Keach feels lucky; next project is 'Truth'

Here’s a hint: It wasn’t the Wildcats.

Keach has an affinity for Tucson.

In 1972, he starred as Bad Bob opposite Paul Newman in “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean,” which was filmed, in part, at Old Tucson. He refers to Arizona as one of the greatest places in the world for a round of golf.

His loyalties to the University of Southern California are the result of family ties.

“I have a son who attended USC,” Keach said in a phone interview last week from his Calabasas home near Los Angeles. “It makes me slightly biased.”

Trojan fan or not, Keach will appear in Tucson this weekend with his fellow “Nebraska” star Bruce Dern as part of the Loft Film Festival.

They will hold a meet-and-greet reception at Lodge on the Desert Saturday, followed by a screening of the film at the Loft, with a post-“Nebraska” Q&A. The two also will be at the theater on Sunday for “An Evening with Bruce Dern and Stacy Keach,” which will include a moderated chat, tribute reels and award presentations.

Both actors sport tremendous résumés.

For Keach, that includes more than 190 appearances on television and in film over the course of five decades, and numerous stage roles that have earned him a slew of Obie, Vernon Rice and Drama Desk awards.

One of his most noted characters is that of the hardboiled hero Mike Hammer, the Mickey Spillane detective that Keach played throughout the 1980s and ’90s.

Later this year, Keach will head to Sydney, where he will play a role in the Robert Redford/Cate Blanchett vehicle “Truth,” about former CBS news anchor Dan Rather’s later years in broadcast news.

“I’ve been very blessed,” Keach, 73, said. “I’ve been working a lot. That is the way I like it.”

Keach and Dern are old friends, which made filming the Oscar-nominated, critically acclaimed “Nebraska” a joy for both actors. They appeared with Robert Mitchum in the 1982 film “That Championship Season, and lived in the same Malibu neighborhood for more than a decade before that.

“I was doing ‘The New Centurions’ and he was doing ‘The King of Marvin Gardens’ when we were neighbors, “Keach said. “We experienced wildfires together. He lived about five minutes from me. I remember driving around, making sure everybody was safe.”

“Nebraska” follows Dern as Woody Grant, a retired auto mechanic and his son (played by Will Forte) who accompanies him on a fool’s journey to collect $1 million he believes he’s won from a magazine sweepstakes.

Keach plays Ed Pegram in the film, Grant’s conniving old business partner, who wants a piece of the pie, despite the sweepstakes being a scam.

Keach said his initial interest was in playing the role of Woody.

“I told (director Alexander Payne) I was interested in Woody and he said that it was a great way to feel if I was going to play Ed,” Keach said. “There is this kind of resentment and bitterness that inhabits him.”

The film received rave reviews and earned six Oscar nominations, including a best-actor nom for Dern.

“He gave a great performance,” Keach said. “He was just sensational.”

Keach said he looks forward to reuniting with his old friend in Tucson to discuss the film and the weekend’s sports scores.

“We both like to bet on football games,” he said. “I like to check in and see how he is doing with that from time to time.”