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Airwolf article from TV Guide October 1984
Will Jan Michael Vincent's new image fly?
A reputed rebel and troublemaker.
Jan-Michael Vincent vows he's growing up and will give
more of himself to Airwolf...but Will His New Image Fly?
By Bill O'Hallaren
Jan-Michael Vincent of CBS's Airwolf is hunched over a double tequila in a noisy Malibu cantina. "I feel like I've given the show a real shortchange. I don't feel I've even given it 25 per cent. I owe it 50 per cent more than I gave it last year."
It's rare for an actor to admit his contribution to any show is less than astounding, but the moody 39-year-old Vincent has never been much for doing and saying the expected. He's asked if he held back because he didn't like the concept or the scripts or developed an allergy to helicopters. "No," he drawls. "I was just lazy."
But this year, he vows. "I'm going to pay them back for what I didn't give them last year. I'm coming in full barrel and if they're ready for me full barrel, they've got it."
Although the setting was Malibu `the scene was pure Hollywood. In one corner, Vincent was submitting to an interview. In another, Vincent's pal, actor Gary Busey, and various friends were celebrating a joint Vincent-Busey birthday party. In still another, Vincent's only child, daughter Amber. was celebrating her 11th birthday with a party of young, mostly golden-haired beach children.
Vincent and Amber's mother, Bonnie Vincent, have been separated for many years, and in April she filed for divorce. Although Amber lives with her mother most of the time, her parents have agreed to share joint legal custody. Vincent's constant companion these days is his next-door neighbor. model Joanne Robinson. A friend says. "Joanne is a little blonde beach kid who grew up worshiping Jan. He's known her since she was about 12." She's now in her mid-20s.
Some of Vincent's best friends in Malibu are not in show business but are a rough-hewn lot who live in modest, secluded houses back in the canyons and spend a good deal of time looking for big waves, drinking beer and hiding their marijuana plants from the sheriffs. Vincent, who has a 10-acre spread in Encinal Canyon, has been convicted for drunk driving and pot possession. One evening this spring, Vincent was in a favorite Malibu bar when he became involved in an altercation with a 6-foot 4-inch patron named John Bogosian. The causes are in dispute, but Vincent landed a haymaker that sent Bogosian to the hospital. Vincent left the scene and a reporter seeking an interview was unable to reach him for weeks. A publicist said he was going to Europe. In June, he surrendered to the Malibu sheriff's deputies and faces a charge of felony battery. Vincent says he will not comment on the pending case on the advice of his attorney.
 Vincent has had a reputation as a troublemaker, and Donald P. Bellisario, the creator and executive producer of Airwolf, says, "I was aware of his reputation before I hired him. We sat down and talked it over and he assured me all that is behind him. I believed him, and as far as I'm concerned, he hasn't been troublesome."
Of Vincent's confession that he didn't give enough to the show last season, Bellisario notes, "I found out you've got to ask him to give. He hangs back unless he's asked. But he's trying a lot harder this season and even making story suggestions." Bellisario has also had a suggestion for Vincent's portrayal of Stringfellow Hawke: "I told him it would be all right to smile once in a while."
Many who know him suggest Vincent would be happy spending the rest of his life with his laid-back surfing friends, waiting for the perfect wave, but he insists he really wants to work. "It's fun here, but if you don't get out and go to work you become a guacamole. Besides, I've had my share. Who else has been allowed to be a kid for 35 years?"
 Indeed, off screen and on, Vincent usually comes through as the perpetual youth, mildly rebellious, lazily enjoying the good things of life. In The Winds of War, Vincent, then in his late 30s, portrayed a college-age man.
Winds was the second time he played Robert Mitchum's son and Vincent idolizes the older actor. They seem a pair: both have been hard-drinking macho types, quick to laugh or fight and exuding a quiet, understated menace. Indeed, Vincent's persona sometimes seems a Mitchum imitation. It's been reported that Vincent has had his problems with drug and alcohol abuse, and Mitchum was recently a patient at the Betty Ford Center near Palm Springs, Cal., which offers help for similar problems.
