Jan-Michael Vincent

Jan-Michael Vincent was one of those guys who had it all and somehow lost the thread anyway, which makes him genuinely hard to write about without feeling a little wistful. In the early '70s he was legitimately magnetic — that Golden Globe nomination for Going Home was no fluke — and he held his own opposite Charles Bronson in The Mechanic like he was born to be a leading man. Big Wednesday cemented that sun-bleached, laid-back cool that seemed tailor-made for him. Then Airwolf made him a household name through the mid-'80s, and honestly the show worked largely because he had that quiet, coiled intensity that fit the brooding pilot character perfectly. The fact that he held an actual aircraft pilot's license only adds to the mystique. The second half of his life was rough, and history tends to overshadow the first half unfairly. He passed in February 2019 at 74, and I think he deserves to be remembered for the work, not the fall.

Name (English)

Jan-Michael Vincent

Name (Japanese)

ジャン＝マイケル・ヴィンセント

Reading

じゃん＝まいける・ゔぃんせんと

Born

July 15, 1944 – February 10, 2019

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Cancer / Monkey

Origin

Denver, Colorado, United States

Occupation

actor / television actor / film actor / film producer / aircraft pilot

High school

Hanford Joint Union High School District

University

Ventura College

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://janmichaelvincent.org/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A3%E3%83%B3%EF%BC%9D%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B1%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BB%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88

Tags

• Colorado
• actor
• television actor
• film actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.