Stacy Keach, the stage and screen actor best known to television audiences as private eye Mike Hammer, died Tuesday, Nov. 10, at his home in Magdalenka, Poland. He was 85.

In a statement, his wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, said he died "after a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure."

From Mike Hammer to Hemingway

Stacy Keach in a tuxedo with Malgosia Tomassi and other guests speaking with President Ronald Reagan at a White House state dinner
Stacy Keach and Malgosia Tomassi with President Ronald Reagan at a White House state dinner on May 17, 1986.White House Photographic Office / Wikimedia Commons.jpg) / Public domain

Keach played the title role in "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" from 1984 to 1987, a part that brought him a Golden Globe nomination. He won one in 1989. The role was Ernest Hemingway, in the television film "Hemingway."

The Hollywood Walk of Fame, which gave him the 2,668th star on the walk in 2019, lists the sitcom "Titus" among his series. He also played the archbishop of New York on "Blue Bloods" and Scott Bakula's father on "NCIS: New Orleans," spent three seasons on "Man With a Plan" with Matt LeBlanc, and narrated CNBC's "American Greed."

Stage career

Black and white stage photo of Stacy Keach in a dark cloak smiling down at Avery Schreiber as the gravedigger holding a skull
Stacy Keach as Hamlet and Avery Schreiber as the Gravedigger at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1974.Tony Barnard, Los Angeles Times / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0

His mother was an actress and his father a theater director and drama teacher. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Keach took two bachelor's degrees, in English and drama, at the University of California, Berkeley, went on to the Yale School of Drama, and studied in London as a Fulbright scholar.

He kept up classical and Broadway stage work alongside his screen roles. His Shakespeare parts included Hamlet and Macbeth as well as Falstaff and Richard III. He played King Lear at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, both times under director Robert Falls, and led the national tour of "Frost/Nixon" as Richard Nixon.

Over the years he won three Obie Awards and two Drama Desk Awards, along with three Helen Hayes Awards. He was nominated for both an Emmy and a Tony, and he entered the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2015.

His memoir, "All in All: An Actor's Life On and Off the Stage," was among the first books to receive the Prism Literary Award, given for work about overcoming addiction.

Keach is survived by his wife and their children, Karolina and Shannon. Actor and director James Keach is his brother.