Photograph of Stacy Keach.
Stacy Keach

Overview

Stacy Keach (born Walter Stacy Keach, Jr. on June 2, 1941 in Savannah, Georgia) is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical roles.

Early in his career, he was credited as Stacy Keach, Jr. to distinguish himself from his father Stacy Keach, Sr. His brother, James Keach is known most notably for being the director of the 1993 TV series and 1999 movie Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Stacy has been married three times: to Marilyn Aiken in 1975, to Jill Donahue in 1981, and to Malgosia Tomassi around 1986. He has two children from his third marriage. He was also romantically linked to singer Judy Collins in the early 1970s.

Education

Keach graduated from Van Nuys High School in June 1959 and went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley, earning two BA degrees in 1963, one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. He received his M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career

Keach first appeared on Broadway in 1969 as Buffalo Bill in Indians by Arthur Kopit. He played the lead actor in The Nude Paper Sermon an avant-garde musical theatre piece commissioned by Nonesuch Records by composer Eric Salzman. He has won numerous awards including Obie awards, Drama Desk Awards, and Vernon Rice Awards. He portrayed film noir-style private detective Mike Hammer in the CBS television series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and The New Mike Hammer from 1984 to 1987. He returned to the role of Hammer in Mike Hammer, Private Eye, a new syndicated series that aired from 1997 to 1998.

In the early 1980s, he starred in the title role of the national touring company of the musical Barnum composed by Cy Coleman.

Stacy Keach played Cheech and Chong's Police Department arch-nemesis Sgt. Stedenko in Up In Smoke and Nice Dreams. He portrayed Jonas Steele, a psychic and member of John Brown's Army in the 1982 CBS miniseries The Blue and the Gray. One of Keach's most controversial roles was Cameron Alexander, the militant white supremacist in American History X with Edward Norton and Edward Furlong.

He is most familiar to younger television viewers for narrating episodes of Nova, National Geographic, and various other informational series, and he performed in the role of Ken Titus, the father in the title family of Fox's Titus, and as Barabbas in Jesus of Nazareth. Beginning in 1999, he served as the narrator for the home video clip show World's Most Amazing Videos, which can now be seen on Spike TV. He narrated The Twilight Zone radio series. He also has a recurring role as Warden Henry Pope in the Fox drama Prison Break and performed the lead role in Shakespeare's King Lear at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2006.

Selected filmography

Trivia

*Keach was born with a cleft lip and a partial cleft of the hard palate and underwent numerous operations as a child. He is the honorary chairman of the Cleft Palate Foundation, and advocates for insurance coverage for such surgeries. *In 1984, he was convicted of smuggling cocaine into the United Kingdom and spent six months in Reading prison. The governor of that prison would serve as the basis for his character, Warden Pope, on Prison Break. *He was the first choice for the role of father Damien Karras in the 1973 movie The Exorcist, written by William Peter Blatty. He went on to play Kane in the 1980 movie The Ninth Configuration, written and directed by Blatty; this role was itself intended for Nicol Williamson. *All of the cast members of Titus have commented they enjoyed working with Keach, because, even with the dryest line the writers could invent, Keach would find a way to make the line funny. *He has played the title role in three separate productions of Hamlet.

References

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That biography says:

...Gilman, who plays Holliday as a physician, was 53 years old at the time he played this role. The real Holliday was 30 years old at the time of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. * Stacy Keach in "Doc", in 1971, in which the Tombstone events are told from his perspective. *Bill Fletcher in two episodes of the TV series, Alias Smith and Jones: "Which Way to the OK Corral?" in 1971 and "The Ten Days That Shook Kid Curry" in 1972...

This biography says:

...He went on to play Kane in the 1980 movie The Ninth Configuration, written and directed by Blatty; this role was itself intended for Nicol Williamson. *All of the cast members of Titus have commented they enjoyed working with Keach, because, even with the dryest line the writers could invent, Keach would find a way to make the line funny...

This biography says:

...One of Keach's most controversial roles was Cameron Alexander, the militant white supremacist in American History X with Edward Norton and Edward Furlong....

This biography says:

...One of Keach's most controversial roles was Cameron Alexander, the militant white supremacist in American History X with Edward Norton and Edward Furlong....

