Who Is Patrick Swayze’s Wife? All About Lisa Niemi Swayze

Patrick Swayze and his wife, Lisa Niemi Swayze, were married for 34 years before he died in 2009

Patrick Swayze met his wife, Lisa Niemi Swayze, as a teenager, and the couple shared a decades-long love story until Patrick's death in 2009.

The Road House star and Lisa first met in his mother's dance studio and got married in 1975 — a year after Lisa moved to New York City to perform with the prestigious Joffrey Ballet.

“I knew she was the smartest chick I’d ever met in my life,” Patrick told PEOPLE in 2007. “For a long time I didn’t feel like I deserved her.”

The classically trained dancers went on to appear in many movies and TV shows, often as costars. They also co-wrote and acted alongside each other in a play that became the 2003 film One Last Dance, which Lisa also directed.

Related: Patrick Swayze's Life in Photos

Lisa remarried in 2014, over four years after Patrick’s death, to jeweler Albert DePrisco. But, she has said those feelings don’t conflict with her first love.

"Just because somebody's gone doesn't end your relationship with them," Lisa told Hoda Kotb on Today in 2023. "We spent 34 years together, and that's always going to be a part of my life and who I am."

So, who is Patrick Swayze's wife? Here is everything to know about Lisa Niemi Swayze and her relationship with the late actor.

She met Patrick at his mother's dance studio

Patrick and Lisa met as teenagers in Houston, Texas, at his mother Patsy’s dance studio.

“We had a little contentious start because ... he had a kind of reputation as a Casanova; I had a reputation as a bad girl, and we were supposed to stay away from each other,” Lisa shared during an appearance on the Amy and T.J. Podcast in April 2024.

She continued, “I knew that something was going to happen between us that was significant and I had every confidence in every bone that that was going to happen."

After high school, Patrick moved to N.Y.C., and Lisa joined him after she graduated — they both landed spots at the Joffrey Ballet.

In 1975, the pair married when she was 19 and he was 23. Shortly afterward, Patrick replaced John Travolta in the 1978 Broadway production of Grease.

"It was always touching for me to see them together," the show's director, Tom Moore, said. "They were the perfect couple."

She and Patrick shared a love of adventure

Patrick and Lisa were both licensed pilots who often flew together. In fact, she would personally fly her husband to his chemotherapy treatments at Stanford University after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2008.

The couple made their homes on a horse ranch outside of Los Angeles, and at a larger one in New Mexico, and would often go horseback riding together as well.

She rehearsed with Patrick for his performance in Dirty Dancing

When Patrick worked on one of his career-defining performances, Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing, the dancer turned to his wife for help.

"She was there a lot because I depend on Lisa," he told PEOPLE in 2007. “My most important rehearsals were with Lisa in a hotel room. We’d practice over and over and over.”

Patrick added: “Lisa and I have built just about every character I’ve done. You have to understand, we have an ease ... I’d been married a long time when I did Dirty Dancing, and it just gave me so much to bring.”

In addition to helping him with his roles, Lisa also collaborated with Patrick on many other endeavors.

"We've always been a team. We raise horses together, run a music business and a wildlife preserve together," the Golden Globe nominee said of Lisa. "We have an unspoken language after all these years."

She is a star in her own right

Lisa appeared in several of Patrick’s movies, including Next of Kin and Steel Dawn, and on her own in films such as She’s Having a Baby and the TV series Super Force.

The couple wrote the play Without a Word together, which won six Drama Critics Circle Awards. It eventually became One Last Dance, a 2003 film the pair starred in together, and which Lisa directed. The actress also appeared on Broadway in the 1993 production of Will Rogers Follies, among other shows.

She directed an episode of Patrick's last show

Patrick filmed The Beast in Chicago while he underwent chemotherapy, and Lisa came on board to direct an episode of the A&E show. Working with her husband, she said, was a bright point in a difficult period.

“He was fantastic,” Lisa told PEOPLE in 2009. “He had challenges because he was still doing chemo and it wasn’t always easy, but he’d suit up and show up. He was always there. He treated me like he was honored to show up on my set.”

She was married to Patrick until his death in 2009

In 2008, Patrick was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At first, his prognosis was promising despite the grim odds for patients diagnosed with the disease.

Dr. George Fisher, his physician, said in April 2008 that the actor had “a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far.”

The Ghost star continued working on his final project, The Beast, while undergoing chemotherapy but on Sept. 14, 2009, Patrick died of the disease. He was 57, and he and Lisa had been married for 34 years.

“I like to think he knew I was there," Lisa told PEOPLE in 2010 of his final moments. “I was always afraid I’d freak out. To have your soulmate leave you, it was definitely overwhelming, but at the same time, I knew he was in a better place because he had used every ounce of that body. It was holding him down, and he needed to leave it behind. And that was very, very clear to me in the end.”

She wrote a book with Patrick

Patrick and Lisa co-wrote a memoir, The Time of My Life, published on Sept. 29, 2009, just weeks after his death.

“Whenever someone asks me what my legacy is, I say the same thing,” Patrick said on the audiobook recording. “I’m not finished yet.”

In 2012, Lisa released another memoir, Worth Fighting For: Love, Loss, and Moving Forward, which chronicled her supporting Patrick through his cancer treatment and processing his death. Both books became New York Times bestsellers.

She is an advocate for pancreatic cancer patients

Shortly after Patrick died, Lisa became a spokesperson for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

In 2017, Lisa auctioned off some of Patrick’s belongings, with some of the proceeds going to the organization.

"After Patrick passed away, I meticulously packed away all of his clothing items," Lisa told PEOPLE at the time. "I always figured at some point, I would do an auction ... Every item that I've gone through tells a story, and I want people to know that. It says so much about him and who he was."

Among the items were his leather jacket from Dirty Dancing and his wetsuit from Point Break.

She remarried in 2014

Lisa met jeweler DePrisco through mutual friends, and they dated for about a year and a half before he popped the question. They married in 2014 in Palm Beach, Florida.

"I have to say, that the love I have for Patrick was never in conflict or competition with my feelings for Albert," Lisa told PEOPLE in 2014. "That is until Albert asked me to marry him!"

Then she did some soul-searching about whether she wanted to remarry.

"Albert knew I still loved Patrick and would always love him, and told me, 'And I know you love me, and I love you,’ ” Lisa explained. “How could I not marry this man? As I had time to process the change my life was going to take, my doubts became less and less, and I became more and more sure."

In April 2024, Lisa appeared on the Amy and T.J. Podcast and discussed the public's response to her second marriage.

"I got a lot of flack," she said. "There are some pretty rabid Patrick fans out there who think I'm evil. You just learn to deal with it and move on."

She has said that Patrick will always be with her

The dancer has shared about her ongoing feelings toward Patrick's memory and their 34 years together.

“I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again,” Lisa said at a roundtable discussion at the Women’s Conference 2009. “And I’m just going to have to go on until then.”

Years later, she echoed the same sentiment, saying she felt Patrick was still with her and would always be with her.

“I still feel like he’s in my life,” she told PEOPLE in 2019 when the documentary I Am Patrick Swayze was released. “When you move past the extreme pain of losing someone you love, you actually become close in a different way.”

In celebration of the 35th anniversary of Dirty Dancing in 2022, Lisa again reflected on Patrick’s ongoing presence in her life.

"I feel like he's with me every day, but of course it'd be nice to have him physically in the room," she told Entertainment Tonight. "But, I tell you what, we had a great ride and there's so much to be grateful for."

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