Stacy Keach, renowned as one of America’s exceptional stage performers, gained fame for his role as the gritty detective Mike Hammer on television. His career faced a significant setback in 1984 when he was imprisoned for attempting to smuggle cocaine into the United Kingdom. Keach passed away on Tuesday at the age of 85.
According to a statement from his wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, he died at their residence in Magdalenka, Poland, following a prolonged and challenging struggle with a serious heart ailment and heart failure. He had previously experienced a heart attack while performing on stage in Chicago in June 2017.
Despite being celebrated as a leading interpreter of Shakespeare and a favorite of iconic directors like John Huston, Keach’s legacy is forever tied to his portrayal of the tough Mike Hammer, a fictional private detective created by crime writer Mickey Spillane.
Refusing to confine himself to repetitive roles, Keach left a diverse array of characters in his wake, including a laid-back policeman in film, King Lear on stage, and a narrator for World’s Most Amazing Videos. His performances included a disturbed colonel in The Ninth Configuration (also known as Twinkle, Twinkle Killer Kane), leading the show Titus, featuring in Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated film Nebraska, and portraying a New York archbishop in a recurring role on CBS’s Blue Bloods. Last year, he delivered a remarkable performance as George Clooney’s resentful father in Jay Kelly.
“My goal was to have a wide range of roles to choose from. It may have hurt my career,” he shared with New York magazine in 2012. “The decisions I made came with a price. However, I had the chance to play Hamlet, Richard III, and King Lear, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
‘One of the greats’
Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, who portrayed Keach’s son in the 2008 movie Lone Rider, expressed his admiration for Keach on X, calling him a “consummate actor, gracious, giving, and incredibly kind, even with the presence of a smoldering volcano. One of the greats. Proud to have shared some frames with him.”
Keach played the role of French artist Julien Mistral in the CBS miniseries Mistral’s Daughter, a Russian prince in the miniseries adaptation of Judith Krantz’s novel Princess Daisy, Barabbas in Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, and Maj. Jonas Steele in The Blue and the Gray. He earned a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Ernest Hemingway in a six-hour miniseries, during which he gained 35 pounds.
Keach, seen in April 1984, was one of America’s finest stage actors. (Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
He received a Tony Award nomination for his role as Buffalo Bill in the Broadway production Indians, acted as Edmund opposite Lee J. Cobb in King Lear on Broadway, and participated in other stage performances, including the 1993 play The Kentucky Cycle, The Country Wife in 1965, and Other Desert Cities in 2011.
Keach also led the national touring cast of Frost/Nixon, taking on the role of the disgraced president, and toured with Sleuth alongside Maxwell Caulfield as his co-star. He starred in a 2006 rendition of King Lear at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and returned in 2017 for Pamplona, a one-man show centered on Hemingway, where he collapsed on stage, resulting in the cancellation of the performance.
‘Lowest moment’ was prison
While still starring in Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (later rebranded as The New Mike Hammer), Keach was apprehended in 1984 at Heathrow Airport in London after attempting to smuggle 1.3 ounces of cocaine hidden in an aerosol shaving cream can and other locations in his luggage. His secretary was also arrested.
Keach and his wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, pose for a photo at a premiere in 2006. (Lucas Jackson/The Associated Press)
“When my sentence was pronounced — nine months behind bars — I felt as though someone had kicked me in the groin with lead cleats,” he recounted in his 2013 memoir, All in All: An Actor’s Life On and Off the Stage. He added: “That was the lowest point of my life.”
He was handcuffed and taken to a cell the size of a closet, where an orange plastic bucket served as a toilet. Before entering, an officer requested his autograph on a copy of The Blue and the Gray.
At 44, he was sent to Reading Prison, a medium-security facility, as officials believed a minimum-security prison would be too accessible to the press. He was released after serving six months.
In his book, Keach mentioned receiving warm letters from Gregory Peck, Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, and Al Pacino while incarcerated. He was assigned the task of screening a movie once a month on Sundays and recalls choosing The Long Riders. He described the experience as “very lonely, very depressing, very sad. I spent much of my time reflecting on my own foolishness.”
After his release, he narrated the television documentary High on the Job and testified before Congress, sharing with a House panel how he initially became addicted to cocaine in the mid-1970s. “There is no greater imprisonment than that of being dependent on a chemical substance for one’s existence,” he stated.
Keach took his message to college campuses and rehabilitation centers. He also married Polish actress Malgosia Tomassi, whom he met during her appearance in the Hammer series. He cherished the letters and photographs she sent while he was in prison.
Married 4 times
Keach, who was married four times, is survived by his wife Malgosia, along with his children Shannon and Karolina.
His first role after his release was in the CBS film Intimate Strangers alongside Teri Garr, which became the third-highest rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season. Following that, his film The Return of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer was also well-received, leading to the Mike Hammer series, which had been shelved since his arrest, being reinstated in CBS’s 1986-87 lineup.
Years later, in the TV series Prison Break, which aired from 2005-2007, Keach portrayed a prison warden and aimed to shape his character based on his real-life warden from England, who he described as having deep compassion and a desire to assist inmates in their rehabilitation.
Born in Savannah, Georgia, Keach was the offspring of actors who met at Northwestern University. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained degrees in English and dramatic arts.
Among those honoring Keach online were actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael McKean, as well as director John Carpenter.