Stacy Keach Movies
A fine dramatic actor who never quite made it as a movie star and so settled with a highly successful career as a television leading man, Stacy Keach is best known for playing the title character in the television detective drama Mike Hammer (1984-1987). Born on June 2nd, 1941, Keach is a sturdy and handsome fellow who is often cast as policemen or other authority figures.Keach is the son of a British actor and drama coach, Stacy Keach Sr., and was born in Georgia but raised in Los Angeles. While attending the U.C. Berkeley, Keach became interested in drama. An agent told him that his harelip would make it impossible for Keach to get leading roles. Keach disbelieved him and went on to study drama at Yale. He then received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In New York, he essayed a number of Shakespearean roles and those of other classic plays.
He also worked in more contemporary productions such as the off-Broadway McBird!, which won him his first Obie and a Vernon Rice Drama Desk Award. He again won these awards after he played Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival. In 1969, Keach won a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut, portraying Buffalo Bill in Arthur Kopit's Indians. For his performance in The Kentucky Cycle, Keach earned a Drama League Outstanding Artist Award, the Helen Hayes Award for Best Actor, and a Drama Award nomination for Best Actor. Keach made his feature-film debut as an alcoholic wanderer in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). Keach's movie career took off afterward and he appeared in several major movies in quick succession, including Brewster McCloud (1970) and The New Centurians (1972). In 1971, Keach made an award-winning short film, The Repeatery. Later, he also made a television version of Pirandello's complex Six Characters in Search of an Author. As a movie actor, Keach's heyday ended by the early '80s, after appearing in both American and international productions of widely varying quality; Keach then turned to television.
Mike Hammer was a very successful show, but production abruptly stopped when British customs officers at London's Heathrow Airport found Keach carrying a significant amount of cocaine. He spent several months imprisoned in England, but was released in 1986. Having kicked his drug habit, Keach repaired his damaged career and started showing up regularly in television miniseries such as The Blue and the Gray (1985).
Keach continues his stage work, often narrates documentaries, and occasionally appears in feature films such as Escape From L.A. (1995). Keach is a member of the LHeos Angeles Classic Theatre Work, the Yale Theater Circle, and the Players Club. In addition, he works on the Artistic Advisory Board for the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, the Artists Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Helen Hayes Honorary Committee. In the '90s, Keach was named Honorary Chair for the Cleft Palate Foundation and in 1995 won the Celebrity Outreach Award for his charitable work.
Keach primarily worked as a narrator in mid-2000s, and joined Oliver Stone's biopic chronicling the ascension of George W. Bush in 2008. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1980
The 2-part TV movie Rumor of War was based on the 1977 memoirs of Vietnam veteran Philip Caputo. Brad Davis stars as Caputo, who during the mid-1960s was a Marine lieutenant. In battle after battle, Caputo performs his duties admirably, even when questioning the wisdom of America's Vietnam involvement. As both the war and the body count escalate, Caputo suffers a nervous breakdown. A Rumor of War bears an inevitable resemblance to the much-earlier antiwar epic All Quiet on the Western Front, right down to the presence of a father-figure combat sergeant (Brian Dennehy). Its few cliches aside, the film is a powerful indictment of the brutalization and depersonalization of America's Vietnam forces. A Rumor of War premiered on September 24 and 25, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Hosted by Stacy Keach, the documentary Alien Technology attempts to show how the federal government has kept the remains of crashed alien spaceships and used the technology on board them in order to advance the progress of men on Earth. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
This made-for-TV rural horror film from director Burt Kennedy benefits from a fine cast and a tense Clyde Ware screenplay. Samantha Eggar and Stacy Keach play motorists held prisoner by a family of seven sweet-faced young orphans and their savage guard dogs. The children only want a mother and father but are willing to kill anyone who rejects them. Jon Savage co-stars with Robby Benson, who sang the theme song. All the Kind Strangers was initially telecast November 12, 1974. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- 1995
They say that men are from Mars, but one woman finds happiness when her boyfriend is taken over by visitors from another part of the galaxy in this sexy sci-fi comedy. Amanda (Nicole Eggert) is an aspiring artist who supports herself working at a clothing store; she doesn't care for her job, and her boyfriend Charlie (Michael Bendetti) is chronically unfaithful to her. A pair of government agents, Emmitt (Stacy Keach) and Vint (Michael Dorn), have captured a space alien and are guarding it in a secret safe house; however, the alien escapes, and takes over the body of Flores (Alex Maneses), a woman working as a domestic at the house. Amanda meets "Flores" in a coffeehouse and realizes that the runaway alien lurks within; sympathetic to the space creature's plight, she offers to help it escape, and even gives it a new body to travel in -- Charlie's, which suddenly makes him a lot easier to get along with, and even a bit sexier. Onetime scandal queen Jessica Hahn makes a cameo appearance as the host of a TV show. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nicole Eggert, Stacy Keach, (more)
