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| Birth Name(s) : Donnie Wayne Johnson |
Date of Birth: December 15, 1949 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Kelley Phleger |
| Profession:
Actor |
Official Site
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Full Don Johnson Biography
One of those 15-years-in-the-making overnight successes, this ruggedly handsome, dirtyblond heartthrob burst onto the cinema scene in 1970 playing the title role in the hippie drama The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart which he followed with parts in the rock Western Zachariah (1971), the sex-clinic romp The Harrad Experiment (1973), Return to Macon County (which also starred then-unknown Nick Nolte), and the cult sci-fi film A Boy and His Dog (both 1975).
His career in eclipse for nearly a decade, Johnson reemerged on TV in 1984 as the hip, unshaven, pastel-clad star of "Miami Vice." The show's success revitalized his bigscreen career, and his recent feature-film work has been commendably diverse. He's played a Vietnam vet in Cease Fire (1985), a midlife crisis case in Sweet Hearts Dance (1988), a weary cop in Dead Bang (1989), a lecherous drifter in The Hot Spot (1990), a would-be bank robber in Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man (1991) and a suave, sexy murder suspect in Guilty as Sin (1993).
Johnson met actress Melanie Griffith when she was 14 and they both worked in The Harrad Experiment they were married three years later, subsequently divorced, and then remarried in 1989. In recent years they've costarred in the moving drama Paradise (1991) and a remake of the comedy Born Yesterday (1993), in which they were both well cast. In fact, he has delivered consistently strong, credible performances, but his box-office batting average has been poor; none of his starring vehicles has been a financial success. |
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Additional Don Johnson Biography
Johnson was born in Flat Creek, Missouri. His father was a farmer, his mother a beautician. At the age of 6, he moved from Missouri to Wichita, Kansas. He graduated from South High School in Wichita, Kansas in 1967 and attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. He is of English origin.
In the late 1960's, Johnson was in a psychedelic rock band called the Horses. Also in the band were future members of the band Kingfish, which featured Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir. The band put out one self-titled record on the White Whale label in 1969, later re-issued on the Gear Fab label in 2004 and then on the Rev-Ola label in 2005.
Johnson was married twice to actress Melanie Griffith (briefly in 1976 and then from 1989-1996). On April 29, 1999, he married San Francisco socialite and former preschool teacher Kelley Phleger.
Johnson had a relationship with Barbra Streisand and created a single with her called "Till I Loved You".
Johnson has 5 children:
- With D'Arbanville, a son, Jesse Wayne Johnson (born on December 7, 1982)
- With Griffith, a daughter, Dakota Mayi Johnson (born October 4, 1989)
- With Phleger, a daughter, Atherton Grace Johnson (born on December 28, 1999), and two sons, Jasper Breckinridge Johnson (born on June 6, 2002) and Deacon Johnson (born on April 29, 2006).
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 1970 film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart. He continued to work on stage, film and television without breaking out into stardom. His notable films from this period were The Harrad Experiment (1973) and A Boy and His Dog (1975).
Johnson later starred in the 1996-2001 drama Nash Bridges with Cheech Marin and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. Johnson played the title role of Nash Bridges, a detective for the San Francisco Police Department. In Nash Bridges Johnson was again paired with a flashy convertible car, this time an electric yellow 1971 Plymouth Barracuda.
In the fall of 2005, he briefly starred in The WB courtroom television drama show Just Legal as a jaded lawyer with a very young and idealistic protegé/partner (Jay Baruchel); the show was cancelled in October 2006.
In January 2007, Johnson began a run in the London West End production of Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit. American actor/dancer Patrick Swayze preceded Johnson in the role.
Johnson has had several brushes with the law.
- When he was 12 years old, Johnson was arrested for hotwiring cars and sent to reform school.
- In 1997, two cast members on Nash Bridges accused Johnson of sexual assault. Both cases were settled with confidential settlements.
- In 2001, a 36-year-old woman accused Johnson of grabbing and bruising her arm and lewdly propositioning her outside a restroom at San Francisco restaurant Mas Sake. The woman's friends went to confront Johnson but said he fled out the back door. Johnson said he was considering buying an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle to state his side of the story, but later decided to post the notices on his website. Due to insufficient evidence, no charges were filed.
- In November 2002, Customs officers at the Swiss-German border performed a routine search of Johnson's car. Bank statements evidencing $8 billion US in transactions found in the trunk of his car. He was accompanied in his black Mercedes-Benz by three men: an investment adviser, a personal assistant and a third of unknown identity. Initially it was thought Johnson was involved in money-laundering, but he was cleared of wrongdoing. Upon receiving word of the incident, German tabloids began exploiting and perpetuating the story, at times pointing at the irony (as perceived by them) that Don Johnson has frequently portrayed police officers in his acting works. Johnson explained the incident by saying "I was meeting with some American businessmen in Zurich for a film financing, for a film fund that I was putting together for my company. They gave me some bank statements and some resumes and some other documents, some things to prove that they could perform as investors." The police found and copied these documents, and the money laundering story grew somehow out of this. |
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| I can do whatever I want--I'm rich, I'm famous, and I'm bigger than you. |
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