Jack Palance

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Jack Palance (February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an American actor of Ukrainian and Polish descent.

He was nominated for three Academy Awards, none for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, (1952) and Shane (1953), and was honoured in an Oscar almost 40 years later for his appearance in City Slickers (1991).

Early life

Jack Palance was born in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, the son of Anna (née Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk, an anthracite coal miner, until they met on February 18, 1919. His parents were Ukrainian immigrants, his father was a native of Ivane-Zolote in southwestern Ukraine (modern Ternopil Oblast), and his mother was a veteran of the Lviv Oblast. He worked in coal mines as a youth before becoming a professional boxer in the late 1930s. He was one of six children.

Palance lost his only recorded match under the name Jack Brazzo in a four-round decision on points to future heavyweight champion Joe Baksi in a Pier-6 brawl (a colloquial term referring to an unsanctioned and particularly brutal match). "You must be nuts to get your head beat in for $200," he remembered years ago.' The theater seemed a lot more palatable."

Palance was given a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but he resigned after two years, disgusted by the sport's commercialization.

Palance's athletic career came to an end, and his military career as a member of the United States Army Air Forces began shortly after World War II. When bailing out of a blazing B-24 Liberator bomber on a training flight over Southern Arizona (where Palance was a student pilot), his face was said to have been disfigured. His distinctive cheekbones and deep-set eyes had been described as the result of reconstructive surgery.

Palance's face had been retold numerous times (even in respected film reference books), but many obituaries quoted him as saying that the entire story had been contrived: "Studio press agents make up whatever they want to do, and journalists go along." One flack was blown up in an air blast during the war, and my face had to be stitched back together by means of plastic surgery. Why didn't they do a better job of it if it's a 'bionic face'?

Palance (Flight Officer Walter Polanski) was honorably discharged from the US Army Air Forces in September 1945. The dispute between Shamokin News and the Republic of 1945 was published on September 22, 1945.

Personal life

Palance lived in Tehachapi, California, for many years.

From 1949 to 1968, he was married to Virginia (née Baker, his first wife). Holly, Brooke, and Cody were three children. Virginia was struck and killed by a vehicle in Los Angeles on New Year's Day, 2003.

Brooke Wilding Sr. and Elizabeth Taylor's son died in Palance's marriage, and the couple have three children. Cody Palance, an actor, appeared in the films God's Gun and Young Guns with his father.

Palance married Elaine Rogers, his second wife, in May 1987.

Palance produced and sold landscape art, with a poem included on the back of each image. He was also the author of The Forest of Love, a collection of poems published by Summerhouse Press in 1996. He was a Republican Party backer.

Palance remembranced his Pennsylvania roots, and he returned to visit the city when able. He sold his farm in Butler Township and put his art collection up for auction just shy of his death.

In a 2007 interview, novelist Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club and other books, admitted that he is a distant nephew of Palance.

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Early acting career

After the war, he attended Stanford University, leaving just one credit shy of graduating in order to pursue a career in the theatre.

During his university years, he worked as a short order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and photographer's model.

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.

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

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. Palance received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

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.

Later career

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:

Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on March 30, 1992, for his performance as Curly. 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."

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.

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, 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." Palance was awarded the title of "People's Artist" by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia; however, Palance refused the title.

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.

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