Stacy Keach, Mike Hammer Actor and American Greed Narrator, Dies at 85

Stacy Keach, the American actor who played Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer on television and narrated the CNBC documentary series American Greed, has died at 85. He died on November 10, 2026, at his home in Magdalenka, Poland. His wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, announced the death, and TheWrap and Deadline reported it on Tuesday night.

"After a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure, Stacy peacefully departed this world," his widow said in a statement carried by both outlets. "He fought for so long, with extraordinary courage, determination and strength. He was a true warrior, facing his illness with the same remarkable spirit and resilience that defined his life."

Keach was born Walter Stacy Keach Jr. on June 2, 1941, in Savannah, Georgia. His mother was an actress and his father, Stacy Keach Sr., was a theatre director and actor. Keach was born with a cleft lip and a partial cleft palate and had many operations as a child. The scar became part of the face audiences knew on screen.

A stage actor first

Keach started on stage. He appeared in Joseph Papp's 1964 production of Hamlet in Central Park and made his Off-Broadway debut in MacBird! in 1966. By the end of the decade he was on Broadway, playing Buffalo Bill in Arthur Kopit's Indians, and on television in Shakespeare productions. Film work followed in the 1970s, in John Huston's Fat City and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud and Ridley Scott's first feature, The Duellists.

Mike Hammer

His widest audience came from television. Keach first played the hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer in television movies, then in the CBS series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, which ran from 1984 to 1987. He returned to the role in more television movies and in the syndicated series Mike Hammer, Private Eye in the late 1990s. The part brought him a Golden Globe nomination and made his face known in homes that had never seen his stage work.

He kept working across five decades. His film roles included The Long Riders, which he made with his brother James Keach, John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. and Body Bags, American History X and Alexander Payne's Nebraska. His final film appearance was in Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly for Netflix, TheWrap reported. On television he played Ken Titus in the sitcom Titus, had a starring role in Prison Break, voiced characters on The Simpsons and held a recurring role on The Blacklist from 2019 to 2023. As a narrator, his voice carried American Greed from 2007 to 2023.

Keach was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019. His wife's statement said his voice and the love he gave would remain with his family. No funeral or memorial details were announced in the reports.