Jan-Michael Vincent (born July 15, 1944) is a retired American actor best known for his role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the 1980s U.S. television series Airwolf (1984–86) and as the protagonist of John Milius’s 1978 surfing epic Big Wednesday.

Biography

Vincent has battled alcoholism and intravenous drug use for much of his life. In 1983, he was arrested for drunk driving, but avoided jail by entering rehab. He was also arrested after two bar brawls in 1984 and 1985 and then received a felony assault charge in 1986, which he was acquitted of after his attorney argued that the woman tripped and fell on a telephone cord in his home. In 1995, a $374,000 default judgment was made against him after his former girlfriend alleged he had physically assaulted her after their breakup and caused her to miscarry their child.

In the latter half of the 1990s, he was involved in two severe automobile collisions, which he barely survived. In an accident in August 1996 Vincent broke three vertebrae in his neck. He also sustained a permanent injury to his vocal cords from an emergency medical procedure, leaving him with a permanently raspy voice.

Vincent was charged with drunk driving again after his 1996 accident and once again sentenced to rehab and placed on probation. In an interview on the TV program The Insider on September 18, 2007, when asked about his 1996 car accident, he answered, “Y’know, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don't remember being in an accident.”

In 2000, Vincent violated probation for his prior alcohol-related arrests by appearing drunk in public three times and assaulting his fiancée, Patricia. As a result, he was sentenced to 60 days in Orange County Jail.

Vincent was involved in another automobile accident in 2008.

Vincent married his first wife, Bonnie Poorman, his “college classmate sweetheart” in 1969 and they had a daughter, Amber Vincent, in 1973. His second wife, Joanne Robinson, left him and had a restraining order entered against him in 1994, alleging that he had abused her since their marriage in 1985.

In an October 2014 interview with National Enquirer, Vincent revealed that his right leg was amputated just below the knee in 2012 after he contracted a leg infection as a result of complications from peripheral artery disease. He now walks with a prosthetic limb, though sometimes he is forced to use a wheelchair. He also revealed he had tax debt in excess of $70,000.

As of 2013, Vincent resides near Vicksburg, Mississippi.