Jack Palance (February 18, 1919 -
November 10, 2006) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor. With his rugged facial features and gravelly
voice, Palance was best known to modern movie audiences as both the characters of Curly and Duke in the two City Slickers movies, but his career spanned half a century of film and television appearances.
Biography
Early life
Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr Palahnyuk (Ukrainian:
Володимир Палагнюк) in the Lattimer Mines section of Hazle Township,
Pennsylvania, the son of Anna Gramiak and John Palahnyuk, an anthracite coal
miner.[1] Palance's parents were Ukrainian immigrants,[2][3] his father a native of Ivane Zolote in Southwestern Ukraine and
his mother from the Lviv region.[4] He worked in coal mines during his youth before becoming a boxer.
In the late 1930s, Palance started a professional boxing career. Fighting under the name
Jack Brazzo, Palance reportedly compiled a record of 15 consecutive victories with 12 knockouts before fighting the future heavyweight contender
Joe Baksi in a "Pier-6" brawl. Palance lost a close decision,[5][6] and
recounted: "Then, I thought, You must be nuts to get your head beat in for $200".[7]
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Palance's boxing career ended and his
military career began. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured when he bailed out of
his burning B-24 Liberator while on a training flight over southern Arizona, where he was a student pilot. Plastic surgeons repaired the
damage as best they could, but he was left with a distinctive, somewhat gaunt, look. After much reconstructive surgery, he was
discharged in 1944.
Palance graduated from Stanford University in 1947 with an Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama. During his university years, to make
ends meet he also worked as a short order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at
Jones Beach State Park, and photographer's model.
Career
Palance's acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in A Streetcar Named Desire, and
he eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski.
In 1947, Palance made his Broadway debut, and this was followed three years later by
his screen debut in the movie Panic in the Streets (1950). The very
same year, he was featured in Halls of Montezuma about the U.S. Marines
in World War II, where he was credited as "Walter (Jack) Palance". Palance was quickly recognized for his skill as a character
actor, receiving an Oscar nomination for only his third film role, as Lester Blaine in
Sudden Fear.
Palance earned his second Oscar nomination playing cold-blooded gunfighter Jack Wilson in 1953's cinema classic
Shane
The following year, Palance was again nominated for an Oscar, this time for his role as the evil gunfighter Jack Wilson in
Shane. Roger Waters' music album
The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking features sound bites from
that movie. Jack Palance makes a cameo in the song "5.01 A.M. (The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking)", not as Jack Wilson, but as a
biker ("An angel on a Harley...") who says "How you doing, bro? Where you been? Where you going?"
Several other Western roles followed, but he also played such varied roles as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula and
Attila the Hun.
In 1957, Palance won an Emmy Award for Best
Actor for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of
Rod Serling's Requiem for a
Heavyweight.
Jean-Luc Godard persuaded Palance to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy
Prokosch in the 1963 nouvelle vague movie Le
Mépris, with Brigitte Bardot and Michel
Piccoli. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke mostly English.
While still busy making movies, in the 1980s Palance also co-hosted (with his daughter
Holly Palance) the television series Ripley's Believe It or Not!.
Appearances in Young Guns (1988) and Tim
Burton's Batman (1989) reinvigorated Palance's career, and demand for
his services kept him involved in new projects each year right up to the turn of the century.
In 2001, Palance returned to the recording studio as a special guest on friend Laurie Z's
Heart of the Holidays album to narrate the famous 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, his performance as Poppy being Palance's
last.
Academy Award
Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for
Best Supporting Actor in 1992 for his performance as cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. Stepping onstage to accept the
award, the intimidatingly fit 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 age 73, to perform one-handed
push-ups. Crystal then turned this into a running gag. At various points in the broadcast, he
announced that Palance was backstage on the Stairmaster; had "just 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 told everyone he'd like to see them again "but I've just been informed Jack
Palance will be hosting next year." (The following year, host Crystal arrived on stage atop a giant model of the Oscar statuette,
towed by Palance with his teeth.)
Hollywood Walk of Fame
Palance has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6608 Hollywood Boulevard.
In 1992, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at
the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Personal life
Palance's first wife was Virginia Baker from 1949 to 1966. They had three children: Holly (born in 1950), an actress, Brooke
(born in 1952) and Cody (1955–1998). An actor himself, Cody Palance appeared alongside his father in the film Young Guns, and was 42 when he died from a malignant melanoma in 1998.
Jack Palance had hosted The Cody Palance Memorial Golf Classic to raise awareness and funds for a cancer center in
Los Angeles. He married Elaine Rogers in May 1987.
Palance painted and sold landscape art, with a poem included on the back of each picture. He is also the author of The
Forest Of Love, a book of poems, published in 1996 by Summerhouse Press.
True to his roots, Palance acknowledged a life-long attachment to his Pennsylvania heritage and visited there when able. He
had recently placed his Butler Township, Pennsylvania,
Holly-Brooke farm and its contents up for sale: his personal lifetime collection up for auction.[8]
Death
Palance died at the age of 87, of natural causes, at his home in Montecito in
Santa Barbara County.[9] He was cremated and his ashes were retained by family and friends.[10]
Jack Palance collection auction
The Jack Palance Collection 2006 seal
Following other recent celebrity auctions, Palance's personal lifetime collection of over 3,000 items at his Holly-Brooke Farm
(named for his two daughters) in Butler Township,
Pennsylvania went on the auction block in October 2006. Auction planners purposely included some smaller keepsakes for
people who wanted something belonging to the 87-year-old actor. "People can spend $5 or $50,000 at this auction", said Phil
Eagle, an antique appraiser who traveled from California to painstakingly
verify the items' authenticity and sort them into manageable lots to be sold.
[8]
"Each item will bear a special sticker featuring a picture of the actor and the words 'Jack Palance Collection' to add to the
value and future collectibility", Eagle said. [8]
Academy award and nominations
Filmography
References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
- ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/63/Jack-Palance.html
- ^ http://www.ukemonde.com/palance/last_role.html
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6138310.stm
- ^ http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2006/470609.shtml
- ^ Boxing Records Official records only show Palance in one sanctioned fight. His other fights
may have been club fights.
- ^ M.
A. SCHMIDT, "PALANCE FROM PANIC TO PAGAN", The New York Times, March 14, 1954, Drama Section X5 In an early interview, Palance claimed to
have fought Baksi to a draw
- ^ Lawrence Christon, "Home on the Range It's been a long, dusty journey since Panic in the
Streets and Shane", The Los Angeles Times, April 30,
1995, Calendar Section In a later interview, Palance admits to have lost to Baksi
- ^ a b c
Learn-Andes, Jennifer. Jump on Jack’s stash. TimesLeader.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-08.
- ^ Oscar winner Jack
Palance dead at 87, CNN.com. Retrieved on November 10,
2006.
- ^ FindAGrave.com
External links
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Palance, Jack |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
Walter Jack Palance, Vladimir Palaniuk, Володимир Паланюк (Ukrainian), Volodymyr
Palanyuk |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Actor, boxer |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
February 18 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, |
