With his menacing gaze, athletic frame and sinister smile, this former boxer was the go-to bad guy in 1950s Hollywood. The son of a Ukrainian immigrant coal miner, Palance initially followed in his father's footsteps before hitting the pro boxing circuit, but his career was cut short by World War II. For decades, a popular legend claimed that he was severely burned in a military plane crash and that corrective plastic surgery was responsible for his distinctive, gaunt face, but Palance later said that the story was cooked up by studio publicists. Whatever the truth, after his stint in the military, Palance began taking an interest in acting. In the late 1940s, he landed a number of Broadway gigs, notably as Marlon Brando's understudy in
A Streetcar Named Desire, a role Palance eventually took over. The play's director, Elia Kazan, then cast Palance in his first feature, the 1950 film noir
Panic in the Streets, in which he played a killer infected with pneumonic plague. Palance's subsequent roles were almost all of the villain variety. He earned his first Oscar nod as a husband with murder on his mind in
Sudden Fear and his second for his chill-inducing turn as a gunslinger in
Shane. Taking a journeyman approach to his craft, the character actor accepted pretty much any movie offered him, from now-forgotten actioners like
The Barbarians to Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave classic
Contempt, as well as TV roles like his Emmy-winning turn in
Requiem for a Heavyweight. By the late 1960s, Palance found more work overseas, where he was still typecast as a heavy. After a four-year stint hosting
Ripley's Believe It or Not, the sexagenarian actor took an eccentric romantic role as a charmingly offbeat painter in the 1988 indie
Bagdad Café, proving he could do more than just sneer. Four years later, he scored a career high by poking fun at his own stereotype in the 1991 comedy
City Slickers. As a seemingly villainous but really lovable old cowboy coot named Curly, Palance finally won an Academy Award and gave a memorable acceptance speech, which included a set of one-handed push-ups as proof of his virility. Oscar host and
City Slickers costar Billy Crystal lovingly made fun of Palance's stunt throughout the evening. Although Palance continued to appear on the big and small screens, his career had slowed dramatically by the late 1990s. In his twilight years, he pursued other longtime interests such as painting and writing, and his softer, more private side was on display in the 1996 long-form poem
The Forest of Love: A Love Story in Blank Verse. Palance had been absent from the spotlight for a couple of years when he died in November 2006 of natural causes. Following his death, Palance's family established a memorial trustee scholarship in his name at Penn State Hazleton, located near his beloved hometown.
Jack Palance Fast Facts:
- Parents were Ukrainian immigrants, and father was a Pennsylvania coal miner.
- Attended the University of North Carolina on a football scholarship.
- Boxed professionally under the name Jack Brazzo.
- Served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
- While understudying Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, Palance once went on after accidentally punching Brando as they sparred; he later filled the role full-time.
- Daughter Brooke married Elizabeth Taylor's son, Michael Wilding Jr.
- Daughter Holly was one of his co-hosts on Ripley's Believe It or Not.
- Costarred with his son Cody in the 1988 Western Young Guns.
- Wrote The Forest of Love: A Love Story in Blank Verse in 1996.
- Spontaneously dropped down to do one-handed push-ups during his Oscar acceptance speech for 1991 comedy City Slickers.
- Lived primarily in Los Angeles, but maintained a residence called the Holly-Brooke Farm in his native Pennsylvania.
- After his death, Palance's family established the Jack Palance Memorial Trustee Scholarship at Penn State Hazleton, near his hometown.
- Jack Palance Relationships:
- Holly Palance - Daughter
- Cody Palance - Son
- Anna Palahniuk - Mother
- John Palance - Brother
- Vladimir Palahniuk - Father
- Anna Despiva - Sister
- Brooke Palance Wilding - Daughter
- Virginia Baker - Ex-wife
- Elaine Rogers Palance - Wife
- Jack Palance Awards:
- 1992 Golden Globe: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Winner
- 1957 Emmy: Best Single Performance by an Actor - Winner
- 1952 Oscar: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Nominee
- 1953 Oscar: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Nominee
- 1991 Oscar: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Winner
- College:
- Attended University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; Stanford University, Stanford, CA (BA in Drama, 1947)