Stacy Keach, the two-fisted actor who performed non-public detective Mike Hammer on tv and who received acclaim – however by no means turned a famous person – for his work in Large metropolis, The brand new centurions and lots of different movies, died Tuesday. He was 85 years outdated.
Keach died at his household house in Magdalenka, Poland, mentioned his fourth spouse, Malgosia Tomassi Keach.
“After a protracted and tough battle with critical coronary heart illness and coronary heart failure, Stacy left this world peacefully,” she mentioned in a press release. “He fought for thus lengthy, with extraordinary braveness, dedication and power. He was a real warrior, dealing with his sickness with the identical outstanding spirit and resilience that outlined his life.
“Stacy was not solely a legendary actor, admired and cherished by audiences all over the world, but in addition my beloved husband, my companion and the center of our household. His passing leaves an immeasurable void in our lives. However his extraordinary spirit, his unforgettable voice and the love he gave so generously will stay with us endlessly.”
Keach was thought-about maybe the best American Shakespearean actor of his time; within the early Nineteen Seventies, the influential New York Occasions Critic Clive Barnes referred to as him “one of many nice Hamlets of our time” and “one of the best classical American actor since John Barrymore”.
Survivors additionally embody his youthful brother, James Keach, actor and director of Comply with the road. They play outlaw brothers Frank and Jesse James in The lengthy riders (1980) and likewise co-wrote and co-produced the movie. (For a PBS collection in 1971, they starred as Orville and Wilbur Wright.)
Their father was veteran actor Stacy Keach Sr. Be good followers know him as Carlson, the top of CONTROL’s lab, and he appeared as Clarence Birdseye in a collection of tv commercials.
Keach and producer Jay Bernstein resurrected Mickey Spillane’s legendary non-public cock for the 1983 CBS TV film. Kill me, kill your selfand this led to The brand new Mike Hammera collection that lasted 4 seasons, a number of different TV motion pictures and one other present from 1997-98, Mike Hammer, non-public detective.
In his 2013 memoir, All in all: the lifetime of an actor on and off stageKeach wrote that when he was younger, his mom instructed him to cease studying Spillane’s paperbacks, which she referred to as “trash.”
However Keach “was all the time seduced by Mike Hammer’s world of chilly violence and scorching, heavy intercourse,” he wrote. “My dad and mom thought Mickey Spillane produced soft-core pornography…I dreamed of being a part of the world that Mickey Spillane created. It solely took me 30 years to lastly get that likelihood.”
Keach turned mates with Spillane, and the creator insisted that Keach all the time put on the character’s iconic fedora when taking part in Hammer.
Within the gritty Large metropolis (1972), Keach turned in a strong efficiency as boxer Billy Tully, who mentors a novice fighter (Jeff Bridges) within the downtrodden city of Stockton, California. World gentle heavyweight champion Jose Torres gave the actor some recommendation, however Keach was knocked unconscious throughout a scene, footage of which director John Huston used within the movie.
Keach returned to the squared circle to play old-school Pops Leary, who trains his son (Holt McCallany), within the woefully short-lived 2011 FX boxing drama. Extinguishing lights.
1972 additionally noticed Keach collaborate once more with Huston in The Life and Occasions of Decide Roy Bean and play as an obsessed rookie cop below the steerage of a world-weary LAPD veteran (George C. Scott) in The brand new centurionsthe difference of the novel by Joseph Wambaugh.
Keach mentioned a technicality in voting price him an Oscar nomination and he was bitterly upset.
He made his massive display screen debut taking part in a drifter in The center is a lonely hunter (1968), and his different notable movies embody Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud (1970); the X-rated Finish of the highway (1970); Doc (1971), by which he was Doc Holliday; This championship season (1982), that includes one of many ex-athletes; Mistral’s daughter (1984), as an eccentric painter; And Nebraska (2013), as a small city bully.
A few of his efforts weren’t as notable, resembling Butterfly (1982), by which he had an incest scene with Pia Zadora.
On the comedy aspect, Keach was extremely considered Sgt. Stedenko, a narc who ultimately will get drugged and was a lizard, within the Cheech & Chong movies In smoke (1978) and Candy goals (1981), and he explored the darker aspect of humorous as Ken, an alcoholic and womanizing father, on three seasons of the Fox sitcom. Titus.
