Keach is no stranger to Texas heat

[Dumi]

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Television

Aug. 13, 2006, 7:17PM

TV FEATURE
Keach is no stranger to Texas heat
Dallas filming of Prison Break, a breeze, actor says
By BRUCE WESTBROOK
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

An actor who's used to California balm, Stacy Keach just left Dallas' 100-degree heat after shooting scenes for Prison Break's second season. But Texas summers are nothing new for the veteran actor, who sweltered through a wild and wacky Robert Altman shoot in Houston for 1970's Brewster McCloud.

"That was one hot summer," Keach said of playing Abraham Wright, a lecherous, greedy codger who rode in a Rolls Royce to collect money from decrepit nursing homes.

"I had to get up at 4 in the morning to look about 100 years old," Keach said. "It was all prosthetics and took hours to apply. Then I had to wear a suit on top of that ton of makeup, and it was hot anyway.

"The heat would make my makeup bubble, so I had to sit in the back of the Rolls with the motor on and the AC on full-blast. Outside, I used battery fans to keep cool."

By comparison, Dallas was a snap. On top of that, Keach is done with Prison Break's newly relocated production — for now.

On Fox this season, he won't be needed much to play warden Henry Pope at an Illinois prison. The convicts who escaped last season will become the focus of a manhunt far from the prison's walls.

"The FBI will lead the manhunt, but they may need me from time to time," said Keach, 65, who's starring in King Lear through October at Chicago's Goodman Theater.

"I'm gonna go climb 'Mount Lear' while I can still walk," said Keach, who's also developing a film with his brother about Teddy Roosevelt's trip down the Amazon.

Prison Break's first season, released on DVD last week, was shot in Illinois. For Season 2's manhunt, North Texas stands in for various sites.

In a way, Keach's character was inspired by his own prison experiences. In 1984 the actor was caught with cocaine while visiting England and spent nine months in prison there.

"That inspired my Prison Break character, because the warden — or 'governor,' as we called him — was a very compassionate man who believed in rehabilitation rather than punishment," Keach said.

"He was a role model for me. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was doing research. It was a costly way to do it, of course."

Pope also tries to be understanding, not the hardened warden of movie clichés. He even builds a tiny Taj Mahal to show his love for his wife. But Keach hinted that the model won't last long next season.

Other TV credits include a run as Mickey Spillane's hard boiled detective in Mike Hammer. Keach said he spoke to Spillane shortly before his recent death, "and he was ill but working hard and finishing a book.

Keach also worked in Texas on the 1994 miniseries Texas, based on James A. Michener's book. In it, he played Sam Houston.

Texas was lensed in Del Rio. Keach also worked in East Texas on 1980's The Long Riders, in which he played gunslinger Frank James, brother of outlaw Jesse James (played by Keach's brother).

The son of an actor, Keach says his first love is the theater. He studied acting at Cal-Berkeley, Yale and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Keach, who has a cousin and aunt in Houston, was here in the '80s with a touring stage production of Love Letters with Joan Collins. He's also had steady work at the veneered Goodman.

Making more lucrative films and TV enables actors to do stage work. But Keach says the "real money" isn't there — it's on DVD.

"That's going to be a huge issue with the Screen Actors Guild and the studios," he said. "Actors get a very small piece of DVD sales. It's ridiculously small. And DVD is so big. TV series are like expensive commercials for the DVD, where the real money is."

But he's sold on savoring a series via DVD.

As for how long a show called Prison Break can sustain itself, "I thought the air would come out of the tire when they got out (of prison), but we'll see," Keach said. "After spending Season 2 on the run, now there's the manhunt, but also loose ends. I think Season 3 may be called Loose Ends."

[disaster89]

I loved his character in Titus.

[play_mate]

Me too