Stacy Keach, Jr. was born in Savannah, Georgia on June 2, 1941. He is a consummate actor who feels equally at home on stage, film or television. Director John Huston once said of him: “He is not just a star, he is a constellation. The audience will come to see whatever character he portrays.”  In a conversation with Gaja Wojdyłło-Rucińska, Stacy Keach talked about his first steps as an actor, love for Shakespere and fear of heights.

In addition to his motion picture and television accomplishments, Stacy is one of America’s most acknowledged Shakespearean actors, also celebrated in England where the Bard is in the blood. A New York Times review dubbed him “The Finest American classical actor since John Barrymore.” He has received a Golden Globe for the Best Actor; has been nominated for Emmy and Tony awards, won three Obies, three Vernon Rice awards, the Helen Hayes Award, and the prestigious Millennium Recognition Award for his outstanding contribution to the classical theatre. Keach has played many of Shakespeare’s great roles, including Hamlet, Richard III, Falstaff, Coriolanus, Macbeth, and Henry V. He is known for his portrayal of Mickey Spillane’s noir detective Mike Hammer on TV in the 80’s, and as Warden Henry Pope on the current TV series “Prison Break.” This season he returns to the Goodman Theatre in the title role of King Lear. I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Keach, his wife Malgosia, and their children, gain a better insight into this fascinating family and inquire into the actor’s early career.

- Mr. Keach, I have learned from your biography that the night you were born a lightning struck your house and set it on fire. Your parents were reported to say that it was a sign of a special being coming into the world. Do you also take the lightning to be a good omen?

Stacy Keach: I have always questioned the authenticity of the story, but I am quite positive that it is true. The chimney in our family home really did catch fire. Just as I was being delivered, my father was called away in order to let the firemen into the house. My parents take great relish in telling the story. It is always nice to have mythological origins, but I take them with a grain of salt.

– Did the event affect your life in any way?

S.K.: No, I don’t consider it as a sign of luck. If I a misfortune should happen, I wouldn’t go around saying, “it’s all because of a lightning that struck my house when I was born.” As I said, I don’t take it too seriously.

– Your father, Stacy Keach, Sr., has been a successful actor, producer, writer, and director for over fifty years. Did he influence your career choice?

S.K.: Yes, very much!

– Did you want to emulate your father?

S.K.: I am not sure whether I thought of it in those terms. He certainly inspired me, gave me guidance in certain areas, although it was never his wish that I become an actor. He hoped I would study law or medicine, just like my brother, and tried to prevent both of us from getting into show business. That’s why I keep telling my own children the very opposite of what my father never tired of repeating to us: “Why not try acting?” By applying reverse psychology, I hope to encourage them to follow a different path.

Now, my father had a different approach. Come Halloween, he would dress me up in theatre costumes. When I went to High School and started performing in school plays, he would offer me acting tips. My first role was that of the stage manager in Our Town. My father had played the part himself, and opened my eyes to all these wonderful moments in the play. For example, the one in which the stage manager describes a large tree that grows in the town square in Rovage Corner, New Hampshire. My father stood up and with his hands and words made the tree appear before my eyes.

He taught me pantomime techniques so I could provoke the audience’s imagination. I could dip into a make-believe bucket, scoop out some ice cream, and set it carefully on an ice-cream cone. It was magic. I use his advice to this day. Even last night, during the King Lear premiere, I employed pantomime, something I had never done before, and it was very successful.

[To illustrate this, Mr. Keach picked up a make-believe apple, placed it on my head, strung his bow, and appeared to be aiming an arrow.]

My father was an amazing pantomime. In this respect, he exerted a great influence on me. However, as I mentioned, he hoped I would not try acting professionally and face the hardship of rejections, financial insecurity, and the ups and downs of an actor’s life. Today, having taken this road, I can understand his fears. More than once, I said to myself, perhaps father was right, perhaps I should have been a lawyer.

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– How did your adventure in acting begin?

