Don Swayze

Don Swayze was born on August 10, 1958 in Houston, Texas as Donald Carl Swayze. He is the son of Patsy Swayze (née Yvonne Helen Karnes; 1927-2013), a choreographer, dance instructor, and dancer, and Jesse Wayne Swayze (1925-1982), an engineering draftsman. He had two brothers, Patrick Swayze (1952-2009) and Sean Swayze (b. 1962), and two sisters, Vickie Lynn (1949-1994) and Bambi Swayze. He began his acting career in the 1980s in TV shows and TV movies. Unlike his more famous older brother, Don often played violent and unsavory characters. Early roles in Street Hawk (1985), The Fall Guy (1981), L.A. Law (1986), and in Matlock (1986) (as a mentally handicapped murder suspect) led to his first film role in Andrey Konchalovskiy's Shy People (1987) as Mark. During the 1990s, he guest-starred for example in Columbo (1971), Renegade (1992), Murder, She Wrote (1984), NYPD Blue (1993), Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993) as Jesse James, Walker, Texas Ranger (1993), and Profile