Jan-Michael Vincent
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Jan-Michael Vincent (born July 15, 1944) is an American actor most well-known for his role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the 1980s U.S. television series Airwolf (1984-1986). Vincent had an extensive television and film career that began in the late 1960s and lasted until the early 2000s. He is currently said to be retired from acting. Vincent is also notorious for his alcoholism and drug abuse, which derailed his acting career.
Early life
Vincent was born in Denver, Colorado to Doris and Lloyd Vincent. His family moved to Hanford, California when Jan-Michael was in his teens. Vincent attended Ventura College in Southern California.Career
Vincent's acting career started in the late 1960s when casting agent Dick Clayton signed Vincent to Universal Studios, where Vincent appeared in a TV film called Tribes. Vincent also appeared in the Disney film The World's Greatest Athlete as a Tarzan-like young man who becomes a great professional athlete. He also appeared in the "Danger Island" segments on Hanna-Barbera's Banana Splits series as Link.Vincent became a popular and acclaimed film star during the 1970s, especially for his co-starring role with Charles Bronson in the crime film The Mechanic. Other notable films included the Western Undefeated with John Wayne and the surfing film Big Wednesday with William Katt and Gary Busey. In 1980, he starred in the gang-themed drama, Defiance, which received only a limited release,"50 Top-Grossing Films". (Week ending March 19, 1980). Variety, March 22, 1980 and in The Return, a little-seen science-fiction film which was released directly to television and video.
After an acclaimed performance in the 1983 television miniseries The Winds of War, Jan-Michael Vincent was cast as Stringfellow Hawke for the action-espionage series Airwolf, in which Vincent co-starred with Ernest Borgnine. It is probably the role for which Vincent is best known and remembered, and one for which he was especially well paid. It was noted at the time that Vincent's salary for his work on Airwolf was the highest paid of any actor in American television at the time.
After the end of Airwolf, Vincent's acting career took a downturn, and he found himself in increasingly small-budget and low-exposure film projects that typically went direct-to-video. Vincent had long been a hard drinker and user of illegal drugs, and his constant inebriation had put him out of good graces with much of the Hollywood community. In 1985, his close friend and neighbor, a former U.S. Marine Sergeant, Earl Stevenson, tried to talk to him about his abuse problem.
Private life
Jan-Michael Vincent was involved in an automobile accident in 1996 in which he broke three vertebrae. The accident permanently injured his vocal cords, leaving him with a harsh, rasping voice. This further diminished his attractiveness to film producers as an actor.Little news has been heard from Jan-Michael Vincent in recent years. It is rumored that he retired from acting in the early 2000s and is now living in seclusion in Mississippi, where alcoholism continues to afflict him. There are reports of people seeing him in and around Redwood, Mississippi as of late 2004. His last role was in 2002 in the movie White Boy.
Vincent has a daughter named Amber Springbird Vincent from his first marriage.
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