- 1992
This PBS documentary chronicles the highly political and oftentimes tragic dynasty of the Kennedy family, and the profound impact it has made on America throughout the years. Hosted by historian David McCullough, the documentary features several Kennedy experts, including fellow historian Theodore Sorenson, author Doris Kearns Goodwin, the late Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, and a bevy of family friends and colleagues who have served the Kennedy clan in their many political endeavors. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- 1992
The American Experience: The Kennedys -- The Later Years (1962-1980) is the second part of a two-part documentary series on PBS. In 1960, John F. Kennedy is elected the 35th president of the U.S., both the youngest president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office. He is assassinated in 1963. In 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy is killed after winning several presidential primaries. Senator Ted Kennedy loses his post as Majority Whip, but runs for president in 1980. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
Tony Kaye made his feature directorial debut with this dramatic exploration into the roots of race hatred in America. In a shocking opening scene, teen Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong) races to tell his older brother, neo-Nazi Derek (Edward Norton), about the young blacks breaking into his car in front of the house, whereupon Derek gets his gun and with no forethought shoots the youths in their tracks. Tried and convicted, Derek is sent away for three years in prison, where he acquires a different outlook as he contrasts white-power prisoners with black Lamont (Guy Torry), his prison laundry co-worker and eventual pal. Meanwhile, Danny, with a shaved head and a rebellious attitude, seems destined to follow in his big brother's footsteps. After Danny writes a favorable review of Hitler's Mein Kampf, black high-school principal Sweeney (Avery Brooks) puts Danny in his private "American History X" course and assigns him to do a paper about his older brother, who was a former student of Sweeney's. This serves to introduce flashbacks, with the film backtracking to illustrate Danny's account of Derek's life prior to the night of the shooting. Monochrome sequences of Derek leading a Venice, California gang are intercut with color footage of the mature Derek ending his past neo-Nazi associations and attempting to detour Danny away from the group led by white supremacist, Cameron (Stacy Keach), who once influenced Derek. Director Tony Kaye, with a background in TV commercials and music videos, filmed in L.A. beach communities. Rated R "for graphic brutal violence including rape, pervasive language, strong sexuality and nudity." ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, (more)
Adapted by French playwright Jean Anouilh from the Sophocles original, Antigone was originally produced onstage in 1942, while France was under German occupation, and the production is set in modern times. As the film begins, we discover that after the death of Oedipus, king of Thebes, his sons Polynices and Eteocles had agreed to share the responsibility of ruling Thebes. Unfortunately, this situation did not work out, resulting in a war that left both brothers dead and the throne being grabbed by their uncle, Creon (played by Fritz Weaver). Creon has buried Eteocles but has refused a burial for Polynices, ordering that his body be left as carrion for the birds; he further issues an order that anyone burying Polynices will be put to death. Antigone (Genevieve Bujold), sister of the two dead brothers, defies this order, and is brought before Creon. The bulk of the film consist of a long confrontation between the uncle and his niece, during which Creon tries to find why Antigone willingly and knowingly disobeyed him, and revealing that her brothers has unbeknownst to her spent years trying to kill her beloved father. Although stunned by these revelations, Antigone does not renounce her actions and is led to her death, though she no longer knows what she is dying for. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
- 1998
The Artists of America series takes viewers into the personal world of some of the art community's most revered citizens. Ten programs delve into the life, philosophy, and works of the nation's greatest painters and sculptors. The two-part program Andrew Wyeth -- Self-Portrait -- Snow Hill provides an intimate biography of the contemporary painter whose landscapes and sensitive portraits generated international acclaim. Wyeth is best-known for his classic painting Christina's World, as well as The Patriot, Maiden Hair, and Distant Thunder. This authorized documentary recounts 60 years of the artist's career, fusing looks at Wyeth's paintings with family photos, home movies, and rare footage of the artist. Other programs in the series include Hibel's Russian Palette, Fritz Scholder: Painting the Paradox, Michael Earney: The Utilitarian Artist, Rita Blitt: Dancing Hands and "Flag", and others. ~ Sally Barber, Rovi
