Jan-Michael Vincent
With his blond, surfer-boy looks, Jan-Michael Vincent seemed destined to be a leading man, but with his tough demeanor and bad-boy eyes, he usually essayed men with an edge, misunderstood except by the women who love them. In real life, Vincent lived up to that bad-boy image, combining substance abuse and arrests for abusing his female companions to bring down a career that had begun with promise. Born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in central California, Vincent began acting in films in 1967 with the Mexican "Los Bandidos" and found steady employment in American TV on episodic shows such as "Dragnet" and in children's series like "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour." In 1968, he was one of the young men from Texas itching for a fight in the Civil War in "Journey to Shiloh," his first American feature. In 1970, Vincent made his first TV-movie, the acclaimed "Tribes" (ABC), in he played a longhaired hippie being whipped into a marine. That film not only made Vincent's career, it was subsequently released theatrically overseas. The following year, Vincent was Robert Mitchum's son in "Going Home" and he co-starred with Charles Bronson in "The Mechanic" (1972). He brought Disney's live-action division back to some stability with the comedy "The World's Greatest Athlete" (1973) and firmed his position as one of the leading young actors of the decade with "Baby Blue Marine" (1976), as a corps dropout mistaken for a hero by his hometown. Vincent played opposite Kim Basinger in "Defiance" (1981), but by the early 80s changing tastes, plus Vincent's already emerging penchant for substances and trouble, had hurt his film career. TV saved the day. Vincent was again cast as Mitchum's son, this time as Byron Henry in "The Winds of War," the ambitious 1983 ABC miniseries based on the Herman Wouk novel. Although both Vincent and his love interest in the piece, Ali MacGraw, where too old for their parts, their devil-may-care attitude as they dashed through Poland on the eve of World War II and were married and separated by the events of the world helped make the miniseries a success. Vincent had first appeared as a regular in a primetime series on the short-lived "The Survivors" (ABC, 1969), as Lana Turner's teenaged son. In 1984, CBS made him a series star with "Airwolf," in which Vincent was operating a state-of-the-art helicopter while doing good deeds and searching for his missing brother. The show lasted until the end of the 1986 season; its demise partly was due to the star's cocaine abuse. After a period of rehabilitation, Vincent returned to TV-movies as one of the "Six Against the Rock" (NBC, 1987), trying to break out of Alcatraz and as Brightmore, who finds Tarzan and brings him across the Atlantic in "Tarzan in Manhattan" (CBS, 1988). But further personal problems haunted Vincent. He was again in the news for substance abuse and allegedly beating his female companion. While his feature film output continued, it was in decidedly low-budget productions, such as "Deadly Avenger" (1992) and the terrorizing "Ice Cream Man" (1995). Despite one last high profile role in Vincent Gallo's well-received indie comedy-drama "Buffalo '66" (1998), even Vincent's low-budget roles dried up in the early 2000s, his final credit coming in 2003's "White Boy." Jan-Michael Vincent died in Asheville, North Carolina on February 10, 2019. He was 73.
Photos
Jan-Michael Vincent
Filmography
Movies
Credit | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Jan-Michael Vincent is My Muse | Self | - | 2002 |
No Score Yet |
|
White Boy | Ron Masters (Character) | - | 2002 |
71% |
|
Chop Suey | Unknown (Character) | $179.9K | 2001 |
No Score Yet |
|
Escape to Grizzly Mountain | Trapper (Character) | - | 2000 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | No Rest for the Wicked | Sheriff Juan Ramirez (Character) | - | 1998 |
77% |
|
Buffalo 66 | Sonny (Character) | $2.4M | 1998 |
No Score Yet |
|
Red Line | Keller (Character) | - | 1996 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Body Count | Detective Reinhart (Character) | - | 1996 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Palace | Unknown (Character) | - | 1996 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Last Kill | Unknown (Character) | - | 1996 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Lethal Orbit | Riff (Character) | - | 1996 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Jurassic Women | Zepp (Character) | - | 1995 |
No Score Yet |
|
Ice Cream Man | Det. Gifford (Character) | - | 1995 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Abducted II: The Reunion | Brad Allen (Character) | - | 1994 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Dirty Games | Kepler West (Character) | - | 1993 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Deadly Heroes | Cody Grant (Character) | - | 1993 |
No Score Yet |
|
Indecent Behavior | Tom Mathis (Character) | - | 1993 |
No Score Yet |
|
