Irving Vincent has lived in the same apartment in Manhattan’s West Village for more than fifty years, in the building known as Westbeth Artists Community. He is Vin Diesel’s adoptive father and a theater director who spent decades in New York theater and education. Westbeth opened in 1970 on the site of the former Bell Laboratories campus, where scientists had demonstrated the first talking movies and television broadcasts. Merce Cunningham rehearsed on one of the upper floors for years. Miles Davis played a concert in a friend’s apartment in the building. Diane Arbus moved in that year and died there in 1971. Vin Diesel was one of the boys who grew up there.
Irving H. Vincent was born on November 4, 1934, and is 91 years old as of 2026. He is African-American. He adopted Vin Diesel and his twin brother Paul in 1970 after marrying their mother, Delora Sherleen Sinclair. Alongside his theater career, he later taught at New York University.
| Born | November 4, 1934 |
|---|---|
| Age | 91 (as of June 2026) |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | African-American |
| Profession | Theater director, acting instructor, educator |
| Spouse | Delora Sherleen Vincent |
| Children | Vin Diesel, Paul Vincent (adopted); Samantha Vincent, Tim Vincent |
Table of Contents
From New York’s Off-Broadway Circuit to the NYU Media Workshop
TIME described Irving Vincent as “an avant-garde theater director, who later worked in TV and film education.” His directing career ran through New York’s off-Broadway circuit. People magazine reported that his work included productions at the New Federal Theatre, an organization Woodie King Jr. founded in 1970 specifically for Black artists and playwrights. The theater produced early work by Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Ntozake Shange, among others.
His career shifted into education in the years that followed. At New York University, he ran the Media Workshop, a program in film and entertainment studies that would later serve as the direct model for an international nonprofit.
How the Family Came to Live at Westbeth
Irving Vincent married Delora Sherleen Sinclair in 1970 and legally adopted both of her boys. Vin Diesel was born Mark Sinclair on July 18, 1967, in Alameda County, California, alongside his twin Paul. After the adoption, both boys took the surname Vincent.
Vin grew up in the building as Mark Vincent. He described the environment to TIME in 2015:
“It was an artist community, everyone was expressing themselves. Great painters, poets, sculptors, musicians and thespians all lived in this building. It was kind of a mecca for artists. What a magical place for a young artist to grow up in.”
He made his stage debut at age seven in the children’s play Dinosaur Door at Theater for the New City in Greenwich Village. His early career moved from Irving’s New York repertory company to the Off-Off-Broadway circuit, according to IMDb’s official biography. When TIME published its profile of Westbeth in 2015, Irving and Delora still lived in the building.
Irving Vincent and the One Race Global Film Foundation
Around 2005, Vin Diesel traveled to the Dominican Republic for a film location scout and met with the country’s president, Leonel Fernandez. Fernandez asked how to build a film industry on the island. Diesel told him the island needed trained people before it needed a studio.
The One Race Global Film Foundation grew from that conversation. Its curriculum came directly from the Media Workshop Irving had been running at NYU. Diesel flew his father to the Dominican Republic to lead the program in person. He described the arrangement to Variety in 2013:
“We came up with this deal, where I brought my father down, and the concept was to teach these kids how to do things right.”
One Race Global Film Foundation (Source: Variety, 2013)
- 210 filmmakers trained across the program by 2013
- 2007: Partnership with Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti
- Students from: Guadeloupe, Pakistan, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, and other countries
What “Vin” Stands For, and the Family That Built It
When Diesel was seventeen and working as a bouncer in New York, he changed his name from Mark Sinclair to Vin Diesel. The name “Vin” came from Irving’s surname, as Diesel described in multiple interviews over the years. That name has been in his film credits since The Fast and the Furious opened in 2001.
Irving and Delora’s two biological children, Samantha and Tim Vincent, both work in film. Samantha Vincent is the president of One Race Films, Diesel’s production company. She holds a master’s degree in educational policy from Harvard University and a Producers Guild of America credit for the Fast and Furious franchise. She also sits on the board of directors of Westbeth Artists Housing, the same building she grew up in. Paul Vincent, Diesel’s twin, has worked as a sound editor on multiple films in the series.
On November 29, 2022, Diesel posted a photograph to Instagram. Irving was in a golden birthday hat, one of his grandchildren beside him in a silver one. The caption read: “Happy 88th birthday to my first inspiration. My dad. All love, Always.”
Irving H. Vincent spent decades in theater and film education. He has never given a public interview.
