Jan-Michael Vincent, best known for playing daredevil pilot Stringfellow Hawke in the Airwolf TV series of the 1980s, died at the age of 74. In The Mechanic, with Burt Reynolds in Hooper and in seminal surfing film Big Wednesday, the US actor also appeared with Charles Bronson. He was nominated for the 1971 film Going Home for a Golden Globe and again for The Winds of War miniseries in 1984.
Jan Michael Vincent died on 10 February, according to his death certificate.
The paper, which was only acquired by the media on Friday, states that he was an inpatient at a North Carolina hospital and that his third wife, Patricia Ann Christ, survives.
Image copyrightCHANNEL 5Image captionVincent and co-star Ernest Borgnine (right) in Airwolf
Vincent was born 15 July 1944 in Denver, Colorado.
In the 1967 television movie The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Chinese Junk, under the name Mike Vincent, he made his first appearance on screen. Vincent worked steadily throughout the seventies and eighties, notably working on the 1976 film Vigilante Force with Kris Kristofferson and Victoria Principal.
He also starred alongside Kim Basinger in 1981's Hard Country.
Image copyrightCHANNEL 5Image captionVincent in Airwolf
In the 1984 CBS action series Airwolf, where he starred with the late Ernest Borgnine, Jan Michael Vincent assumed his most famous role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke. For every episode in which he starred, he was reportedly paid $200,000. Following his Airwolf heyday, Vincent's career waned and he retired from acting in 2009. His last feature film was White Boy's 2002 gang film. A leg infection in 2012 required him to amputate the bottom half of his right leg.