S.K.: Very early. I participated in school plays already in Junior High. In High School, I formed an acting group with friends, and even made a film. As it turned out, all our fathers were in the movie industry, and we had access to film, cameras, sound equipment, and even built our own dolly. We wrote a script ourselves, and produced a short film entitled Strange Reflection. It was a thirty-minute-long horror film based on an Alfred Hitchcock concept of ending with a twist. Shortly afterwards, Roger Corman contacted us to make a low-budget film based on his brother Gene Corman’s script. Unfortunately, the film, Blood and Steel, was never completed due to conflicts of ideas. Nevertheless, this was a formative experience in my career.

– Your academic record is very impressive. You graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1959, and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley as a double major in English and in Dramatic Art. You received a dual degree in 1963, and went on to study at the Yale School of Drama and, as a Fulbright scholar, at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Were you self-motivated or did your parents in sist that you pursue higher education?

S.K.: When I was starting out, I lacked self-
confidence. I decided to stay in school until I would gain a sense of direction and be con-
vinced that I was up to the task. I guess I am too educated for an actor.

– Do you believe that an actor should have formal education, or rather consider a natural talent the best resource?

S.K.: I firmly believe that education is the most important. You expand the possibilities of what you can do as an actor. School gave me the opportunity to do voice-overs and narration. The fact that the show business is fraught with obstacles makes education all the more crucial. And, finally, should something happen that would make it impossible for me to continue acting, I can always teach. I love teaching, and plan to do more of that as I grow older.

– Can you pinpoint the beginning of your career?

S.K.: I was very reluctant to come to Hollywood, and at first I was pounding the pavement to get jobs. I am glad to have had that experience, but more doors were opened for me in New York. One of my professors at Berkeley told me once: “If you can make it New York, you can make it anywhere, just as the song says.” And that’s what happened. My first movie offer came in the wake of a role I played in Macbird. In a way, this was the true beginning of my professional career. It certainly was the start of my celebrity.

– Is theatre still an important part of your life?

S.K.: Yes, it has always been the most important.

– Do you remember your first appearance on Broadway?

S.K.: Sure, I remember it vividly. I was scared to death. I was supposed to ride a prop horse. Its head was set on a spring, and on the opening night I pulled it a bit too hard, and snapped my horse’s neck. I went on to deliver my soliloquy as if this was part of the show. Two weeks later, a lady came up to me back stage, and asked: “Mr. Keach, why did you give up that wonderful moment in the play when the horse’s neck breaks?” She really believed it was in the script.

– Could you tell us a bit about your first film role?

S.K.: My first professional film role was that of Jake Blount in A Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I had read Carson McCullers’ novel and loved it. I was thrilled to play one of the characters. The original director, Joseph Strict, was fired and replaced by Robert Ellis Miller. One day, Robert Ellis Miller came to see me in Macbird and didn’t think I was a good match for the film role. Fortunately, the movie agents were unanimously on my side, and I did get the part. Robert Ellis kept me rather reluctantly but, in the end, he was very happy. We have become good friends since.

I remember going to the dailies and seeing myself for the first time on the big screen. I thought then, “This is too much for me.” The movie industry operated on a much different scale than theatre. I had to study acting all over again. Initially, I was very self-conscious in front of the camera. It was only with the second film part, in the End of the Road, that things started to change. Gordon Willis, who debuted in this film as a director of photography, came up to me once and said he would like to show me something. He had me stand in front of the camera, and introduced us by saying, “I would like you to meet Mitch. Mitch, meet Stacy.” He was asking me to talk to the camera. I thought he was out of his mind, but I did it anyway. “Hello, Mitch,” I replied. Then we moved to the hand-held air-flex camera, and he said, “Now I want you to meet Airy.” “Just talk to these guys,” he said, “they’re your friends.” Until that point, I had considered the camera as an intruder. I was extremely camera-shy. Since then, however, I would greet their lenses every morning, and we became pals. People thought I was nuts talking to the machines. The truth is that Gordon’s technique helped me overcome my fears.

– Since we are on the topic of phobias, is it true you have a fear of heights?

