Don Johnson -- Television's Cop

Ruggedly handsome with a killer smile, Donnie Wayne Johnson has become the dirty blonde heartthrob of Television. His career began in the early 70’s and his life has fed gossip columns with his numerous loves.

Don Johnson, a farmer’s son, was born in Flat Creek, MO, on December 15, 1949. His mother was a beautician and he grew up with a relatively normal childhood. His family moved to Wichita, KS, where he graduated in Class of 1967 at Wichita High School South.

Shortly after he won a scholarship from a successful audition for the Summer Repertory Program at the University of Kansas, which he attended for about one year, when an audition hired him with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

It was in 1969 (at the age of 20) he stared in a controversial off-Broadway play entitled: "Fortune and Men's Eyes", which was directed and starred Sal Mineo. The play portrayed a realistic rape scene in a men's prison, which was big taboo in the 60’s and 70’s unlike today’s highly rated “OZ” series on HBO.

This generated tremendous press reviews to the taboo subject of homosexuality. Don Johnson was the rape victim but this role led him to a contract with MGM and his first movie, The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970) where he plays a young role of a 23-year-old Columbia University dropout.

After a couple of movies his next notable was a cult classic: A Boy and His Dog (1975) in which a boy communicates telepathically with his dog in a post-apocalyptic tale. Another movie that followed was Return to Macon County (1975) where two guys work on a classic Chevy and encounter trouble with a girl on the run.
His first major TV exposure was in the movie called Law of the Land (1976) a western in which deputies’ search for a serial killer who is murdering prostitutes. Two major TV-mini series appeared later The Rebels (1976) taking place during the American Revolution and then Beulah Land (1980) depicting two Civil War families. One might recall the movie Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980) another cult flick.

As for Don Johnson’s personal life it is complicated. He was married to a dancer when he was nineteen (1968) and soon his marriage was annulled. He quickly had another marriage and it was annulled. He married Melanie Griffith, actress (1976) and they were divorced in 1977 then remarried in 1989 and then divorced a second time. They have one daughter Dakota.

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