Jan-Michael Vincent (July 15, 1944 – February 10, 2019) was an American actor known for portraying helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke in the TV series Airwolf (1984–1987) and the protagonist, Matt Johnson, in the 1978 film Big Wednesday. He also starred as Byron Henry in The Winds of War.
Jan-Michael Vincent was born in Denver, Colorado, where his father was stationed after enlisting in the United States Army in 1941. His father, Lloyd Whiteley Vincent (September 7, 1919 – August 30, 2000), was born in Tulare, California, and raised in nearby Hanford in the San Joaquin Valley. His mother, Doris Jane (née Pace; August 2, 1925 – February 22, 1993), was born in Arkansas and moved to Hanford as a toddler. Jan's grandfather, Herbert Vincent (September 26, 1876 – January 14, 1974), was a bank robber and counterfeiter who had masterminded robberies in the 1920s and 1930s. Jan's uncle, Lloyd's brother Hoy, was shot to death in Tulare by a sheriff's deputy and was wanted for a robbery that occurred in Oregon. Two of Vincent's other uncles, Clifford and Harold, were convicted of bank robbery in Hardwick, California and Strathmore, California in 1931. In 1932, Herbert and his son, Gordon, were arrested in Hanford in January for bank robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, which left Lloyd alone at age twelve.
Lloyd Vincent and Doris met in 1940 when she was 15 and Lloyd had finished high school. Lloyd was stationed in Denver in 1941 as a B-25 bomber pilot during World War II, and he married Doris there when she was sixteen. Jan's mistrust of authority came from later seeing his father in the Army being told what to do and when to do it. Jan Vincent's sister, Jaqueline "Jacquie" Vincent, was born in 1947. His brother, Christopher, was born in 1952. After the war, Lloyd became a painter, like Jan's grandfather, and later developed alcoholism. By the time Jan was born in 1944, his parents owned a sign company in Hanford.

Return to Jan-Michael Vincent Autograph Profile