Stacy Keach, Mike Hammer star and stage actor, dies at 85

Stacy Keach, the classical stage actor who became best known for playing private eye Mike Hammer on television, died Tuesday at his home in Magdalenka, Poland. He was 85.

His wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, said in a statement that he died “after a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure,” The Associated Press reported. Keach had a heart attack onstage in Chicago in June 2017. His death was also reported by Variety, Deadline and CBS News.

The news sent Keach’s name to the top of Canadian searches. “Stacy keach” drew more than 20,000 Google searches in Canada over the past day, according to Google Trends data checked by Canada News Media on Wednesday evening, and “stacy keach cause of death” was among the most common related searches.

Keach played Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled detective in the 1980s CBS series and its later revivals, a role that defined him for TV audiences even though he was considered one of America’s leading interpreters of Shakespeare. He played Hamlet, Richard III and King Lear on stage and was a favourite of directors such as John Huston, who cast him in the 1972 boxing film “Fat City.”

He earned a Tony Award nomination for playing Buffalo Bill in the Broadway play “Indians” in 1969, and won a Golden Globe for playing Ernest Hemingway in a television miniseries, a role for which he gained 35 pounds, the AP reported.

His career was nearly derailed in 1984, when he was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport and later jailed in Britain for trying to bring cocaine into the country. The arrest interrupted production of “Mike Hammer.”

Keach said he chose variety over typecasting. “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, the AP reported.

His later work included the sitcom “Titus,” a role in Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated drama “Nebraska,” a recurring part as a New York archbishop on “Blue Bloods” and narration of “World’s Most Amazing Videos.” Last year he played George Clooney’s father in the film “Jay Kelly.”

Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, who played Keach’s son in the 2008 TV movie “Lone Rider,” called him “one of the greats” in a post on X.

Keach was born in Savannah, Ga., on June 2, 1941, to actor and drama teacher Stacy Keach Sr. and actress Mary Cain. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.

Via The Canadian Press, Variety and CBS News.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.