Jan-Michael Vincent, Troubled Star of ‘Airwolf,’ Dies at 73
The New York Times
By Daniel E. Slotnik
March 8, 2019
Jan-Michael Vincent, who became nationally recognizable on the 1980s television series “Airwolf,” but whose career later foundered, in part because of problems with drugs and alcohol, died on Feb. 10 at a hospital near his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 73.
The cause was cardiac arrest, according to a death certificate released by the Buncombe County Register of Deeds. His death was not widely reported until Friday.
Mr. Vincent, who had electric blue eyes and a taut surfer’s physique, began acting in the late 1960s, appearing on television shows including “Bonanza,” “Lassie” and “Gunsmoke.” He later had lead roles in films like “The World’s Greatest Athlete” (1973) and “Buster and Billie” (1974).
He had a particularly nuanced turn in “White Line Fever” (1975), an action movie in which he played a truck driver who battles corruption.
“The rarity in an action picture of this kind is the quiet and sensitive acting of the two principals, Jan-Michael Vincent as the rebellious driver and Kay Lenz as his wife,” Richard Eder wrote in a review in The New York Times. “They manage tenderness, quarreling and weariness as these things really are managed.”
Mr. Vincent’s most recognizable part was the pilot Stringfellow Hawke on “Airwolf,” a CBS show built around a cutting-edge combat helicopter that made its debut in 1984. It was produced by Donald P. Bellisario, known for hit shows like “Magnum, P.I.,” and featured Ernest Borgnine as a veteran aviator and flight engineer who was Hawke’s surrogate father.
“Airwolf” was expensive to produce, and many critics received it coolly, but it found an audience and stayed on CBS for three seasons. Later news reports said Mr. Vincent was one of the most highly paid actors working at the time, making around $200,000 an episode.
Scandal dogged Mr. Vincent in the 1980s. He was known to abuse alcohol and cocaine and was accused of getting into bar fights; he narrowly avoided jail in 1986 by entering a monthlong drug rehabilitation program after breaking probation related to an earlier drunken-driving conviction. CBS canceled “Airwolf” that year.
Mr. Vincent’s career declined after that, although he continued to appear in TV movies like “Alienator” (1990) and “Deadly Heroes” (1993). His substance abuse worsened, and he broke his neck in 1996 after rear-ending his girlfriend’s car, permanently damaging his vocal cords in the process.
In 2000 Mr. Vincent told Bill Ritter of the ABC News program “20/20” that he had been sober for a time, but that remaining so was a struggle.
“I’m hanging on by my white knuckles,” Mr. Vincent said.
Mr. Vincent was also involved in another crash in 2008, and in 2012 an infection led doctors to amputate part of his right leg. At his death he had not been credited for acting in a movie or TV show since the early 2000s.
Mr. Vincent was born on July 15, 1945, in Denver to Lloyd and Doris (Pace) Vincent. He grew up in Hanford, Calif., attended Ventura College and became an avid surfer before his acting career began.
Mr. Vincent appeared in movies with some of the biggest stars of the 1960s and ’70s. He supported Rock Hudson and John Wayne in the western “The Undefeated” (1969); played an eager participant in a long-distance horse race opposite Candice Bergen and Gene Hackman in another western, “Bite the Bullet” (1975); and was an up-and-coming stuntman in “Hooper” (1978), with Burt Reynolds and Sally Field.
He drew on his surfing skills in “Big Wednesday” (1978), directed by John Milius, which also starred Gary Busey and William Katt and has since become a favorite of surfers. He played Robert Mitchum’s son in “The Winds of War,” the popular ABC mini-series based on the Herman Wouk novel.
Survivors include his wife, Patricia Vincent.
VINCENT, Jan-Michael
Born: 7/15/1944, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
Died: 2/10/2019, Asheville, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Jan-Michael Vincent’s westerns – actor:
The Bandits – 1967 (Taye ‘Boy’ Brown)
Bonanza (TV) – 1968, 1969 (Eddie, Rick Miller)
The Undefeated – 1969 (Bubba Wilkes)
Gunsmoke (TV) – 1971 (Travis Colter)
Bite the Bullet – 1975 (Carbo)
Shadow of the Hawk – 1976 (Mike)
Escape to Grizzly Mountain – 2000 (trapper)