Jack Palance

Palance was awarded a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but left after two years, disgusted by commercialization of the sport.[11]

With the outbreak of World War II, Palance's athletic career ended, and his military career as a member of the United States Army Air Forces began. His face was said to have become disfigured while bailing out of a burning B-24 Liberator bomber during a training flight over Southern Arizona (where Palance was a student pilot). His distinctive cheekbones and deep-set eyes were said to have been the result of reconstructive surgery.

The story behind Palance's face was repeated numerous times (including in respected film reference works), but upon his death, several obituaries quoted him saying that the entire story had been contrived: "Studio press agents make up anything they want to, and reporters go along with it. One flack created the legend that I had been blown up in an air crash during the war, and my face had to be put back together by way of plastic surgery. If it is a 'bionic face', why didn't they do a better job of it?"

Palance (Flight Officer Walter Polanski) was honorably discharged from the United States Army Air Forces in September 1945. Shamokin News Dispatch, September 22, 1945.

Palance made his Broadway debut in The Big Two in 1947, playing a Russian soldier, directed by Robert Montgomery.[14]

His acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in A Streetcar Named Desire, and he eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski. (Anthony Quinn, however, gained the opportunity to tour the play.)

Palance appeared in two plays in 1948 which had short runs, A Temporary Island and The Vigil. He made his television debut in 1949.

Palance made his screen debut in the movie Panic in the Streets (1950), directed by Elia Kazan, who had directed Streetcar on Broadway. He played a gangster, and was credited as "Walter (Jack) Palance".

The same year he was featured in Halls of Montezuma (1951), about the United States Marines during World War II. He returned to Broadway for Darkness at Noon (1951), by Sidney Kingsley, which was a minor hit.

Palance was second-billed in just his third film, playing opposite Joan Crawford in the thriller Sudden Fear (1952). His character is written as having been a coal miner, just as Palance's father had been.[15] Palance received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[16]

He was also nominated in the same category the following year for his role as the hired gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane (1953). This film was a huge hit, and Palance was now established as a film name.

Warwick Films hired him to play the hero in The Man Inside (1958), shot in Europe. He was reunited with Robert Aldrich and Jeff Chandler when they worked on Ten Seconds to Hell (1959), filmed in Germany, playing a bomb disposal expert.

Palance with Sharon Tate during the filming of Barabbas (1961).

He made Beyond All Limits (1959) in Mexico, and Austerlitz (1960) in France, then did a series of films in Italy: Revak the Rebel, Sword of the Conqueror, The Mongols, The Last Judgment, and Barabbas (all 1961), and Night Train to Milan and Warriors Five (both 1962).

Jean-Luc Godard persuaded Palance to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the nouvelle vague movie Le Mépris (1963) with Brigitte Bardot. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke mostly English.

Palance returned to the U.S. to star in the TV series The Greatest Show on Earth (1963–64).[20]

In 1964, his presence at a recently-integrated movie theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, prompted a riot from segregationists who assumed Palance was there to promote civil rights.[21]

He played a gangster in Once a Thief (1965) with Alain Delon. In the following year he appeared in the television film Alice Through the Looking Glass, directed by Alan Handley, in which he played the Jabberwock, and had a featured role opposite Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster in the Western adventure The Professionals. Palance guest-starred in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and the episodes were released as a film, The Spy in the Green Hat (1967).

He went to England to make Torture Garden (1967), and made Kill a Dragon (1968) in Hong Kong.

Palance provided narration for the 1967 documentary And Still Champion! The Story of Archie Moore. He was in the TV film The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde produced by Dan Curtis, during the making of which he fell and injured himself.[22]

In 1969, Palance recorded a country music album in Nashville, released on Warner Bros. Records. It featured his self-penned song "The Meanest Guy that Ever Lived". The album was re-released on CD in 2003 by the Water label (Water 119).

His films tended to be international co-productions by now: They Came to Rob Las Vegas, The Mercenary (both 1968), The Desperados, and Marquis de Sade: Justine (both 1969).

Palance had a part in the Hollywood blockbuster Che! (1969) playing Fidel Castro opposite Omar Sharif in the title role, but the film flopped. Palance went back to action films and Westerns: Battle of the Commandos (1970), The McMasters (1970) and Compañeros (1970).

He had another role in Monte Walsh (1970), from the author of Shane, opposite Lee Marvin, but the film was a box-office disappointment. So too was The Horsemen (1971) with Sharif, directed by John Frankenheimer.

Palance supported Bud Spencer in It Can Be Done Amigo and Charles Bronson in Chato's Land (both 1972), and had the lead in Sting of the West (1972) and Brothers Blue (1973).

Palance as Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973)

In Great Britain he appeared in a highly acclaimed TV film, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973), playing the title role. The film was directed by Dan Curtis. Three years earlier, comic book artist Gene Colan had based his interpretation of Dracula for the acclaimed Marvel Comics comic book series The Tomb of Dracula on Palance, explaining, "He had that cadaverous look, a serpentine look on his face. I knew that Jack Palance would do the perfect Dracula."[23]

He went back to Hollywood for Oklahoma Crude (1973) then to England to star in Craze (1975).

Palance starred in the television series Bronk between 1975 and 1976 for MGM Television. Following that, he starred in the TV films The Hatfields and the McCoys (1975) and The Four Deuces (1976).

