CURTAIN CALL

Star of 80s’ CBS Cult Classic Dies at 85 After Health Battle

The character actor died after a long battle with heart failure.

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Stacy Keach, the veteran character actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to hard-boiled detectives, has died at 85. He died in his home in Magdalenka, Poland. His fourth wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, announced his death, according to Variety. “After a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure, Stacy peacefully departed this world,” she said in a statement. Keach was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1941. He started on the stage in Joseph Papp’s 1964 production of Hamlet in Central Park. He later starred in John Huston’s Fat City and the cult Australian thriller Roadgames. His newfound TV stardom brought with it a new role. He played Mickey Spillane’s detective Mike Hammer in the CBS series The New Mike Hammer that ran from 1984 to 1987, then the 1989 TV movie, Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All. The syndicated 1997-1998 series Mike Hammer, Private Eye followed. Keach won an Emmy for John Carpenter’s TV movie Body Bags. He also later starred in Fox’s smash hit Prison Break. His final film was Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly for Netflix in 2005.