S.K.: Yes. At a certain point in my life I stopped liking heights. I wasn’t afraid of them when I was younger, but somehow developed that fear over the years. I don’t mind top floors, but I tend to stay away from the balconies. I just don’t feel safe.

– Does this affect the way you behave on stage?

S.K.: Not really. Perhaps it created some discomfort during the staging of the Christmas Carol in Boston, where I playing the leading role. In the scene in which Scrooge awakens from a dream in mid-flight, I was strapped into a harness and lifted off the stage. Well, I have to admit, I did not like it the least bit.

– Recently, you have been appearing in the Fox drama series, Prison Break, in the role of Warden Henry Pope. Is it true that your character is based on your real-life experiences?

S.K.: Yes, indeed! I was in a prison in England, and the warden, Brian Haighay, the “governor,” as he was popularly called, believed in rehabilitation rather than punishment. He was compassionate as, I think, Warden Pope used to be. I am using past tense here, because after he was betrayed by Michael, an inmate who tied him up and locked him in a closet in order to break out of prison, the Warden changed completely. But his character hasn’t appeared on the screen for a while, and won’t until I can shave my beard, that is until November. I am not sure what will happen to the Warden. All I can say is that there are a lot of loose ends. Keep watching, and you will find out.

– Most of actors on the set of Prison Break are young. Do you find yourself giving them advice?

S.K.: No, I never do that. I think the best way one can teach is by example. The younger actors will pick things up; and if they don’t, it’s that they are not cut out for the job. I recall the time I was working with John Huston. In one of the films, I was playing alongside Henry Fonda, and we even had the same agent at that time. Anyway, I was playing a Nazi, a good Nazi, John Huston an Irish industrialist, and Henry Fonda an American General. In one of the scenes, we were sitting round the table commenting on Hitler’s refusal to shake Jessie Owens’ hand in the 1936 Olympics just because the athlete was black. Each character in the film has a different take on the subject. And all the while, I was wondering how I should render the German accent: should it be heavy or slight. I couldn’t ask the director who was Italian, did not speak any English, and we had no translators on the set. In between the takes, I went up to John and asked him how my accent was. “Don’t ask me,” he replied, “I’m an actor and not a director. I don’t ask you how my accent sounds.” Although I had worked before on films he directed, now he was a fellow actor. It wasn’t his job to tell me how to do things. This taught me an important lesson.

– You have been quoted saying: “Metaphorically speaking, we are all prisoners of life.” Could elaborate on that?

S.K.: Well, what I meant was that no one gets out of his life alive. As humans, we all have a beginning, middle, and an end. That’s why we identify with characters in Prison Break. The inmates continuously concentrate on survival, on keeping a positive attitude. I think it is their struggle that keeps viewers glued to their TV sets. The characters are very complex; they aspire to freedom. The question of justice is never simple. This is what I was trying to say. We can all identify with these characters because, metaphorically, we are all prisoners of life.

On the other hand, I don’t think of life necessarily in terms of a prison. In my own life, I have been extremely fortunate, and I am blessed to have such a wonderful family, a great job, and good health. These are things that really matter.

– Shortly before Prison Break started filming, you played in Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre. How does it feel to have so little transition time between such divergent roles?

S.K.: It was not that bad; I did get a two-week break. The difficult part was the travel. At the time, I found myself commuting between Chicago and Warsaw every three weeks. Then I had to make few trips to Thailand where I was doing some shots for the Hallmark channel. I also worked on a movie for ABC, and had to travel to New Zealand. My frequent flier miles are adding up quickly.

– Do you find it hard to transition from the stage to a movie set, from performing in front of a live audience to acting in front of a camera?

S.K.: Not any more. I have been doing it for many years now. However, when I was starting out, it was a bit difficult. In the end, as you know, there is not much difference between a good theatre actor and a good film actor. It is a question of creating reality in the moment. Film and television really help stage actors develop techniques grounded in real life. I had to learn how to transition from film to theatre, as well.

– Could you talk a bit about your passion for Shakespeare?

