Jan-Michael Vincent rose to prominence in Hollywood during the 1970's and 1980's due to his good looks and low-key swagger but after drug addiction and health issues derailed his promising career, he faded in to obscurity. Sadly, it has been reported that the actor had passed away on February 10th at the age of seventy-four from cardiac arrest.
Vincent was born in Denver but raised in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Unsure of what he wanted to do with his life after he graduated from high school, Vincent attended some college in Ventura, worked a number of odd jobs and liked to do some partying in between. But it was a casting agent who spotted Vincent that pointed him in the direction of an acting career. He helped get Vincent signed to a contract with Universal Studios in 1967 and he quickly appeared in several popular television shows of the day like “Lassie”, “Dragnet”, “Bonanza” and in the “Danger Island” segment on the “Banana Splits” children’s program (which was one of my favorite shows and I had forgotten he was on it).
Vincent also made a move to the movies and some of his early appearances were in the Disney comedy, “The World’s Greatest Athlete”, co-starring with Charles Bronson in “The Mechanic” and with Robert Mitchum in “Going Home” which Vincent earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His star was on the rise and some of the highlights during Vincent’s peak years were “Buster & Billie” (it is most notable due to Vincent’s full-frontal nudity which was one of the first in American films), “Bite The Bullet”, “White Line Fever”, “Baby Blue Marine”, “Big Wednesday“ and the Burt Reynolds comedy, “Hooper”.
When decent film roles dried up, Vincent returned to television; first in the highly successful 1983 miniseries, “The Winds of War” and then in the action series, “Airwolf” with Ernest Borgnine the following year. He would become one of the highest paid actors on television at the time but it was also during this time that his addictions took over his life. It has been said that this and his increasingly erratic behavior was one reason for the show’s cancellation after three seasons.
Vincent’s life continued to spin out of control with him being involved in several car accidents with the most severe being in 1996 that seriously injured his passenger and left him with a broken neck and damaged vocal cords. He would go through the continuously grim routine of spending time in jail, perform court-ordered rehab and then repeat these actions for much of the rest of his life. Vincent would lose part of his right leg due to peripheral artery disease in 2012.
It really is a very sad and tragic ending for this talented actor. To honor his life and his career, here are a few trailers of some of Jan-Michael Vincent’s great moments in cinema:
No comments:
Post a Comment