Topic: Stacy Keach

Walter Stacy Keach, Jr. (born June 2, 1941) is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy (particularly his role in the FOX sitcom Titus as Ken, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing father of comedian Christopher Titus) and musical roles.

Keach was born Walter Stacy Keach, Jr. in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Mary Cain (née Peckham), an actress, and Walter Stacy Keach, a theatre director, drama teacher, and actor. His brother James Keach is an actor and television director. Keach graduated from Van Nuys High School in June 1959, where he was class president, then earned two BA degrees at the University of California, Berkeley (1963), one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. He earned an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

In 1966 Keach played the title role, (with his take on Lyndon Johnson being MacBeth) in MacBird! an Off Broadway spoof at the Village Gate. Then in 1967, he was cast, again Off Broadway, in George Tabori's The Niggerlovers with Morgan Freeman (in his first ever acting job). To this day, Freeman credits Keach with teaching him the most about acting. Keach first appeared on Broadway in 1969 as Buffalo Bill in Indians by Arthur Kopit. Early in his career, he was credited as Stacy Keach, Jr. to distinguish himself from his father Stacy Keach, Sr. He played the lead actor in The Nude Paper Sermon an avant-garde musical theatre piece for media presentation, commissioned by Nonesuch Records by composer Eric Salzman.