The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi Read Free Book Online

which is a rare combination in the ballet world. For that reason, I was a sought-after dancer—which of course made me all the more reluctant to give up.
    Amid all this dancing, dieting, and worrying, I had to find ways to bring in more money. The stipend wasn’t enough for anyone to live on, so despite the fact that we were often exhausted from workouts and rehearsals, many of the dancers worked extra jobs to pay the rent.
    I worked for a time at a Hallmark card store, and also life-guarded at a subterranean men’s health club near my apartment. I sang and played guitar in the clubs down in Greenwich Village, which was a hotbed of creative energy, with artists on every corner and an exciting vibe. New York in the 1970s was very different from the New York of today—it was rough, a little wild, with an anything-goes feel to it. Energy seemed to pulsate through the streets, and being young there made you feel as if you could do anything. And that anything could happen.
    The next job I got was a perfect example of that. In early September 1973, I got word that the Harkness Ballet’s benefactor, the oil heiress Rebekah Harkness, had specifically requested me for a rather unusual assignment.
    Mrs. Harkness had commissioned Spanish artist Enrique Senis-Oliver to paint a gigantic mural for the brand-new HarknessTheater then being built at Lincoln Center. Called
Homage to Terpsichore,
the painting stretched from the stage to the very top of the proscenium and down both sides, and consisted mostly of what
Time
magazine would later call “an agonized, thrusting morass of naked dancers.”
    Well, those naked dancers were all me. Over a period of several weeks, I posed and flexed so Enrique could paint my nude form over and over in the mural. Enrique and I spent many exhausting hours perched on scaffolding thirty feet off the ground in the freezing theater while he painted the ceiling. As a thank-you he painted my face on the mural’s centerpiece—a towering twenty-foot-high portrait of me leaping naked toward the sun, with a cape of peacock feathers trailing behind me.
    As a letter I wrote to Lisa right when I got that modeling gig shows, the fall of 1973 was a very good time for me in New York. I’d just returned after seeing her in Houston, and I was filled with the excitement of being young, in the city, and having my whole life ahead of me:

Well, Lisa,

I’m back! I was really dreading coming back while I was on the plane, but now that I’m back, it’s great! Everything is fine, my rent is paid, and everything is well at Harkness.

My first day was fabulous, I saw all my friends and had great classes. Plus Mrs. Harkness called the “House” and said she wanted me to do the modeling for the men’s bodies to be painted in the new theater! And they’re going to do a 20' portrait of me! Mrs. Hynes told me today, and it totally freaked me out! So I’m getting $25.00 per hour for modeling. Also theartist wants me to do some modeling for portraits and some shows coming up! And I’ve got an audition for that club (singing) tomorrow….

I went walking tonight after modeling, and the street was bustling, and the fountain at Lincoln Center was so neat, and everything seems to be going my way, that I just started running and singing! People thought I was crazy but I didn’t care! …

Well, I’ve got tons of work ahead of me but I’m looking forward to it so much. There is hardly anyone in class because of the summer students being gone, and it’s really fine! You know, I didn’t leave sad Wednesday, I really felt good; that is about you. I know if
we
are meant to be, that we’ll get it together one day. Over such a short time, you’ve grown to mean a lot to me, I want to always be great friends. Work hard and maybe you’ll be up here before you know it!

I miss you much and hope it’s the same. Tell everyone “Hello” and I miss ’em, okay? Stay happy, and write!

Missingly yours,

Buddy
    My feelings for Lisa