Everything about Stacy Keach totally explained
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's done
narration work in educational programming on
PBS and the
Discovery Channel, as well as some
comedy and musical roles. His brother
James Keach is an actor and
television director.
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
Theatre
Keach first appeared on
Broadway in 1969 as
Buffalo Bill in
Indians by
Arthur Kopit. Early in his career, he was credited as
Stacy Keach, Jr. to distinguish himself from his father
Stacy Keach, Sr. 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. In the early 1980s, he starred in the title role of the national touring company of the musical
Barnum composed by
Cy Coleman. In 2006, he performed the lead role in
Shakespeare's
King Lear at the
Goodman Theatre in
Chicago in 2006.
He has played the title role in three separate productions of
Hamlet.
Films
His first film role was as a rookie cop in
The New Centurions (1972), opposite
George C. Scott. That year he also starred in
Fat City, a boxing film directed by
John Huston. He was the first choice for the role of father Damien Karras in the 1973 movie
The Exorcist, but he didn't accept the role. 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.
Keach played
Cheech and Chong's Police Department arch-nemesis Sgt. Stedenko in
Up In Smoke and
Nice Dreams. He also appeared as
Barabbas in
Jesus of Nazareth. In 1978 he played a role of explorer and scientist in
The Mountain of the Cannibal God, co-starring by former Bond girl
Ursula Andress.
The film became a
cult favourite as a "[Videonasty]". One of his most convincing screen performances was as Frank James (elder brother of Jesse) in
The Long Riders (1980). Keach excelled in this role, portraying a character who shows maturity and perspective during the outlaws’ doomed career, but who is ultimately imprisoned by fraternal ties.
He portrayed a
white supremacist in
American History X, alongside
Edward Norton and
Edward Furlong.
Television
One of his earliest television roles was the portrayal of Jonas Steele, a
psychic and member of
John Brown's Army in the 1982
CBS miniseries The Blue and the Gray. He later portrayed
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 2000, he played the cantankerous father Ken Titus in the title family of
Fox's short-lived
sitcom Titus. 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 a recurring role as Warden Henry Pope in the
Fox drama
Prison Break. 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.
Narrator
Stacy Keach is perhaps most familiar to younger
television viewers for
narrating episodes of
Nova,
National Geographic, and various other informational series. Beginning in 1999, he served as the narrator for the home video clip show
World's Most Amazing Videos, which is now seen on
Spike TV. He currently hosts
The Twilight Zone radio series.
Personal life
Keach was born with a
cleft lip and a partial cleft of the hard palate and underwent numerous operations as a child. He is now the honorary chairman of the
Cleft Palate Foundation, and advocates for insurance coverage for such surgeries.
In 1984, Keach was arrested by
London police at
Heathrow Airport for carrying cocaine. Mr. Keach pled guilty, and served a 9 month sentence at
Reading Prison.
He has been married four times: to Kathryn Baker in 1964, 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.
Selected filmography
Further Information
Get more info on 'Stacy Keach'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://stacy_keach.totallyexplained.com">Stacy Keach Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
