Actor Stacy Keach dies at 85 in Poland

Stacy Keach, the 85-year-old actor famed for playing prison warden Henry Pope in "Prison Break" and Robert Vesco in "The Blacklist," died at his family home in Poland on Tuesday, his wife Małgosia Tomassi said in a statement to Variety. She described his death as the result of "a long and difficult battle with a serious heart condition and heart failure."

"Stacy was not only a legendary actor, admired and loved by audiences the world over, but also my beloved husband, my companion and the heart of our family," Tomassi said.

Born Walter Stacy Keach in Georgia in 1941, he pursued acting after growing up in a family of performers. He earned a bachelor’s degree in dramatic art from the University of California, Berkeley, an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Keach began on stage, earning awards for his work in productions such as "Richard III" and "Macbeth" with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, before moving into film in the 1960s with titles like "Fat City" and "American History X."

He achieved television fame as Mike Hammer in several series and later as Henry Pope opposite Wentworth Miller’s Michael Scofield. His later TV appearances included guest spots on "Will & Grace," a recurring role on "Two and a Half Men," and a cameo on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

Keach also served as chairman of the Cleft Palate Foundation, an advocacy role linked to his own birth condition of a cleft lip and partial palate. He was married three times before meeting Tomassi, a former Polish model and actress, on the set of "Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer" in the ’80s. The couple adopted two children, Shannon and Karolina, and lived together in Poland.