Johnson without his vices

last updated 8 January 2015

Don Johnson is no longer a wild man, said Erik Hedegaard in Rolling Stone. At the height of his Miami Vice fame in the 1980s, he had an insatiable appetite for booze and drugs. “I was a multiple-substance kinda guy,” says Johnson, 63. “I would drink, smoke pot, do cocaine, maybe eat a Quaalude. I’d wake up the next day [feeling] like I’d been hit by a truck, to the point where my skin would hurt. But by 6 that afternoon, [I’d be] like, ‘Let’s fire this thing up again!’” He smiles at the memory of his most colorful antics. “I was a lot of fun, apparently.” And then there were the girls. “During Miami Vice, it was pre-AIDS. Sodom and Gomorrah, baby. When I was living in Miami, I’d have three or four of my buddies over and have my assistant call the modeling agencies and order, like, 25 girls. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, just a mixture. The only rule was: I get to pick first.” Johnson—now a sober and happily married father of three young children—says time has changed how women react to him. “Some hot chick walks up to you and you’re going, ‘Okay, still got it!’ and she’s like, ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you in anything, but my mother thinks you’re the bomb!’”