In the late 1970s, Palance was mostly based in Italy. He supported Ursula Andress in Africa Express and L'Infermiera, Lee Van Cleef in God's Gun, and Thomas Milian in The Cop in Blue Jeans (all 1976).

Palance was in Black Cobra Woman; Safari Express, a sequel to Africa Express; Mister Scarface; and Blood and Bullets (all 1976). He travelled to Canada to make Welcome to Blood City (1977) and the US for The One Man Jury (1978), Portrait of a Hitman and Angels Revenge (both 1979).

Palance later said his Italian sojourn was the most enjoyable of his career. "In Italy, everyone on the set has a drinking cubicle, and no one is ever interested in working after lunch", he said. "That's a highly civilized way to make a movie."[24]

Palance went back to Canada for H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come (1979).[25]

In 1980, Jack Palance narrated the documentary The Strongest Man in the World by Canadian filmmaker Halya Kuchmij, about Mike Swistun, a circus strongman who had been a student of Houdini. Palance attended the premiere of the film on June 6, 1980, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.[26]

He appeared in The Ivory Ape (1980), Without Warning (1980), Hawk the Slayer (1980), and the slasher film, Alone in the Dark (1982).

In 1982, Palance began hosting a television revival of Ripley's Believe It or Not!. The weekly series ran from 1982 to 1986 on the American ABC network. The series also starred three different co-hosts from season to season, including Palance's daughter Holly Palance, actress Catherine Shirriff and singer Marie Osmond. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was in rerun syndication on the Sci-fi Channel (U.K.) and the Sci-fi Channel (U.S.) during the 1990s.

He appeared in the films Gor and Bagdad Café (both 1987).

Palance had never been out of work since his career began, but his success on Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the international box-office hit of Bagdad Cafe (1987) resulted in a demand for his services in big-budget Hollywood films.

He made memorable appearances as villains in Young Guns (1988) as Lawrence Murphy, Tango & Cash (1989) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989). He also performed on Roger Waters' first solo album release, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), and was in Outlaw of Gor (1988) and Solar Crisis (1990).

Palance was then cast as cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. He quipped:

I don't go to California much any more. I live on a farm in Pennsylvania, about 100 miles from New York, so I can go into the city for dinner and a show when I want to. I also have a ranch about two hours from Los Angeles, but I don't go there very often at all...But I will always read a decent script when it is offered, and the script to City Slickers made sense. Curly (his character in the film) is the kind of man I would like to be. He is in control of himself, except for deciding the moment of his own death. Besides all that, I got paid pretty good money to make it.[24]

Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on March 30, 1992, for his performance as Curly.[27] Stepping onstage to accept the award, the 6' 4" (1.93 m) actor looked down at 5' 7" (1.70 m) Oscar host Billy Crystal (who was also his co-star in the movie), and joked, mimicking one of his lines from the film, "Billy Crystal ... I crap bigger than him." He then dropped to the floor and demonstrated his ability, at the age of 73, to perform one-armed push-ups.

The audience loved the moment as host Crystal turned it into a running gag. At various points in the broadcast, Crystal announced that Palance was "backstage on the StairMaster"; had bungee-jumped off the Hollywood sign; had rendezvoused with the space shuttle in orbit; fathered all the children in a production number; been named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive"; and won the New York primary election. At the end of the broadcast Crystal said he wished he could be back next year, but "I've just been informed Jack Palance will be hosting."

Years later, Crystal appeared on Inside the Actors Studio and fondly recalled that, after the Oscar ceremony, Palance approached him during the reception: "He stopped me and put his arms out and went, 'Billy Crystal, who thought it would be you?' It was his really funny way of saying thank you to a little New York Jewy guy who got him the Oscars."[28]

In 1993, during the opening of the Oscars, a spoof of that Oscar highlight featured Palance appearing to drag in an enormous Academy Award statuette with Crystal again hosting, riding on the rear end of it. Halfway across the stage, Palance dropped to the ground as if exhausted, but then performed several one-armed push-ups before regaining his feet and dragging the giant Oscar the rest of the way across the stage.[29]

He appeared in Cyborg 2 (1993); Cops & Robbersons (1994) with Chevy Chase; City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994); and on TV in Buffalo Girls (1995). He also voiced Rothbart in the 1994 animated film The Swan Princess.

Palance's final films included Ebenezer (1998), a TV Western version of Charles Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol, with Palance as Scrooge; Treasure Island (1999); Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End (2000); and Prancer Returns (2001).

Palance (left) visits a VA Hospital in 2005

Palance, at the time chairman of the Hollywood Trident Foundation, walked out of a Russian Film Festival in Hollywood in 2004. After being introduced, Palance said, "I feel like I walked into the wrong room by mistake. I think that Russian film is interesting, but I have nothing to do with Russia or Russian film. My parents were born in Ukraine: I'm Ukrainian. I'm not Russian. So, excuse me, but I don't belong here. It's best if we leave."[30] Palance was awarded the title of "People's Artist" by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia; however, Palance refused the title.[30]

In 2001, Palance returned to the recording studio as a special guest on friend Laurie Z's album Heart of the Holidays to narrate the classic poem "The Night Before Christmas".

In 2002, he starred in the television movie Living with the Dead opposite Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and Diane Ladd. In 2004, he starred in another television production, Back When We Were Grownups, opposite Blythe Danner. This was his final performance.