Actor Stacy Keach, known for playing Mike Hammer, dies aged 85

Stacy Keach, the actor known for tough roles such as detective Mike Hammer and the novelist Ernest Hemingway, died on Tuesday aged 85, according to a Reuters report carried by The Irish Times. His wife, Malgosia Tomassi, said in a statement that he died in Poland after a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure. She described him as a legendary actor and as her beloved husband and the heart of their family.

Keach played many starring and character parts on television and in film, including Barabbas in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Richard Nixon in the play Frost/Nixon. He also worked extensively on stage, often in Shakespeare, including King Lear and Hamlet. A New York Times critic called his 1972 Hamlet the work of "the finest American classic actor since John Barrymore".

His best-known role was Mike Hammer, in television adaptations of Mickey Spillane's novels. The New Mike Hammer ran from the mid to late 1980s, and he returned to the part in Mike Hammer, Private Eye in 1997-1998. In 1985 he served six months in prison in England after more than 30 grammes of cocaine were found in his possessions at Heathrow airport. He later said he had been addicted and that getting caught "saved my life, actually".

His portrayal of Hemingway in a 1988 miniseries earned him a Golden Globe. Keach was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1941. He is survived by Tomassi.