A Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicated article in 1988, citing records checked by the CBS publicist for Wahl's television series Wiseguy, gives February 14, 1957, a date that corresponds with the year of his high school graduation: "A call to Bremen High School in the Chicago suburb of Midlothian reveals Wahl graduated from there in June 1975, presumably at age 18.

While he declines to disclose his birth name, he does say that the moniker he's gone by for the past 25 years is the name of the person who saved his father's life in the Korean War".

"[1] According to Entertainment Weekly, Wahl played baseball, as a shortstop, in unspecified venues that might have included youth leagues and high school teams, before crashing a motorcycle and hurting his knee at age 16.

[3] After moving to Los Angeles, he worked as an extra on movies including The Buddy Holly Story (1978).

[5] Wahl first gained recognition in 1979 when he was cast in the leading role of director Philip Kaufman's film The Wanderers (1979).

[6] He was subsequently cast opposite Paul Newman in Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), and went on to play the lead in movies including Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981), The Soldier (1982), Jinxed!

In 1984, he then suffered another motorcycle crash, while on his way to meet with Diane Keaton about the role that eventually went to Mel Gibson in the film Mrs. Soffel.

He initially said that in 1992 he had endured another motorcycle crash, but later said he had fallen down a flight of stairs at the home of comedian Rodney Dangerfield's girlfriend and eventual wife, Joan Child.

As his official biography describes the incident:[In] August of 1992 ... Ken accidentally fell down some slippery marble stairs at a friend's home, causing his neck to break and his spinal column to be injured.

[4][better source needed]Blaming a "botched" undisclosed surgery and the refusal of doctors to prescribe pain medication, Wahl said in an interview that he told himself, "Okay, I can't get a prescription, so I'll get a bottle of vodka.

After gaining weight through lack of exercise, and with a growing alcohol problem, he worked 16 days on the Wiseguy reunion movie "and barely got through it.

[11] With his career tanked because of injury, Wahl and his wife Barbi, turned their attention to supporting animal rights and disabled United States military veterans.

[12] On 19 January 2010, he offered his Golden Globe Award as part of a reward then being assembled by the Second Chance Rescue Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to help find and convict the person who glued a 7-month-old orange tabby to Minnesota State Highway 60, where travelers found it on 18 December 2009; the cat, which rescuers called Timothy, died days later.