Don Johnson

Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson (born December 15, 1949) is an American actor and recording artist perhaps best known for his lead role as James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s television series, Miami Vice. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges. Johnson is a Golden Globe winning actor for his role in Miami Vice, a winner of the American Power Boat Association Offshore World Cup, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is also a singer, songwriter, producer, and director. --- Johnson was born in Flat Creek, Missouri. His mother, Nell (née Wilson), was a beautician, and his father, Wayne Fred Johnson, was a farmer. They were 19 and 17 at the time of his birth, respectively. At age six, he moved from Missouri to Wichita, Kansas. A 1967 graduate of South High School, he was involved in the high school's theatre program. As a senior, he played the lead role of Tony in West Side Story. His biography noted that he had previously appeared in "Burnt Cork and Melody" and "The Hullabaloo." He also attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Johnson studied drama at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. His first major role was in the 1969 Los Angeles stage production of Fortune and Men's Eyes, in which he played Smitty, the lead role. This exposure led to the quickly forgotten film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970, based on a novel by Robert Westbrook, son of columnist Sheilah Graham). He continued to work on stage, film and television without breaking out into stardom. His notable films from this period were Zachariah (1971), The Harrad Experiment (1973), Lollipop and Roses (1974), and A Boy and His Dog (1975). In 1976, Johnson was roommates with actor Sal Mineo when Mineo was murdered outside their West Hollywood, CA apartment. --- From 1984-1989—after years of struggling to establish himself as a TV actor (in such fare as Revenge of the Stepford Wives), and a string of pilots, none of which became a TV series—Johnson landed a starring role as undercover police detective Sonny Crockett in the cop series, Miami Vice. He typically wore thousand dollar Versace and Hugo Boss suits over pastel cotton t-shirts, drove a Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona (really a replica kit on a 1981 Corvette chassis), followed by a Ferrari Testarossa and lived on a 40-foot (12 m) (later a 42 ft) Endeavour yacht with his pet alligator, Elvis. Miami Vice was noted for its revolutionary use of music, cinematography, imagery, and its glitzy take on the police drama genre. Between seasons, Johnson gained further renown through several TV miniseries, such as the 1985 TV remake of The Long, Hot Summer. --- Johnson released two albums of pop music in the 1980s, one in 1986 and the other in 1989. His single, "Heartbeat", reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It was the title track from his first album, and was a collaboration with Robert Tepper. Johnson is also a good friend of Willie Nelson and Robert Tepper, and was briefly a part of the "Thailand Pack", alongside Tommy Morrison, and British TV funny man Les Dennis. Previously, Johnson worked with Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, co-writing the songs "Blind Love" and "Can't Take It with You" with Dickie Betts, which appeared on their 1979 album, Enlightened Rogues. B.B. King and Jules Taub co-wrote the song "Blind Love", the Allman's covered it. There is no writer's credit to confirm he co-wrote "Can't Take It with You". --- Johnson has had four wives in five marriages, three of which were brief. His first two marriages, in the late 1960s, were annulled. The names of Johnson's first two wives have not been made public knowledge. In the early 1970s, Johnson lived with groupie Pamela Des Barres. At 22, he met Melanie Griffith, the 14-year-old daughter of his The Harrad Experiment co-star Tippi Hedren. When Griffith was 15, she and Johnson began living together in a rented house in Laurel Canyon. On her 18th birthday they became engaged, and were married in January 1976; they filed for divorce that July. In early 1989, they reunited and conceived a child, Dakota Johnson (born 1989), and were married again from that year until 1996. Johnson lived with actress Patti D'Arbanville. from 1981 to 1988. The couple has a son, Jesse Wayne Johnson (born December 7, 1982). A 1989 description of the couple's life in the 1980s said, ...[O]n Jan. 17, 1981, ... D'Arbanville ... met Johnson at an L.A. restaurant. "I saw this gorgeous guy," she says, "and I ran after him. saying, 'Hey you.' It turned out to be Donny. I said, 'So, Donny, how many times have you been married?' He said, 'Three.' I said, 'Say hello to No. 4.'...." Johnson ditched his date, Tanya Tucker, and spent the night with Patti. "One month later," she says, "I was pregnant." The couple planned to marry that fall, but D'Arbanville changed her mind. "I didn't see the point," she says. "Besides, there were areas in which we didn't get along." Drinking was one of them. Shortly after becoming pregnant, Patti sobered up. "Donny didn't," she says "[and] we grew further apart." ... Johnson eventually stopped drinking with D'Arbanville's help.... Miami Vice took Johnson to Florida in 1984, and the couple split a year later.... Johnson next had a relationship with Barbra Streisand, lasting into at least September 1988. On April 29, 1999, he married San Francisco socialite and Montessori nursery school teacher Kelley Phleger, then 30, at the Pacific Heights mansion of Ann and Gordon Getty. Actor Robert Wagner served as best man, and Mayor Willie Brown presided over the civil ceremony. Johnson and Phleger have three children together: a daughter, Atherton Grace Johnson (born December 28, 1999), and two sons, Jasper Breckinridge Johnson (born June 6, 2002), and Deacon Johnson (born April 29, 2006).