Actor Jan-Michael Vincent has died.

Jan-Michael Vincent, who starred in such action fare as The Mechanic, White Line Fever and TV's Airwolf before a raft of personal problems and illness sent him on a downward spiral, has died. He was 73.

Vincent died Feb. 10 in Asheville, North Carolina, according to his death certificate obtained by KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.

Vincent had a very public battle with drug and alcohol abuse and his career was already on the wane when he was drunk and involved in a 1996 car accident in Mission Viejo, Calif., that broke his neck and damaged his vocal cords.

Twelve years later, Vincent was in another car crash, then contracted an infection that led to two sections of his right leg being amputated. He spent his final years broke and living in Mississippi.

Things were much different in the mid-1970s, when Vincent was poised on the cusp of superstardom. A chiseled heartthrob with a mane of flowing hair, he capitalized on his hunky image by appearing shirtless in photos and on the big screen, and the agent who discovered him also discovered James Dean.

Vincent portrayed up-and-coming characters in Michael Winner's The Mechanic (1972), as the too-ambitious protege of contract killer Charles Bronson; in Vigilante Force (1976), as Kris Kristofferson’s brother; and in Hooper (1978), as a stuntman mentored by Burt Reynolds.

Vincent also starred as a popular high school jock opposite Joan Goodfellow in the tragic love story Buster and Billie (1974), directed by Daniel Petrie, played the rebel trucker Carrol Jo Hummer in the violent White Line Fever (1975), and went along with being mistaken for a Marine Corps hero in Baby Blue Marine (1976).

After a bit of a career lull, the blue-eyed Vincent played naval officer Robert Mitchum's black-sheep son and wooed Ali MacGraw on the acclaimed ABC 1983 miniseries The Winds of War, adapted from Herman Wouk's best-selling work of 1930s fiction.

He then was cast as Stringfellow Hawke — the pilot of a high-tech, CIA-created Bell 222 helicopter and the brother of a missing Vietnam vet — on Airwolf, created by TV action maestro Donald P. Bellisario. The series, which also starred Ernest Borgnine, aired from 1984-86, and Vincent at the time was among the highest-paid actors on television.

But with all his troubles, his career would never be the same after Airwolf.

"He had tremendous natural ability, and that was his curse," David Grove, author of the 2016 book Jan-Michael Vincent: Edge of Greatness, said in a January 2017 podcast interview with Phil Hall. "When you are born with natural ability, there's a tendency to get by on that. It's like a well; when it's dry, there's nothing left, because you've never worked to build that foundation."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jan-michael-vincent-star-of-the-mechanic-and-airwolf-dies-at-73/ar-BBUxwCE

Also was good in a TV movie called Tribes.