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.
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he → become → Britain
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.
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wife → die → statement
Keach had previously suffered a heart attack onstage in Chicago in June 2017.
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Keach → suffer → June
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.
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Keach → consider → 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.
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Keach → do → TV
He played a deranged colonel in “The Ninth Configuration” (also known as “Twinkle, Twinkle Killer Kane”), led the TV show “Titus” and had a role in Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated drama “Nebraska.”
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He → play → drama
Last year, he had an excellent turn as George Clooney's bitter father in “Jay Kelly.”
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he → have → Kelly
“My objective was to have as varied a selection of roles as possible.
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objective → have → roles
It probably did hurt my career,” he told New York magazine in 2012.
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he → hurt → 2012
“My choices have had a cost attached to it.
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choices → have → it
But I’ve gotten to play Hamlet, and Richard III, and King Lear, and I would not give that up for anything.”
From TV to stage
He played French painter Julien Mistral in the CBS miniseries “Mistral's Daughter,” a Russian prince in the miniseries version 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.”
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He → get → Blue
He won a Golden Globe playing Ernest Hemingway in a six-hour miniseries, for which he gained 35 pounds (16 kilograms).
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he → win → pounds
Keach earned a Tony Award nomination for his portrayal of Buffalo Bill in the Broadway play “Indians,” played Edmund opposite Lee J. Cobb in “King Lear” on Broadway and had other onstage roles there in “The Kentucky Cycle” in 1993, “The Country Wife” in 1965 and “Other Desert Cities” in 2011.
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Keach → earn → 2011
He also headed the national touring company cast of “Frost/Nixon,” portraying the fallen president, and went on tour with “Sleuth” with Maxwell Caulfield as his co-star.
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He → head → star
He starred in a 2006 production of “King Lear” at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and returned in 2017 for “Pamplona,” a one-man show about Hemingway, where he collapsed onstage, leading to the run's cancellation.
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he → star → cancellation
While he was still doing “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer” (later titled “The New Mike Hammer”), Keach was arrested in 1984 at London's Heathrow Airport after trying to smuggle 1.3 ounces of cocaine concealed in an aerosol shaving cream can and elsewhere in his luggage.
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Keach → do → luggage
Also arrested was his secretary.
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secretary → arrest → ?
“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.”
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he → read → Stage
He added: “It was the lowest moment of my life.”
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It → add → life
He was handcuffed and taken to prison, a cell the size of a closet and where an orange plastic bucket would serve as his toilet.
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bucket → handcuff → toilet
Before he went inside, an officer asked him to autograph a copy of the book “The Blue and the Gray.”
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officer → go → book
The then-44-year-old actor was sent to Reading Prison, a medium-security lockup, because authorities felt a minimum-security jail would have provided too easy access for reporters.
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jail → send → reporters
He was released after six months.
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He → release → months
In his book, Keach wrote that while in prison he got warm letters from Gregory Peck, Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore and Al Pacino.
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he → write → Peck
He was put in charge of showing a movie one Sunday per month and recalls once picking his own, “The Long Riders.”
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He → put → own
He said the experience was “very lonely, very depressing, very sad.
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experience → say → ?
I spent a lot of my time trying to re-evaluate my own stupidity.”
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I → spend → stupidity
After prison, he narrated the TV documentary “High on the Job,” and testified before Congress, telling a House panel how he first became hooked on cocaine in the mid-1970s.
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he → narrate → mid-1970s
“There is no greater imprisonment than that of being dependent on a chemical substance for one's existence,” he testified.
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he → be → existence
Keach took his warnings to college campuses and rehab centers.
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Keach → take → campuses
He also married Polish actor Malgosia Tomassi, whom he met when she appeared in the “Hammer” series.
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she → marry → series
He said he treasured her photos and letters behind bars.
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he → say → bars
Keach, who was married four times, is survived by Malgosia, and his children, Shannon and Karolina.
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who → marry → Malgosia
His first role after his release was in the CBS movie, “Intimate Strangers” with Teri Garr, and it became the third-highest rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season.
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it → become → season
His next film, “The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer,” also played well, and then the “Mike Hammer” series, which had been on the production shelf since his arrest, was given a slot on CBS' 1986-87 schedule.
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which → play → schedule
Many years later, in the TV series “Prison Break” that aired from 2005-2007, Keach played a prison warden and said he tried to model his character after his real-life warden in England, whom he said had great compassion and wanted to help inmates rehabilitate themselves.
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inmates → air → themselves
Born in Savannah, Georgia, Keach was the son of actors who met at Northwestern University.
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who → bear → University
Keach attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned degrees in English and dramatic art.
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he → attend → English
In the summer of 1963, he worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and played Henry V, Mercutio and Lord Berowne.
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he → work → V
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.
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He → attend → Harris
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
