NEW YORK (September 24, 2009)—Patrick Swayze, who died of cancer in Sept. 14, wrote in his memoir that when he first read the script for “Dirty Dancing,” the movie that made him a star,
"It seemed fluffy - nothing more than a summer-camp movie."

The memoir "The Time of My Life" comes out next week.

Swayze's reaction was completely different about another future smash, "Ghost."

He immediately wanted to be in it and persuaded producer Jeff Zucker to cast him despite Zucker's skepticism that Swayze could play a sensitive leading man.

Swayze also remembered working with a then-little known Tom Cruise in Francis Coppola's adaptation of the young adult classic "The Outsiders."

Cruise, Swayze said, was so "self-conscious about his teeth" that he resisted magazine photo shoots.