Stacy Keach, the actor whose gravel-voiced Mike Hammer defined television noir and who was regarded as one of America's finest Shakespearean actors, died Tuesday at his family home in Magdalenka, Poland. He was 85.

His wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach, announced his death. "After a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure, Stacy peacefully departed this world," she said in a statement. She said he fought with extraordinary courage, determination and strength, calling him a true warrior and the heart of the family.

Born Walter Stacy Keach Jr. on June 2, 1941, in Savannah, Georgia, Keach built a career that ran more than six decades across stage, film and television. He was the son of theatre director Stacy Keach Sr. and the older brother of actor James Keach.

On television, he became best known as Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled private eye Mike Hammer, a role he first took on in the 1983 CBS telefilm "Murder Me, Murder You." The role led to "The New Mike Hammer," which ran four seasons, along with other TV movies and the 1997-98 series "Mike Hammer, Private Eye."

His film breakthrough came in 1972 with two roles: the washed-up boxer Billy Tully in John Huston's "Fat City" and an obsessed rookie police officer in "The New Centurions." He later played Sgt. Stedenko in the Cheech & Chong comedies "Up in Smoke" (1978) and "Nice Dreams" (1981).

Keach won a Golden Globe in 1989 and earned an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Ernest Hemingway in a syndicated miniseries, and he returned to Hemingway decades later in the one-man play "Pamplona" in Chicago in 2017-18.

On stage, he was regarded as perhaps the best American Shakespearean actor of his era. Critic Clive Barnes called him "one of the great Hamlets of our time." He earned a Tony nomination in 1970 for "Indians," in which he played Buffalo Bill, and starred in "The Kentucky Cycle" in 1993.

Later audiences knew him as the narrator of CNBC's true-crime series "American Greed," a role he held from 2007 to 2023.

He is survived by his wife, Malgosia Tomassi Keach; his younger brother, James Keach; his children, Karolina and Shannon; and grandchildren.