This stylish animated adventure is based on the '90s animated television series, which in turn is based on the original comics and Tim Burton's live action "Batman" films. Unlike the campy 1960s version of Batman, this version is half-mad from the superhero's obsession with justice. It is only his unusual sense of ethics that keeps him from becoming a full-blown psychotic. The story describes the origins of Batman as it follows the Dark Knight's attempts to capture the elusive, deadly Phantasm who kills a crime lord and makes it look as if Batman did it, causing a media smear campaign against the Caped Crusader. At the same time, millionaire Bruce Wayne holds a party at his mansion. There he meets Councilman Arthur Reeves, the man behind the accusations. Reeves derides playboy Wayne for allowing his college sweetheart Andrea Beaumont to leave him. Suddenly Wayne flashes back to his pre-Batman days. He remembers how he met her while visiting his parents' graves to renew his vow that he would spend his life fighting crime to avenge their wrongful deaths. He has already devised an early version of his alter-ego Batman, but that is nearly forgotten when he falls in love with Andrea. The story then jumps from past to present and back as the mysterious Phantasm strikes again. Batman continues his investigation and discovers a disturbing link between Andrea, who suddenly shows up after many years absence, and the villain. Meanwhile, the Phantasm, feeling that Batman is too close to learning his/her identity hires the Joker to kill him. But the Joker has his own agenda and much action ensues before the mystery of the Phantasm identity is solved, Batman clears his name, and justice is served. This film was originally made to go straight to video, Warner's studio liked it enough to release it theatrically. Some of the violence may be inappropriate for very young children. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kevin Conroy, Dana Delany, (more)
- 1983
This animated version of DeBeaumont's classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast throws in a dash of Cinderella. The kind, virtuous, generous Beauty lives in a mansion with her five spoiled-rotten sisters. Of her avaricious siblings, only Beauty can adjust when her father loses all his money and they must live in reduced circumstances. And only Beauty has the courage to sacrifice her future to live with the hideous Beast in order to save her father's life. Produced by Ruby-Spears, this half-hour version of Beauty and the Beast originally aired November 25, 1983, on CBS as a "Kenner Family Classics" Thanksgiving special. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Janet Waldo
In the three-hour period television miniseries Blackbeard, Angus MacFadyen (Braveheart, Jason and the Argonauts) assumes the title role of the dreaded marauder who spent 1716-1718 terrorizing the Caribbean Sea. Born Sir William Teach, the mariner rechristens himself Blackbeard, and subsequently builds a legend around himself as the most merciless and loathsome pirate in world history by plundering as many ships and murdering as many seafarers as he can lay his dirty mitts on. Directed by Kevin Connor (Motel Hell, The Land That Time Forgot), Blackbeard co-stars big screen vets Rachel Ward, Stacy Keach, and Richard Chamberlain. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Angus MacFadyen
- 1993
- R
Horror virtuoso John Carpenter hosts this goofy horror anthology, originally produced for Showtime as a gory stepchild of HBO's Tales from the Crypt series. Playing an emaciated, eye-rolling "coroner," John introduces the audience to a triptych of creepy vignettes in the EC horror-comics mode while paddling about in the guts of assorted cadavers and cracking jokes more gag-inducing than anything oozing on the slab. Two of the stories are directed by Carpenter himself: "The Gas Station" is a retread (pun intended) of Halloween-style scare tactics as a pretty gas-station attendant watches various oddballs pass by her window after hearing that an escaped killer is on the loose; "Hair" is a morbid, hilarious look at man's obsession with his own virility in which Stacy Keach turns to a bizarre hair-growth clinic (run by David Warner & Debbie Harry) which promises instant results, but at a horrific price. The third segment, directed by Tobe Hooper, involves a baseball player (Mark Hamill) who receives an eye transplant after a car accident and soon begins having optical flashbacks revealing (you guessed it) the identity and tendencies of the eye's former owner -- a serial killer. The second segment is by far the most entertaining, featuring a wonderfully neurotic performance by Keach, but the first and last chapters are too derivative to offer much for the discriminating horror buff, although the same fans will enjoy several cute cameos from other genre directors, including Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and Roger Corman. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- 1970
- R
A boy yearns to fly in Robert Altman's whimsical youthquake parable. With the aid of seraphic Louise (Sally Kellerman), owlish Brewster (Bud Cort) constructs a pair of human-size wings in his Houston Astrodome nest to realize his dream. Meanwhile, conservative creeps, including a witchy "Star-Spangled Banner"-belting crone (Margaret Hamilton) and Brewster's skinflint boss (Stacy Keach), keep turning up dead covered with bird droppings; the Houston Establishment calls in blue-eyed, turtleneck-wearing "San Francisco super cop" Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy) to investigate. Brewster cooks his own goose, however, when he defies Louise's edict against sex and hooks up with Astrodome usher Suzanne (Shelley Duvall) after she impresses him (and saves him) by out-driving Shaft in her Road Runner. Despite her apparent sweetness, Suzanne ultimately will not compromise her comfortable home for flight with Brewster. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, (more)