When he plays a rebellious youth, it's based on real life. He seems to have had a pleasant childhood in Hanford, Cal., where his father runs an outdoor-advertising agency. Father and son didn't always agree.
"On the night of my high-school graduation party, I got home about dawn. Dad said, 'O.K., change your clothes, we're going to work.' I said, 'You've got to be kidding.' 'No, you're through school, so if you intend to stay here you work. Starting now.' I said, 'Bye'."
He enrolled in Ventura College, "because it's close to the surf," and after a few indifferent semesters drifted to Mexico for a long, languorous spell as a beach bum. When his money finally ran out, he served in the National Guard and then was guided into acting by veteran agent Dick Clayton, to whom he credits his entire career. Vincent insists his father prepared the way by telling him, "You're too nervous to steal, too jealous to pimp and I know you don't like work—so you'll be an actor."
Vincent appeared on such series as Lassie and Bonanza, and had been a sleepy-eyed presence in Hollywood ever since, with some 20 movies and hundreds of TV appearances. And in between them he's had plenty of time to check the latest waves and beach action.
A few days after the birthday parties, Airwolf is on location at the Van Nuys airport and the first scene calls for Vincent and Ernest Borgnine (who plays Stringfellow Hawke's partner, Dominic Santini) to be tuning up a vintage biplane. It's hot enough to roast an ox and sweat threatens to drown Borgnine's makeup, but Vincent is Mr. Cool. "I have never complained about a location—even Yugoslavia in winter for Winds of War. That's because I remember painting billboards in the desert for my Dad when it was 140 degrees—at 75 cents an hour."
 Borgnine won't agree that Vincent short-changed the show last season. "That's his point of view. As far as I'm concerned, he worked hard." But Borgnine believes there was another problem. "He came on as the man who didn't smile, the moody type who played the [cello]. I think he's going to open up this season and the public will like him a lot better."
Vincent regards the cello bits as funny, but interesting, and took two weeks of cello lessons so he could make the right moves. But the cello won't be as prominent this season, according to Bellisario, "because the writers don't remember it." They also forget, he adds sadly, "Tet, the dog." Tet's niche in TV is unique: he is the medium's first voyeur canine. The forgetfulness may be understandable, however, because the show "has an all new writing staff this year."
 Much of Hawke's opening up is expected to come through the addition of Jean Bruce Scott to the cast. Scott, who reminds one of Sandy Duncan, plays what she describes as "a Texas tomboy," a former Texas ranger who flies helicopters. She and Hawke will do some friendly and not so friendly sparring, says Bellisario, "but they won't have a love affair."
"I've been a big fan of Jan's since I was 10," she confides. Then, "Oh, God, don't tell him that. Anyway, I loved surfers and I had this poster in my bedroom." Scott is no stranger to hunks, having appeared several times with Tom Selleck on Magnum, P.I., produced by the same Don Bellisario who gives us Airwolf.
Sometimes the show is shot on the Universal back lot and the set is invaded by tourists, an event that causes most actors to scream for their agents. but which Vincent and Borgnine profess to love. "I work one end of the crowd and Jan the other," according to Borgnine. "We tell them this is the Airwolf show and when we're on and to tell everyone back home about it. Every little bit helps."
It's a fair bet that without Borgnine's irrepressibly outgoing nature (he goes through the set each morning shaking hands with practically everyone from directors to catering assistants), Vincent wouldn't be glad-handing strangers. "Ernie has been like a surrogate father to Jan," explains Alan J. Levi, the series' supervising producer last year. "All that exuberance is catching." On locations, however, the grim-looking helicopter, Airwolf, is undoubtedly the star, attracting more attention from visitors than any of the humans, however famous.
So far the score seems to be Helicopter 1, Actors 0, but Vincent expects to turn that around in a hurry. "Everybody likes to watch helicopters fly, and so do I, but it's a hell of a lot more interesting to watch a guy grow up. And that's what they'll be watching this year. I'm going to grease the brakes on that bird." END
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