After more than 40 years in pictures, Jack Palance finally won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for
City Slickers (1991), playing a tough, wheezy, old cowboy with rapidly hardening arteries. As he accepted his award, he felt compelled to demonstrate that his physical condition in the film had nothing to do with the actual state of his health, and he demonstrated his physical prowess by doing a set of one-arm push-ups. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured during World War 2. Plastic surgeons repaired the obvious damage but left him with a distinctive, somewhat menacing look. He became an actor after the war and had several stage roles before coming to the movies.
In his first film (billed as Walter Jack Palance), Elia Kazan's tingling
Panic in the Streets (1950), the actor made a definite impression, as a plague-carrying fugitive hunted by military physician Richard Widmark. Following
Halls of Montezuma (1950), he got to menace Joan Crawford in
Sudden Fear (1952) and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He received a second nomination for his unforgettable portrayal of a pathological gunfighter in
Shane (1953), and won an Emmy for Best Actor as the prizefighter in Requiem for a Heavyweight on CBS'
Playhouse 90 (1956). His other films during this fertile period include
The Silver Chalice (1954),
The Big Knife,
I Died a Thousand Times (both 1955),
Attack! (1956, playing a "hero" of sorts),
The Lonely Man (1957), and
The Man Inside (1958).
Inexplicably, by the early 1960s, Palance was toiling in a seemingly endless string of marginal films, including
Sword of the Conquerer,
The Mongols (both 1961), and
Warriors Five (1962). (A happy exception was 1963's
Contempt for director Jean-Luc Godard.) In 1963-64 Palance played the part of Johnny Slate in the ABC series
The Greatest Show on Earth.
The Professionals (1966) brought Palance back to the attention of American filmmakers; he landed a meaty role in
The Desperados and played Fidel Castro in
Che! (both 1969).
Palance was in demand during the last gasp of the Western through the early 1970s in pictures like
The McMasters, Monte Walsh (both 1970), and
Oklahoma Crude (1973), but he was again forced into the international arena to remain active, churning out an alarming number of foreign-language turkeys. Palance has also occasionally ventured into the realm of "art" movies with the dreadful Warhol factory tedium of
Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and the German-made
Bagdad Cafe (1988), in which he played a "dropout" artist living at a remote cafe in the American southwest.
Batman (1989) brought him back to the Big Time with a vengeance, casting him as a sleazy crime king; then
City Slickers offered him a role with humor and heart, a perfect invitation for Oscar voters to respond not only to a performance but to a career. More recently, he appeared in
Solar Crisis (1992),
Cops and Robbersons (1994, playing straight to Chevy Chase), and
City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994, as his deceased character's twin brother) and participated in a number of TV documentaries.
After a long successful career as an actor, painter , poet and all around artist - Jack passed away on November 10, 2006 at his home in Montecito, California of natural causes. He will be missed.
Movie Center
Back When We Were Grownups (2004) (TV) - Paul 'Poppy' Davitch
Living with the Dead (2002) (TV) - Allan Van Praagh
Prancer Returns (2001) (V) - Old Man Richards
Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End (1999) (TV) - John Witting
Treasure Island (1999/I) - Long John Silver
The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo (1998) - Beelzebub
Ebenezer (1997) (TV) - Ebenezer Scrooge
War Games (1996) - Narrator
The Swan Princess (1994) (voice) - Lord Rothbart
City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994) - Duke Washburn
Cops and Robbersons (1994) - Jake Stone
Cyborg 2 (1993) - Mercy
Eli's Lesson (1992) - Old Pilot
City Slickers (1991) - Curly Washburn
Solar Crisis (1990) - Travis
Tango & Cash (1989) - Yves Perret
Outlaw of Gor (1989) - Xenos
Batman (1989) - Grissom
Young Guns (1988) - Lawrence G. Murphy
...and many more.
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After more than 40 years in pictures, Jack Palance finally won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for
City Slickers (1991), playing a tough, wheezy, old cowboy with rapidly hardening arteries. As he accepted his award, he felt compelled to demonstrate that his physical condition in the film had nothing to do with the actual state of his health, and he demonstrated his physical prowess by doing a set of one-arm push-ups. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured during World War 2. Plastic surgeons repaired the obvious damage but left him with a distinctive, somewhat menacing look. He became an actor after the war and had several stage roles before coming to the movies.
In his first film (billed as Walter Jack Palance), Elia Kazan's tingling
Panic in the Streets (1950), the actor made a definite impression, as a plague-carrying fugitive hunted by military physician Richard Widmark. Following
Halls of Montezuma (1950), he got to menace Joan
[+] Show Full Biography
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