Keach obtained into critical bother on April 4, 1984, when he was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport for carrying 1.3 ounces of cocaine which he tried to hide in a pretend can of shaving cream. He served six months in Studying Jail in England earlier than being launched for good habits.
“I assumed my profession was over, it truly is,” he mentioned. Vulture in 2012. “When CBS introduced me again [to continue as Mike Hammer,] I used to be actually grateful. I went to Washington to testify about my downside. Nancy Reagan even took me below her wing.
“Since then, I’ve benefited from this expertise. [the Fox series] Jail EscapeI attempted to mannequin the goalkeeper I performed [Henry Pope] after the warden I had in England who had nice compassion and needed to assist inmates rehabilitate slightly than punish them.
In June 2017, audiences gathered to see Keach play the function of Ernest Hemingway on the opening evening of the one-man play. Pamplona on the Goodman Theater in Chicago, the actor had problem remembering his traces.
“It was as if he was caught in sure sections of the room and unable to get out and transfer ahead. For a lot of the evening, Keach’s eyes appeared closed,” mentioned the Chicago Tribune reported. The efficiency has been canceled, together with all remaining dates.
It turned out that Keach had suffered a gentle coronary heart assault. Days later, he vowed to return to Chicago to carry out in 2018, and he did. “I’ve an unfulfilled obligation to the room, to the town and to myself,” he mentioned.
Walter Stacy Keach Jr. was born June 2, 1941, in Savannah, Georgia, the place his father taught drama at Armstrong Junior School. The household moved to Pasadena, and Keach graduated from Van Nuys Excessive Faculty in 1959. (His father had signed a contract with Common.)
Keach studied theater on the College of California, Berkeley and, between semesters, labored with the Oregon Shakespeare Competition. He then received a scholarship to the Yale Faculty of Drama after which a Fulbright scholarship, which took him to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Artwork.
Later, Keach gained consideration within the lead function in MacBirda political satire parodying Shakespeare. The “political cabaret” opened in Greenwich Village in 1967 and the actor obtained an Obie Award for his portrayal of Lyndon B. Johnson and Macbeth.
Keach later starred on Broadway in A protracted day’s journey into the eveningperformed Hamlet for Joseph Papp in Central Park, performed Edmund in King Lear on Broadway and recorded the Bard’s phrases for a collection of recordings. He was subsequent very good because the melancholic prince in an off-Broadway manufacturing from 1972-1973. Hamlet.
Keach additionally obtained a Tony Award nomination in 1970 for enjoying Buffalo Invoice in Indians and starred in Robert Schenkkan’s 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning epic The Kentucky Cycle. In Solitary confinementit was he who performed six roles, “all unbeknownst to the viewers till the tip of the play”, wrote one critic, and he performed the function of Richard Nixon in a nationally touring manufacturing of Frost/Nixon.
In 1989, he received a Golden Globe and obtained an Emmy nomination for portraying Hemingway in a syndicated miniseries.
Within the foreword to Keach’s guide, Alec Baldwin mentioned that the actor’s “ardour and perseverance mixed with highly effective presents and method to make him one of many ‘true wild mustangs of theatrical historical past.’
Keach has additionally appeared in movies together with The strolling executioner (1970), The killer in me (1976), The ninth configuration (1980), Highway video games (1981), Escape from Los Angeles (1996), as a extremely, actually dangerous man in American Historical past (1998), Sin Metropolis: a woman value killing for (2013), Bourne’s Legacy (2012), Gold (2016) and Jay Kelly (2025).
He supplied the voice of Skipper (a very good man for a change) in each Planes movies, instructed CNBC’s monetary crime collection American greed and performed Matt LeBlanc’s father in Man with a plan.
Keach was employed to play the younger priest in The Exorcist (1973), however director William Friedkin modified his thoughts and gave the function to Jason Miller, who obtained an Academy Award nomination for his efficiency.
“My profession as a film star got here to a screeching halt simply because it was starting,” he writes in his guide.
Keach and Tomassi, a Polish-born actress and mannequin, married in 1986 after she visited him often in jail. Beforehand, he was romantically concerned for 4 years with singer Judy Collins (his brother was married to Collins’ sister).
Moreover his spouse and brother, he’s survived by his youngsters, Karolina and Shannon; and his grandchildren and their spouses.
Duane Byrge contributed to this report.