Walter Jack Palance[1] (/ˈpæləns/PAL-əns; born Volodymyr Ivanovich Palahniuk;[a] February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an American screen and stage actor, known to film audiences for playing tough guys and villains. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, all for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, for his roles in Sudden Fear (1952) and Shane (1953), and winning almost 40 years later for City Slickers (1991).
Subsequently, Palance played a variety of both supporting and leading film roles, often appearing in crime dramas and Westerns. Beginning in the late 1950s, he would work extensively in Europe, notably in a memorable turn as a charismatic-but-corrupting Hollywood mogul in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt. He played the title character in the 1973 television film Bram Stoker's Dracula, which influenced future depictions of the character. During the 1980s, he became familiar to a new generation of audiences by hosting the television series Ripley's Believe It or Not! (1982–86). His newfound popularity spurred a late-career revival, and he played high-profile villain roles in the blockbusters Young Guns (1988) and Tango & Cash (1989), and culminating in his Oscar and Golden Globe-winning turn as Curly in City Slickers.
Off-screen, he was involved in efforts in support of the Ukrainian American community and served as a chairman of the Hollywood Trident Foundation. He continued to act in films until his death from
natural causes in 2006, at the age of 87.
Boxing under the name Jack Brazzo, Palahniuk lost his only recorded match, in a four-round decision on points, to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi in a Pier-6 brawl rough fight.[8][9][10] Other sources record cite him winning 15 consecutive club fights, with 12 knockouts.[1][7][11] Years later he recounted: "Then I thought, 'You must be nuts to get your head beat in for $200.' The theater seemed a lot more appealing."[12]
According to some sources he was awarded a Purple Heart,[7] though he does not appear on official rolls for the decoration. Purple Hearts are not awarded for training injuries.
After the war, Palance enrolled at Stanford to study journalism, but switched to drama.[7] He left one credit shy of graduating in order to pursue a career in the theatre.[15] During his university years, he worked as a short order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and a photographer's model.[citation needed]
It was around this time that he changed his name to Walter Jack Palance, reasoning that most people couldn't pronounce his birth name. His last name was actually a derivative of his original name. In an episode of What's My Line?, he described how no one could pronounce his last name, and how it was suggested that he be called Palanski. From that he decided just to use Palance instead.[16]
Palance appeared in two plays in 1948 with short runs, A Temporary Island and The Vigil. He made his television debut in 1949.[20]
Film career
Palance made his big-screen debut in 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".
That year he was featured in Halls of Montezuma (1951), about United States Marines during World War II. He returned to Broadway for Darkness at Noon (1951) by Sidney Kingsley, which was a minor hit.
Two Oscar nominations
Palance was second-billed in just his third film, opposite Joan Crawford in the thriller Sudden Fear (1952). His character is a former coal miner, as Palance's father had been.[21] Palance received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[22]
He was nominated in the same category the following year for his role as hired gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane (1953).[23][24] The film was a huge hit, and Palance was now an established film name.[citation needed]
Warwick Films hired Palance 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 returned to the U.S. to star in the TV series The Greatest Show on Earth (1963–64).[29] 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.[30]
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.[31]
In Great Britain he appeared in a highly acclaimed TV film, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973), in the title role; it 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."[32]
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."[33] He went back to Canada for H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come (1979).[34]
Return to the U.S. and Ripley's Believe It or Not!
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).[citation needed]
Palance had never been out of work since his career began, but his success on Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the international popularity of Bagdad Cafe (1987) created a new demand for his services in big-budget Hollywood films.
Palance was then cast as cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers, directed by Ron Underwood. 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.[33]
Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on March 30, 1992, for his performance as Curly.[36] 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.[citation needed]
The audience loved the moment and 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, had fathered all the children in a production number, had been named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive", and had 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."[citation needed]
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."[37]
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.[38]
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."[39] Palance was awarded the title of "People's Artist" by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia; however, Palance refused it.[39]
Palance lived for several years around Tehachapi, California. He was married to his first wife, Virginia (née Baker), from 1949 to 1968. They had three children, one of whom is retired actress Holly Palance. On New Year's Day, 2003, Virginia was struck and killed by a car in Los Angeles. In May 1987, Palance married his second wife, Elaine Rogers. His death certificate listed his marital status as "Divorced".
Palance painted and sold landscape art, with a poem included on the back of each picture. He was also the author of The Forest of Love, a book of poems published in 1996 by Summerhouse Press.[40] He was a supporter of the Republican Party.[41]
Palance enjoyed raising cattle on his ranch in the Tehachapi Mountains.[42] He gave up eating red meat after working on his ranch, commenting that he couldn't eat a cow.[43]
Palance acknowledged a lifelong attachment to his Pennsylvania heritage and visited there when able. Shortly before his death, he sold his farm in Butler Township and put his art collection up for auction.[44]
Death
Palance died at the age of 87 from natural causes at his daughter Holly's house in Montecito, California on 10 November 2006.[45]
The song "And now we dance" by punk band The Vandals features the lyrics, "Come on and do one hand pushups just like Jack Palance."
American comedian Bill Hicks incorporated a reference to Palance in one of his most famous routines, likening Palance's character in Shane to how he views the United States' role in international warfare.[47]
Novelist Donald E. Westlake stated that he sometimes imagined Palance as the model for the career-criminal character Parker he wrote in a series of novels under the name Richard Stark.[48]
In 2023, Palance was inducted into the Luzerne County Arts & Entertainment Hall of Fame. He was included among the inaugural class of inductees.[49]
^Hopper, Hedda, "Menace Jack Palance Cast as Apache Chief", Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1952, B6.
^Scheuer, Philip K., "Jack Palance as Attila Dominant 'Pagan' Figure", Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1954, p. 10.
^"Jack Palance Has Operation", The New York Times, October 19, 1955: 39.
^Coppola, Jo (March 22, 1957). "Palance Scores Again". Newsday. p. 3C. ProQuest879938015. When Jack Palance accepted the Emmy Award Saturday for his role as Mountain, the washed-up fighter in 'Requiem for a Heavyweight' done on 'Playhouse 90' in October, his diction was as precise as a diamond cutter's hand when handling a 100-carat gem.
^Page, Don, "Jack Palance: In the center ring", Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1963, p. C3.
^"Jack Palance Presence Sparks Tuscaloosa Riot", Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1964, p. 7
^"Jack Palance Injured in Stunt Mishap", Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1967, B5.
^Field, Tom (2005). Secrets in the Shadows: The Art & Life of Gene Colan. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 99.
^ abWuntch, Philip, "Jack Palance's Image Follows Him Offscreen", Sun Sentinel, July 3, 1991: 3E.
^Shales, Tom, "Jack Palance: The Tough Guy Behind the Tough-Guy Exterior: Jack Palance", The Washington Post, August 22, 1980, C1.
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