Patrick Bissell

Walter Patrick Bissell (December 1, 1957 – December 29, 1987) was an American ballet dancer. He was a leading principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. On his death at age 30 from a drug overdose,

Bissell was a natural athlete at even the youngest age who enjoyed performing feats of daring: at the age of 8 he jumped off a -high diving board, even though he did not know how to swim. He dabbled in many sports— baseball, basketball, football, track, etc. He was the pitcher on the baseball team, the center on the basketball team. The coaches gave him an option—either quit sports or quit dance. He gave up athletics in favor of ballet. Bissell and Gelsey Kirkland were dismissed from the American Ballet Theatre in 1980 and 1981 on the grounds of chronic lateness and missed rehearsals Bissell and Kirkland then appeared as guest artists with the Eglevsky Ballet in its production of Act II of Giselle in 1982 at the Hofstra Playhouse in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Subsequently Bissell rejoined the American Ballet Theatre.

He appeared in many lead roles, including Don Jose in Roland Petit's Carmen, Franz in Coppélia, Basil and Espada in Don Quixote, Albrecht in Giselle, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, James in La Sylphide, Prince Desire in Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Sleeping Beauty and lead roles in George Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Symphonie Concertante and Theme and Variations. He created the role of the Prince in Mikhail Baryshnikov's production of Cinderella, the title role of Peter Darrell's Chéri (1980) and the lead role in Lynne Taylor-Corbett's Estuary (1983). In 1984, Bissell starred as a guest artist with the Universal Ballet Company in its first production, Adrienne Dellas's Cinderella. He was partnered by its leading ballerina and general director, Julia Moon. He also performed as a guest artist with the National Ballet of Canada, Scottish Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet. . Kirkland states in her 1986 autobiography, Dancing on my Grave, that they started using cocaine together , which developed into cocaine dependency. She states: "I was his drug partner"

Drug use and death Bissell started using drugs at a very young age, including shooting up with heroin, and consumed large amounts throughout the course of his life. He started drinking at age ten and was shooting up heroin by thirteen. Because of this, he developed great tolerance. His ferocious appetite for drugs allowed him to show stellar results and tackle his roles with almost no rehearsal. He was arrested in 1981 in Bloomington, Indiana, and charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct and pushing a policeman.

In 1984, company officials from the American Ballet Theatre consulted with experts on drug addiction and found a therapist for him. The following year, a condition of his continued employment by the company was that he undergo regular urine tests. The tests were held weekly with results 95 percent negative, however lapses were only penalized with fines. His death prompted charges of extensive drug use in the dance world by Bissell's parents and fellow-dancer Gelsey Kirkland.

His mother, Patricia, said that she blamed his death on the "drug epidemic" in the dance world. She was quoted as saying: "'I've been backstage at dance performances -- have you? I've seen the Kleenex boxes and the cocaine noses. He told me he'd been shooting cocaine into his veins since he was 14, while he was at the North Carolina School of the Arts.' Kirkland's autobiography Dancing on My Grave mentions Bissell's frequent use of cocaine prior to his death. Gelsey Kirkland alleged that Bissell's death was "an unavoidable tragedy caused at least in part by the failure of the ballet world and American Ballet Theater in particular to acknowledge and deal openly with the drug problem",