Jan Michael Vincent AKA JMV
[related: Airwolf]
American actor primarily known for his role as the helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke in the '80's television series Airwolf. Jan Michael Vincent (known colloquially as JMV) hailed from a long line of miscreants - his paternal grandfather was the well-known bank robber and counterfeiter Herbert Vincent. Three of his uncles later followed in Herbert's footsteps - and Hoy Vincent, JMV's father's brother, was shot by police in Tulare after resisting arrest. JMV's fame surged in the mid-'80s as Airwolf found a footing alongside fellow synthscored tech-oriented adventure shows like Knight Rider.
Airwolf's theme song, the first on a major network to be entirely synthetic, found traction on commercial radio. However, amidst declining ratings and JMV's increasingly erratic behavior, Airwolf was canceled by CBS and picked up by the fringe USA Network for its fourth and final season. The show's setting was moved to Canada, with JMV's role significantly diminished. USA's reboot was a critical and commercial failure, in large part because budget constraints forced exclusive use of recycled and stock footage for all helicopter action sequences. A brief reboot effort followed later, focusing mainly on Stringfellow Hawke's activities as an amateur cellist [1], but JMV's volatility continually derailed the effort. Following Airwolf's cancellation JMV fell into deep despair and turned increasingly to drugs and alcohol, compiling numerous arrests for narcotics. Following a series of reckless (and some say intentional) car accidents, JMV was left with a glass blue eye, a raspy voice, an amputated leg, and very little memory.
Jan Michael Vincent at the age of 41.
- ↑ In part in effort to confine JMV to a "secure" single setting without access to narcotics. A lone bright spot in the reboot was the relative success of Octagon of Dex's churning and dynamic opening credits rescore.