This biography says:

Keach first appeared on Broadway in 1969 as Buffalo Bill in Indians by Arthur Kopit. He played the lead actor in The Nude Paper Sermon an avant-garde musical theatre piece commissioned by Nonesuch Records by composer Eric Salzman...

This biography says:

...Stacy has been married three times: to Marilyn Aiken in 1975, to Jill Donahue in 1981, and to Malgosia Tomassi around 1986. He has two children from his third marriage. He was also romantically linked to singer Judy Collins in the early 1970s.

That biography says:

...*Doc (movie) (1971) – Tells the story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral from Doc Holliday's point of view. Stacy Keach plays Doc and Harris Yulin plays Wyatt. *Tombstone (1993) – Stars Kurt Russell...

That biography says:

...In 1978, the events surrounding McVay's court-martial were dramatized in The Failure to ZigZag by playwright John B. Ferzacca. Actor Stacy Keach portrayed McVay in the 1991 made-for-television movie Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S...

That biography says:

...He got his first experience in California politics in 1958 at the American Legion's Boys State summer program, where he was elected the head of the Tory Party. His counterpart, the Whig Party leader, was Stacy Keach, who went into acting as a career. He studied at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1963...

That biography says:

...Re-released in 2002 on DVD in 4 languages. # 1973: Luther, theatrical film (MPAA rating: PG), with Stacy Keach as Luther. # 1992: Where Luther Walked, documentary directed by Ray Christensen. # 2001: Opening the Door to Luther, travelogue hosted by Rick Steves...

That biography says:

...Recently, Swanson played the Bible character of Titus in the same audio Bible recording that starred James Caviezel and Stacy Keach.

That biography says:

...Cobb also appeared as ranch owner Judge Garth in the television series The Virginian, and his 1968 performance as King Lear with Stacy Keach as Edmund, René Auberjonois as the Fool, and Philip Bosco as Kent achieved the longest run for the play in Broadway history...

This biography says:

...*He was the first choice for the role of father Damien Karras in the 1973 movie The Exorcist, written by William Peter Blatty. He went on to play Kane in the 1980 movie The Ninth Configuration, written and directed by Blatty; this role was itself intended for Nicol Williamson...

That biography says:

...She also played the role of "Velda", a buxom secretary to private detective Mike Hammer (played by Stacy Keach) in Murder Me, Murder You. This made-for-TV movie was the first of two pilots that kicked off the syndicated television series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer...

That biography says:

...Southern's next major screenplay was for another independent film, The End of the Road, adapted from the novel by John Barth, starring Stacy Keach and James Earl Jones. It was directed by his friend Aram Avakian (a film editor whose previous credits included The Miracle Worker)...

That biography says:

...Hired to write scripts for the CBS and PBS television networks, Chetwynd soon turned to directing his own screenplays, meeting with success for his 1978 film Two Solitudes. Adapted by Chetwynd from the Hugh MacLennan book, and starring Jean-Pierre Aumont, Stacy Keach, and Claude Jutra, the film dealt with societal issues relative to Canada's French and English speaking population and the Conscription Crisis of 1917...

That biography says:

...This play too was translated into a movie, with Stacy Keach, Richard Attenborough and Trevor Howard in starring roles. However, the film was not well received....

That biography says:

...Lion Books unsuccessfully attempted to have The Killer Inside Me nominated for a National Book Award; it was eponymously adapted to the cinema, in 1976, by director Burt Kennedy, with Stacy Keach as Sheriff Lou Ford....

That biography says:

...Zadora co-starred with Stacy Keach and Orson Welles in the 1982 film Butterfly, with a steamy plotline revolving around father-daughter incest, and featuring Zadora singing "It’s Wrong For Me To Love You"...

That biography says:

...Among his other notable roles: * "Osgood Meeker" in the Broadway production of Noel Coward's little-known play Waiting in the Wings, directed by Michael Langham (this was Barnard Hughes' last stage role) * "Old Man" in the Broadway production of Prelude to a Kiss, directed by Norman René *Polonius to Stacy Keach's Hamlet *Dogberry in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing *Harry Hope in the 1985 Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh directed by José Quintero *Uncle Vanya (directed by Mike Nichols) *A Doll's House *Hogan's Goat (off-Broadway) *The Three Sisters *The Devil's Disciple *Translations...