Posted on 11/11/2026 6:57:47 AM PST by crusty old prospector
(AP) - Stacy Keach, one of America’s finest stage actors who became best known for playing scruffy private eye Mike Hammer on TV and whose career was nearly derailed after he was imprisoned in 1984 for trying to smuggle cocaine into Britain, died Tuesday. He was 85.
Keach died at home in Magdalenka, Poland, “after a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure,” his wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, said in a statement. Keach had previously suffered a heart attack onstage in Chicago in June 2017.
Though he was considered a preeminent interpreter of Shakespeare and a favorite of such legendary directors as John Huston, Keach was indelibly linked with his take on the hard-boiled Hammer, the fictitious TV private detective created by crime novelist Mickey Spillane.
Unwilling to do the same thing over and over, Keach left behind a crazy quilt of roles, playing a stoner cop on film, King Lear onstage and also narrating “World’s Most Amazing Videos” on TV. He played a deranged colonel in “The Ninth Configuration” (also known as “Twinkle, Twinkle Killer Kane”), led the TV show “Titus,” had a role in Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated drama “Nebraska,” and played a New York archbishop in a recurring role on the CBS police drama “Blue Bloods.” Last year, he had an excellent turn 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.”
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He was good when he was young and was good in his roles as an old man, I really like his old men roles.
Watched him opposite George C. Scott in the New Centurions. Liked him. Both died in it.
Shakespeare to the tube is one big drop professionally but you go where the money is.
He had a great role in Cheech and Chong’s ‘Up in Smoke.’
Don’t forget his role as Sargeant Stedenko in “Up In Smoke”.
Rest In Peace, Stacy Keach.
Sergeant Stadenko.
It would be nice to see a picture of him in the role of Mike Hammer.
I still vividly remember him as Barabas in Jesus of Nazareth.
He also played Barabbas in the miniseries Jesus Of Nazareth.
He played a complete slimeball in American History X.
I remember him in a low budget movie called Icebreaker saying the word “Timeshare” in his own way.
RIP
He moved to Poland years ago after he married his Polish wife.
RIP Stacy.
.
You were Amazing in “Titus”.
I did not know about the drug arrest.
To bad Bela Lugosi didn’t do a Shakespeare act he would have been a bigger star.
One of my favorite Hunks!! I’m 82...fond memories...
I enjoyed him in Titus, and he did a great job on The Black List as a conman/friend/rival of James Spader also.
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