Pia Zadora stars in an over-cooked melodramatic adaptation of the 1946 James M. Cain novel that is every bit as smutty and sleazy as Zadora's vampish character of Kady. The location of the novel has been switched from Appalachia to the barren lands of Arizona and Nevada in 1937. Stacy Keach plays Jess Tyler, a desert hermit who has spent years guarding an abandoned silver mine. Suddenly, Jesse is confronted by his very grown-up and sexy daughter, who, when she was a baby, had been taken away from him by his wife, Belle (Lois Nettleton). Kady, it so happens, hasn't come home for a family reunion -- she has just been dumped by a rich young man who is the father of her illegitimate child and whose family owns the very silver mine that Jess is guarding. Kady hopes to use her feminine wiles to seduce Jess and reopen the mine and extract the money from the earth that she feels is due her from the family. As if his seductive daughter walking around bare-breasted in front of him isn't enough, Jess must also deal with the sudden return of his older daughter, Janey (Ann Dane), who appears with Kady's son; Belle, who comes back to Jess dying of tuberculosis; and Moke Blue (James Franciscus), the man who stole Belle away from Jess years ago. Also squeezing his way into Jess's shack is Wash Gillespie (Edward Albert), the father of Kady's child, who now wants to marry her. Butterfly also features Orson Welles as Judge Rauch. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Stacy Keach, Pia Zadora, (more)
- 2011
- NR
Contemptible Klansman Leroy Lowe (Tom Sizemore) is forced to confront his deep-rooted bigotry after being convicted of fraud, and placed in a prison cell with Mexican field worker Emilio (Héctor Jimenez). To further complicate matters, when a pretty Mexican cleaning woman takes a shine to Leroy, he finds it increasingly difficult to maintain his racist outlook in this quirky prison-buddy comedy also featuring Stacy Keach and Kevin Farley. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Sizemore, Héctor Jimenez, (more)
- 1981
- R
- Add Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams to Queue Add Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams to top of Queue
Here, the dope-smoking duo are working on an ice-cream truck, and their specially treated confections are more than just a hit for the kids. Nice Dreams is the third in the series. ~ John Bush, Rovi
- Starring:
- Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, (more)
Mark L. Lester's follow-up film to his Class of 1984 is a rancidly violent peek at a near-future high school world of terror -- The Jetsons meet The Terminator. In Lester's world, total anarchy rules (at least in Seattle). Classrooms are sinkholes of violence, and around the kill-zone high schools "Free Fire Zones" are set up that look like re-creations of Dachau. Rival youth gangs roam these areas with enough artillery for a second Vietnam War. The gangs' insane violence is exacerbated by a drug called Edge. When the Department of Educational Defense needs to supply new teachers, they look to a secret government agency headed by Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach) who sends new teaching recruits (Pam Grier, John P. Ryan, Joshua Miller) to the beleaguered high school. These novice teachers are not your ordinary teaching-college graduates, however. They are "tactical education units" -- cyborgs reprogrammed to teach readin' and writin' and 'rithmetic. If the students don't learn their daily assignments, they learn an even bigger lesson -- learn or die. The strict disciplinarian robots compel the student gangs to unite and fight the new educational menace. Under the leadership of Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg), who has just gotten out of reform school and has seen that there is more to life than killin' and cuttin' and Edge, the punks take up arms against the cyborgs who are invading their high-school turf. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bradley Gregg, Traci Lind, (more)
A Southern beauty whose habit of waking up in strange beds with head-ringing hangovers is beginning to wear thin determines to uncover her secret shrouded family past in hopes of discovering the truth about the woman she has become in the feature filmmaking debut of actor-turned-director Joey Lauren Adams. Lucy (Ashley Judd) is a small town thirtysomething who seems to have fallen into a downward spiral of alcohol-fueled benders and spontaneous one-night stands. In order to begin the transformation necessary to help her overcome her self-destructive ways, however, Lucy will have to look deep into her familial past and seek out the true weight of the burden that has led her down the darkened path she currently walks. Diane Ladd, Tim Blake Nelson, and Laura Prepon co-star in an intimate personal drama that made its premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ashley Judd, Jeffrey Donovan, (more)
Based on a play by Barry England, the British Conduct Unbecoming revolves around a sexual violation--which may or may not have occurred. In British India, highborn Mrs. Scarlett (Susannah York) accuses 2nd Lt. Millington, a Bengal Lancer officer (James Faulkner) of raping her. Lieutenant Arthur Drake (Michael York) is assigned to defend Lt. Millington in a trial held behind closed doors to avoid scandal. Colonel Strang (Trevor Howard.) is a martinet judge who presses for a conviction, only to have his determination shaken by the introduction of new evidence. Conduct Unbecoming has the look and feel of a decades-old stage production, but the dialogue and performances provide a strictly contemporary slant. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael York, Richard Attenborough, (more)
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