Film Studies scholars. In particular relation to the latter, he helped to inspire — FSFF is sure — many worthwhile studies of (post-)modern gender and sexuality, ‘looking relations‘, and acting in film.

• Vince Mancini at FilmDrunk gushes and yells at the world’s doctors for letting this happen to the actor who has “been in so many bad movies that everyone loves”:
  

  I don’t normally like to gush about dead people, because when an a-hole dies he doesn’t magically become not an a-hole, no matter what anyone says about him.  You have to honor an a-hole’s memory by remembering him for the a-hole that he was (see: Hunter S. Thompson on the passing of Richard Nixon).  But in all honesty, anyone who doesn’t have at least two or three glowy, pop-culture nostalgia memories involving Patrick Swayze is a two-bit liar and a charlatan, and I wouldn’t sit next to him if it was the last seat on an escape pod.  Maybe if you doctors spent half the time you spend giving people who shouldn’t be boning anyway boners you’d have this cancer crap licked by now.  So stop playing grabass back there in the lab and get going on some serious research, the kind that involves stethoscopes and bunsen burners and all that sh’t.