STACY KEACH

'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.

Contents

Education

Career

Selected filmography

Trivia

References

External links

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 actor in 'The Nude Paper Sermon' 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 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

'Year'	'Title'	'Role'	'More information'
2006	''Desolation Canyon''	Samuel Kendrick	TV Movie
2006	''	Unknown
2005-2006	''Prison Break''	Henry Pope	Television series
2003	''Frozen Impact''	Pete Crane	TV Movie
2000-2002	''Titus''	Ken Titus	Television series
1998	''American History X''	Cameron Alexander
1997-1998	''Mike Hammer, Private Eye''	Mike Hammer	Television series
1993	''	Carl Beaumont / Voice of Phantasm	Animated movie
1986-1987	''The New Mike Hammer''	Mike Hammer	Television series
1986	''The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer''	Mike Hammer	TV Movie
1984-1985	''Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer''	Mike Hammer	Television series
1984	''More Than Murder''	Mike Hammer	TV Movie
1983	''Murder Me, Murder You''	Mike Hammer	TV Movie
1982	''The Blue and the Gray''	Jonas Steele
1982	''That Championship Season''	James Daley
1980	''The Long Riders''	Frank James
1977	''Jesus of Nazareth''	Barabbas
1973	''Luther''	Martin Luther
1972	''Fat City''	Billy Tully

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. ^[1]

★ 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''.^[2]

★ 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

1. [1] ''stacykeach.com''. Retrieved on April 19,2007.
2. Stacy Keach Battles Flu, Prison Fugitives ''TV Guide''. May 8, 2006. Retrieved on May 13, 2006.

External links

★ Stacy Keach - official website

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★ Interview with Stacy Keach at TVDads.com

★ Cleft Palate Foundation