Hidden Obsession | Ben Scanlon (Character) | - | 1993 |
No Score Yet |
|
Animal Instincts | Fletcher Ross (Character) | - | 1992 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Midnight Witness | Lance (Character) | - | 1992 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | In Gold We Trust | Oliver Moss (Character) | - | 1992 |
No Score Yet |
|
Sins of Desire | Warren Robillard (Character) | - | 1992 |
No Score Yet |
|
Beyond the Call of Duty | Len Jordan (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet |
|
Hangfire | Colonel Johnson (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet |
|
Xtro II: The Second Encounter | Dr. Ron Shepherd (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Raw Nerve | Lt. Bruce Ellis (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet |
|
The Divine Enforcer | Father Thomas (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Deadly Avenger | Father Thomas (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Final Heist | David King (Character) | - | 1991 |
No Score Yet |
|
Haunting Fear | Detective James Trent (Character) | - | 1990 |
No Score Yet |
|
Tarzan in Manhattan | Brightmore (Character) | - | 1989 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Deadly Embrace | Stewart Moreland (Character) | - | 1989 |
No Score Yet |
|
Alienator | Commander (Character) | - | 1989 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Demonstone | Andy Buck (Character) | - | 1989 |
No Score Yet |
|
Hit List | Jack Collins (Character) | - | 1989 |
No Score Yet |
|
Enemy Territory | Parker (Character) | - | 1987 |
40% |
|
Born in East L.A. | McCalister (Character) | $14.5M | 1987 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Six Against the Rock | Miran "Buddy" Thompson (Character) | - | 1987 |
No Score Yet |
|
Airwolf | Stringfellow Hawke (Character) | - | 1984 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Last Plane Out | Jack Cox (Character) | - | 1983 |
No Score Yet |
|
Hard Country | Kyle (Character) | - | 1981 |
No Score Yet |
|
The Return | Wayne (Character) | - | 1980 |
No Score Yet |
|
Defiance | Tommy (Character) | - | 1979 |
67% |
|
Big Wednesday | Matt Johnson (Character) | - | 1978 |
57% |
|
Hooper | Ski (Character) | - | 1978 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Summer of Innocence | Matt Johnson (Character) | - | 1978 |
42% |
|
Damnation Alley | Tanner (Character) | - | 1977 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Baby Blue Marine | Marion (Character) | - | 1976 |
No Score Yet |
|
Shadow of the Hawk | Mike (Character) | - | 1976 |
17% |
|
Vigilante Force | Ben Arnold (Character) | - | 1976 |
73% |
|
Bite the Bullet | Carbo (Character) | - | 1975 |
29% |
|
White Line Fever | Carrol Jo Hummer (Character) | - | 1975 |
No Score Yet |
|
Buster and Billie | Buster Lane (Character) | - | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Deliver Us From Evil | Nick Fleming (Character) | - | 1973 |
No Score Yet |
|
The World's Greatest Athlete | Nanu (Character) | - | 1973 |
45% |
|
The Mechanic | Steve McKenna (Character) | - | 1972 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Sandcastles | Michael (Character) | - | 1972 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Catcher | Sam Callende (Character) | - | 1972 |
No Score Yet |
|
Going Home | Jimmy Graham (Character) | - | 1971 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Once Is Never Enough | Kevin Colter (Character) | - | 1970 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Double Jeopardy | Unknown (Character) | - | 1970 |
No Score Yet |
|
Tribes | Adrian (Character) | - | 1970 |
44% |
|
The Undefeated | Lt. Bubba Wilkes (Character) | - | 1969 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Last of the Powerseekers | Unknown (Character) | - | 1969 |
No Score Yet |
|
Journey to Shiloh | Little Bit Lucket (Character) | - | 1968 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Bandits | Taye "Boy" Brown (Character) | - | 1967 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Los bandidos | Taye 'Boy' Brown (Character) | - | 1967 |
TV
Credit | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Nash Bridges | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1997 |
No Score Yet | 42% | Airwolf |
Stringfellow Hawke (Character), Unknown (Guest Star) |
1984-1987 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Hotel | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1986 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Police Story | Warren Yates (Character) | 1973 1975 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Marcus Welby, M.D. | Ritchie Manning (Guest Star) | 1973 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Gunsmoke | Travis Colter (Guest Star) | 1971 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Dan August | Kevin Colter (Guest Star) | 1971 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Bonanza | Unknown (Guest Star) | 1968-1969 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Lassie | Chris Hanford (Guest Star) | 1968 |