I'm not sure why I wait until an actor's death to check out their body of work, especially when I've already checked out their actual body many times previously on the site. I knew actor Jan-Michael Vincent primarily from images, still and caps from his frontal in 1974's Buster and Billie. The frontal was notable for many reasons, including how rare it was. Successful actors rarely do frontals today, and it was even more uncommon in the 70's.
I'd seen clips of Vincent's nude scene, and decided to see if he done any additional on-screen nudity. My googling came up with two other films, one before Buster and Billie, and one after. The first was 1971's Going Home and the second 1981's Hard Country. You can check out caps in the piece below HERE:
Vincent got his big break in films in 1967's The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Chinese Junk. He didn't play one of the brothers, Richard Gates played Frank, and Tim Matheson took on the role of younger brother Joe. Over the next few years, Vincent appeared in a few other films, and in guest star roles on TV's Lassie, Gunsmoke and Bonanza.
It was a few years later, with Going Home and Buster and Billie, that Vincent took on the role of screen idol. With his chiseled face, and chiseled body, he was a natural on the big screen. Vincent went on to star in films including; Big Wednesday, Hooper, Born in East L.A and Vigilante Force. In 1984, he had one of his biggest roles, this time in the television min-series The Winds of War.
In real life, Vincent sadly channeled many of the darkness in the characters he played on film. He battled drugs and alcoholism and in the years of 1977, 1978, and 1979 was arrested for possession of cocaine. Arrests for bar brawls and domestic assaults followed leading to jail time. Years of abuse, not to mention several car accidents, led to a series of health problems, including a leg amputation, in the years before his death at the age of 73 in 2019.
