Actor Jan-Michael Vincent, known for "Airwolf", has passed away

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) – Actor Jan-Michael Vincent, the star actor of the television channel "Airwolf", has died. He was 73 years old.

A death certificate states that Vincent died of cardiac arrest on February 10, 2019 in a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. The certificate signed by a doctor indicates that he died of natural causes and that no autopsy has been performed.

It was unclear why it had taken several weeks before the news of the death appeared before it was reported on Friday by TMZ. The messages left on the phone lists of Vincent and his wife did not return immediately Friday.

Born in 1945 in Denver, Colorado, Vincent played in films such as "The Mechanic" from 1972 and "Hooper" from 1978, in which he played a stunt alongside Burt Reynolds. Off screen, its beauty earned him to be in the late 1970s on the list of "Top Ten Nose" cosmetic surgeon.

He also starred in the 1983 television miniseries "Winds of War" as a passion of a character portrayed by Ali MacGraw, "racking up huge odds", according to a contemporary account of the world. Associated Press. He got a Golden Globe nomination.

In an interview with AP in 1984, Vincent described his passion for navigation. He said he spent three months after completing "Winds of War" sailing in the Caribbean. He also said that he was a longtime surfer.

"I surfed for years. … I surf the world, "he said. "I'll be 40 in July and I still love surfing."

Perhaps his most famous role is that of the "Airwolf" action-adventure television series, which lasted several seasons after its launch in 1984. Vincent embodied the Stringfellow pilot Hawke, a sturdy pilot who could perform maneuvers to combat acrobatic crime in an advanced helicopter – but also plays the cello.

In the AP interview, he explained that he had tried to find the right way to detach the character.

"The character is stiff," he says, "but as we've been able to release him, now you'll see him sometimes shout a smile and say something funny." Even Clint Eastwood is mutating, even though I will never be Burt Reynolds. "

However, his surfer behavior was sometimes eclipsed by his troubled personal life. He pleaded guilty in 1997 to an impaired driving accident that left him with a broken neck and was sentenced to a rehabilitation program. He was also indicted in fights in a bar, in the 1980s, where he was put to the test and acquitted. In another case, he had been acquitted in 1986 of beating a woman.

In 2000, he was sentenced to 60 days in Orange County, California, after confessing to having violated his probation by posing as being drunk in public and assaulting his girlfriend at the time.

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Allen G. Breed, author of The Associated Press, contributed to this report.