Stacy Keach
John Huston once said of Stacy Keach that “Stacy is not a star. He is a constellation. The audience will come to see whatever character he portrays.”
Versatility embodies the essence of Stacy Keach’s career. As an actor he has expressed his talent in the theatre, in film and television, and the range of his roles is remarkable.
Probably best known around the world for his portrayal of the hard-boiled detective, Mike Hammer, Keach is also well-known among younger generations for his portrayal of the irascible, hilarious Dad, Ken Titus, in the Fox sitcom, Titus, and more recently as Warden Henry Pope in the hit series, Prison Break. Following his triumphant recent title role performance in King Lear for the prestigious Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Keach joined the starring cast of John Sayles’ film, Honeydripper.
He began his film career in the late 1960’s with The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. Among the many films that followed were The New Centurions with George C. Scott; Doc with Faye Dunaway; Fat City, directed by John Huston; and The Longriders, which he co-produced and co-wrote with his brother, James, directed by Walter Hill. On the lighter side, Keach appeared in Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke, and the sequel, Nice Dreams, Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud, and Judge Roy Bean with Paul Newman.
As a director, his production of Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy for PBS, was, according to Mr. Miller in his autobiography, Timebends, “the most expressive production of that play he had seen.” He won a Cine Golden Eagle Award for his work on the dramatic documentary, The Repeater, in which he starred and also wrote and directed.
But it is perhaps the live theatre where Keach shines brightest. He began his professional career with the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1964, doubling as Marcellus and the Player King in a production of Hamlet directed by Joseph Papp and which featured Julie Harris as Ophelia. He rose to prominence in 1967 in the off-broadway political satire, MacBird, where the title role was a cross between Lyndon Johnson and Macbeth and for which he received the first of his three Obie awards.
Stacy Keach also believes strongly in ‘giving back’ and has been the Honorary Chair for the Cleft Palate Foundation for the past twenty-five years. He is also the national spokesman for the World Craniofacial organization. He has served on the Artist’s Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors for two decades, is on the board of directors for Genesis at the Crossroads, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to bringing peoples of combatant cultures together through the shared artistic expressions of music and dance. He also serves on the artistic board for Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre National Council, where he was also honored in 2000 with their prestigious Millenium Award for his contribution to classical theatre. Some years ago Hollywood honored him with a Celebrity Outreach Award for his work with charitable organizations. He has been the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from Pacific Pioneer’s Broadcasters and the San Diego Film Festival and will receive the Mary Pickford Award for versatility in acting.
Keach was a Fulbright scholar to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, attended the University of California at Berkeley and the Yale Drama School. He is an accomplished keyboard enthusiast and composer, but claims that his greatest accomplishment is his family. He has been married to his beautiful wife Malgosia for twenty years, and they have two wonderful children, Shannon, aged 18, and daughter Karolina.
