Stacy Keach, Star of Mike Hammer and Fat City, Dies at 85

Stacy Keach died on Wednesday at the age of 85. He died at his family home in Magdalenka, Poland, according to a statement from his wife, Malgosia, reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

His wife's statement said Keach had lived for a long time with a serious heart condition and heart failure. She announced his death to the public.

Many television viewers knew Keach as private eye Mike Hammer. The character was created by the novelist Mickey Spillane, whose hard-boiled detective stories were full of tough talk and rough streets. In the 1983 CBS telefilm Murder Me, Murder You, Keach brought Hammer back to the screen. A telefilm is a movie made for television rather than for cinemas. The series that followed, The New Mike Hammer, ran for four seasons.

Keach also worked steadily in film. In Fat City (1972), he played Billy Tully, an over-the-hill boxer who is past his best and still fighting for one more chance. In The New Centurions, he played an obsessed rookie police officer. George C. Scott played the veteran LAPD officer who mentors him.

Both films put Keach in the role of a man stuck on the edge of his own ambitions, a type of part that suited his intense screen presence. His run of roles across cinema and television gave him a long career that many actors would envy.

Keach's death is a loss for the many performers, crews and viewers who followed his work over the decades. Our thoughts are with his wife, Malgosia, and his family.