Best known for his roles in movies like 'Fat City', 'The Ninth Configuration' and TV shows like The New Mike Hammer and Prison Break, Keach was a formidable presence on both stage and screen.
American stage and screen actor Stacy Keach, best known for his roles in movies like Fat City, The Ninth Configuration and TV shows The New Mike Hammer and Prison Break, has died aged 85.
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His wife, Małgosia Tomassi, confirmed his death, saying in a statement (via Variety) that her husband died “after a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure” at the family’s home in Magdalenka, Poland.
“Stacy was not only a legendary actor, admired and loved by audiences the world over, but also my beloved husband, my companion and the heart of our family,” the statement said. “His passing leaves an immeasurable emptiness in our lives. But his extraordinary spirit, his unforgettable voice and the love he gave so generously will remain with us forever."
Born in Savannah, Georgia, Keach was the son of actors who met at Northwestern University. Keach attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned degrees in English and dramatic art.
In the summer of 1963, he worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and played Henry V, Mercutio and Lord Berowne.
He attended the Yale School of Drama and, in the summer of 1964, played several roles at New York’s Public Theater in Hamlet with Julie Harris. He went to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as a Fulbright scholar and returned to New York to do various stage roles.
Keach's career spanned stage and screen, and while he will be fondly remembered for playing the scruffy private eye Mike Hammer, his on screen work showed he could take on any role.
From The Ninth Configuration (also known as Twinkle, Twinkle Killer Kane), his work for director John Huston in Fat City and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, his Golden Globe-winning portrayal of Ernest Hemingway in a six-hour miniseries, to American History X, The Bourne Legacy and Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated drama Nebraska, Keach was a varied and commanding presence. His final role was as George Clooney’s bitter father in Jay Kelly.
“My objective was to have as varied a selection of roles as possible. It probably did hurt my career,” he told New York magazine in 2012. “My choices have had a cost attached to it. But I’ve gotten to play Hamlet, and Richard III, and King Lear, and I would not give that up for anything.”
His career was nearly derailed in 1984 while he was still doing Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (later titled The New Mike Hammer). Keach was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport after trying to smuggle cocaine in his luggage.
“As my sentence was read – nine months in prison – I felt like someone had kicked me in the groin with lead cleats,” he wrote in his 2013 book, "All in All: An Actor’s Life On and Off the Stage". “It was the lowest moment of my life.”
Keach was sent to Reading Prison, a medium-security lockup, and was released after six months.
Many years later, in the TV series Prison Break that aired from 2005 to 2017, Keach played a prison warden. He said he tried to model his character after his real-life warden in England, whom he said had great compassion and wanted to help prisoners rehabilitate themselves.
Keach, who was married four times, is survived by Tomassi, whom he met when she appeared in the Hammer series, and his children, Shannon and Karolina.
RIP Stacy Keach 1941 - 2026
