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July 7, 2004 #
 by Chris Gage Jan-Michael Vincent is Mickey Rourke's Mickey Rourke. Even during J-MV's heyday when he played the tremendously monikered Stringfellow Hawke on "Airwolf" (1984-86) J-MV made Nick Nolte's mug in the infamous mugshot look like a "Swan" contestant's "after" photo. With wife beating, drug addiction, and alcohol raps under his belt, J-MV has only made sporadic appearances in any film you would deign to see. But he did single-handedly make "Butt-fuckalo 66" tolerable for a few minutes, his presence being the only thing in this NY hipster cum small-town losers wank-fest that didn't smack of three-week-old K-Y jelly. Ironically, it was J-MV's 1996 car accident that broke his neck and tore asunder his vocal chords, leaving him with a Waitsian guttural rasp befitting his scar-ravaged visage, and making him ever more the picture and voice of a dependable bit-part player. Our reluctant hero, however, was not always the roadmap of celebrity downfall: Once the Brad Pitt of his generation (AKA a big fat gay icon) when he played the role of Ski Chinski alongside Burt Reynolds (another '70s guy-con) in the Hollywood stuntman flick, "Hooper." Now try to follow, J-MV was also pegged to play Hooper (the Richard Dreyfus character) in "Jaws" by the studio but Spielberg was having none of that and went with the whimpering Mr. Holland who fails to put the appropriate gravitas into lines like, "All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all." Substitute "swim," "eat," and "make little sharks" with "drink," "snort coke," and "punch the daylights out of his wife" and you got Jan-Michael Vincent. Archives "The Other Page" powered by Removable Hype. RSS. Copyright © 2003 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, stock tips, and family gossip. |
