Actor Stacy Keach, Mike Hammer star, dies at 85

Actor Stacy Keach, known for playing private detective Mike Hammer on television and for a career spanning film and stage, has died at 85, his wife said. Malgosia Tomassi Keach said he died November 10 at the family home in Magdalenka, Poland, after a long battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure. The account of his death came from his wife’s statement; no separate medical or official confirmation was reported.

Keach played Mike Hammer in a CBS television series that began in 1984 and in a revival, Mike Hammer, Private Eye, which ran from 1997 to 1998. He also reprised the role in television movies, including Mike Hammer Murder Takes All. The character, a hardboiled private detective created by crime novelist Mickey Spillane, became one of Keach’s best-known screen roles.

His work extended across stage, film and television. Keach received a Tony nomination for playing Buffalo Bill in the Broadway production Indians. He earned a Golden Globe for portraying Ernest Hemingway in a television production, and his stage roles included Hamlet, King Lear and Richard III. In 2015, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

On film, Keach appeared in Fat City,...