S.K.: It dates back to my freshman year at Berkeley. I went to a small movie theatre to see a double feature: Shakespeare’s Richard III and Hamlet. I simply couldn’t believe my eyes. The same actor played both roles, and I was utterly mesmerized. I started reading Shakespeare. I had read Julius Caesar in high school, but it bored me because I didn’t understand it. We had a poor teacher who was unable to help us overcome the language barrier. Those two films seen in college made Shakespeare much more accessible. The King Lear production at Goodman Theatre can have the same effect on young people: it is a modern, 21st-century adaptation.

– It is often said that the role of King Lear is the culmination of an actor’s career. Do you feel like that?

S.K.: Absolutely, I think playing King Lear demands that the actor draw on his entire experience. The role poses a series of challenges: anger, long monologues, and multiple transformations of the character. I definitely agree that the great Shakespearean roles culminate with King Lear.

– What is the next goal in your acting career?

S.K.: Teddy Roosevelt, I hope. I am currently working on a script on Roosevelt’s trip to the Amazon with his son towards the end of his career. It is an amazing story, and I am looking forward to the project.

– Is it true that you met your wife Malgosia on the set of Mike Hammer?

S.K.: Yes, it is. But I’ll let Malgosia tell the story.

Malgosia Keach: We were shooting an outdoor scene in Los Angeles. I was a smoker back then, and during a break Stacy came up to me and asked me for a light. And sparks really flew. Days later, as I was driving home in my little old car, Stacy was passing me in his limousine. He asked his chauffeur to stop, told him to “pray for him,” and dared the traffic to hop into my car. Just picture this big movie star hopping into my rugged Volkswagen Golf just to ask me to join him for a drink. And that was that: he came into my car and into my life!

– You were born Warsaw, Poland, and you, Mr. Keach, in Savannah, Georgia. Did you ever experience a culture clash?

M.K.: The only barrier we had to overcome was the language. My English was far from perfect when we first met. It was 23 years ago, and now we have been married for 20 years. At our first encounter, I had been living in the States for only a year and a half. I left Poland after the Martial Law was enforced in 1981. Of course, there were cultural differences between us, but we were in love and differences were not barriers. I felt truly blessed. If you think about it, all the odds were against me: I arrived in Hollywood from a Communist country in order to find a job, and, instead, met a movie star and got married. I believe someone in heaven must have wanted us to be together.

– In 2001, you sold your house in Malibu, and built one in Poland. How do you like being back in your country?

M.K.: Stacy loves to make my dreams come true. And my biggest dream was to go back to Poland, and build a house there. We bought a plot of land in Magdalenka, a district of Warsaw, where my parents happened to get married after the war. We built a house there, and around the same time learned that our Malibu property had a big mold problem. During the renovation, we lived in Poland. Our kids attend schools in Poland, and they came to love it, too.

Right now, we live in Beverly Hills, but we still have our house in Magdalenka, and visit it as often as possible. We are planning on spending this Christmas in Zakopane. We just adore Poland!

– Mr. Keach, did you learn any Polish du-ring your stay there?

S.K.: Bardzo malo, ale rozumiem — Very little, but I can understand. I understand much more than I can speak. When the kids wanted to do something behind my back, they would speak Polish. Understanding Polish was for me a question of survival, and I had to learn it!

– Mr. Keach, you are the honorary chairman of the Cleft Palate Foundation. Is there a personal reason behind your support for the cause?

S.K.: Yes, I was born with a cleft lip. I was teased about it when I was a kid. I have been the honorary chairman for almost 25 years now. It is an important thing to me. There are many organizations that I support. I believe in giving back to the community.

– Is that approach something you have inherited from your father? I understand that he, too, supported many organizations.

S.K.: Yes, it was very important to him. He was active in his church, and loved helping those in heed. I feel the same way.

– On a final note, now that King Lear is playing at Goodman, what would you say to our readers to encourage them to some and see the play?

S.K.: Goodman Theatre is the place to see Shakespeare staged as he has never been before.

- Thank you for giving us the opportunity to catch a glimpse of your intimate life, and we look forward to seeing you on the stage at Goodman Theatre.