American actor appearing on-screen since 1970. After playing small roles in films and made-for-TV movies, he struck a chord with the public in the 1980s hit cop show, “Miami Vice.” His character of Sonny Crocket with his unshaven nonchalant appearance sporting casual clothes started a fashion trend in men’s clothing. His personal life became the subject for the tabloids after he married and divorced actress, Melanie Griffith, twice.
Johnson’s mother gave birth to him at the age of 16. His father was a farmer and his mother a beautician. When Johnson was 11, his parents divorced, leaving the child feeling devastated and unwanted. He acted out his anger by rebelling at home and in school. At 12, he was sent to Lake Aston Home for Boys reform school after hot-wiring cars. A delinquent kid, he was into theft, moving into alcohol and drugs with a non-stop party for years. Johnson went to live with his father in East Wichita, KS in 1961.
Adored by women from the time he was a kid, when Johnson went to high school at 16, he lived in town with a stripper. He graduated and received a scholarship to study drama at the University of Kansas. He was the first in his family to go off to college. In 1968, he left Kansas and joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, CA. After appearing in a couple of plays, he was invited by Sal Mineo to play a gay young man in “Fortune and Men’s Eyes.” The play opened to excellent reviews on 12 January 1969 at the Coronet Theater in Los Angeles. He was signed to a multi-picture contract with MGM, but Johnson soon discovered that income from his film work was irregular. He made the film, “A Boy And His Dog” in 1976 which has become a cult film. Throughout the ’70s, he appeared in television assignments in “Police Story,” “Kung Fu” and in TV movies such as John Jake’s “The Rebels,” 1979.
Johnson had his big break in the TV cop drama set in Florida. “Miami Vice” debuted on 16 September 1984 with a color scheme in clothes and sets that concentrated on pastels, tropical pinks and blues. He earned an Emmy nomination for Best Actor in 1985 and by the fall of that year his face graced the cover of all the newsstands. In 1986, during the height of his fame, he recorded an album “Heartbeat” for Epic Records. He received good reviews for his semisweet tenor voice. “Miami Vice” closed shop in 1989 and Johnson landed a string of unforgettable films. In 1996, Johnson received good reviews as Kevin Costner’s rival in Ron Shelton’s “Tin Cup.” He returned to the TV screen with his CBS show, “Nash Bridges” in 1997. Johnson became a motor boating enthusiast through a series he played in and captured the title of World’s Offshore Powerboat Championship in 1988.
His friends joked that it would take a computer to tally his sexual conquests. He married actress Melanie Griffith in 1976 for nine months. They had first met when she was 14 and he, 22. He also has a son by actress Patti D’Arbanville, Jesse, born in 1982. In 1987, he was named People Magazine’s “Sexist Man Alive.” Johnson had a brief relationship with Barbra Streisand in 1988 and at the end of the year, began to romance his former wife Melanie Griffith after she appeared on his TV show. They married a second time in 1989 and Griffith gave birth to their daughter, Dakota in 1990. The couple moved to Aspen, Colorado to raised their family. In 1994, they separated and then divorced.
In the ’70s, Johnson’s reputation for alcohol, drugs and all-night parties cost him many jobs. On 11 September 1983, after his son was born he decided to go seek help at AA meetings. Clean and sober during his stint in “Miami Vice” Johnson encouraged Melanie Griffith to seek help for her drug and alcohol addictions at the Hazelton clinic in Minnesota.
In 1992, Johnson started drinking again. On 1 June 1994, he rolled his car in an accident in Aspen with son Jesse in the car. His son was unscathed but Johnson was treated for cuts and abrasions. Three days later he enrolled in the Betty Ford clinic for his alcoholism.
The handsome 5’11” actor with thick dark blonde hair and tanned chiseled face has won many friends in San Francisco where his TV show, “Nash Bridges” was filmed (1995-2001). Mayor Willie Brown married Don Johnson to his fourth wife, Kelley Phleger on 29 April 1999, San Francisco. Phleger is 19 years younger and a former débutante who had met Johnson two years before at a party. The randy actor declared that his drinking and partying days were over along with his publicized flings with clusters of women, including that with his 18-year-old Nash co-star, Jodi O’Keefe. In July of 1999, it was revealed that Johnson and Phleger would be expecting a baby towards the end of the year. Daughter, Atherton Grace was born 28 December 1999. This is his fourth child and her first. They had a son, Jasper Breckenridge, on 6 June 2002.
Johnson’s reputation on the set of “Nash Bridges” has been extremely negative. He travels with an entourage consisting of two drivers, a personal assistant, a bodyguard and a houseboy. At 49, he still wants to live up to his bad boy image while smoking cigarettes, drinking red wine and flirting with women. The budget for “Nash Bridges” climbs ever higher as Johnson demands his every whim be fulfilled regardless of the cost. Keeping unpredictable work hours, the crew has learned to shoot around the actor with “WFD” (Waiting for Don) signs located on the set. Johnson is a lesson to TV executives in show biz on the dangers of wanting a star in the stable who becomes too full of himself and a money pit. The crew regard Johnson as an autocratic tyrant on the set, sending members to be chewed out on his bus when they make mistakes. The phrase “riding the bus” is the crew’s euphemism for Johnson’s habit of bedding the guest actresses on the set. The “Nash Bridges” crew try to remain positive as the put up with the shenanigans of the star of the television hit show.
When his cop show was wrapped, he and Kelly moved to his ranch, Buffalo Wallet, in Woody Creek, Colorado.
On March 3, 2004, a California bank filed legal papers to force the actor to auction off his home in Aspen to pay a $930,000 debt, claiming the actor refused to make payments on a 2002 loan. Johnson’s representative said that he was in the process of refinancing the loan. Johnson filed for bankruptcy the following month (April 2004).
The actor and his wife Kelley welcomed their third child, a boy, born on April 29, 2006 in Los Angeles.
Link to Wikipedia biography