Actor Jan-Michael Vincent, best known for ‘Airwolf’ TV action series, dies at 73
- A promising actor in the 1970s and 80s, Vincent saw his career spiral downwards through drug and alcohol addiction
Actor Jan-Michael Vincent, the Airwolf television star whose sleek good looks belied a troubled personal life, has died. He was 73.
A death certificate shows Vincent died of cardiac arrest on February 10, 2019, in an Asheville, North Carolina, hospital. The certificate signed by a doctor says he died of natural causes and no autopsy was performed.
It wasn’t clear why it took several weeks for news of the death to surface before it was first reported on Friday by TMZ. Messages left at phone listings for Vincent and his wife were not immediately returned Friday.
Born in 1945 in Denver, Colorado, he starred in films including 1972’s The Mechanic, directed by Michael Winner of Death Wish fame and starring Charles Bronson as a hitman training a young man – Vincent – to become a professional killer.
In 1978’s Hooper, he played a stuntman opposite Burt Reynolds. The same year Vincent appeared in the cult favourite Big Wednesday, a drama about surfers facing the prospect of going to fight in Vietnam.