JACK PALANCE DIES AT THE AGE 87 OF NATURAL CAUSES. Walter Jack Palance (February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006), born Vladimir Palaniuk, was an Academy Award-winning American 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 2 popular City Slickers movies. Palance's career spanned half a century of film and television appearances. Palance was of Ukranian descent and the son of an anthracite coal miner. Jack worked in coal mines during his youth, and spent his spare time as a boxer. In the late 1930s he started a professional boxing career where he fought under the name Jack Brazzo. Palance reportedly had 15 consecutive victories with 12 knockouts before losing a decision to the future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi. Palance's boxing career ended with the outbreak of World War Two and his military career began. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, but as a student pilot he was disfigured when he bailed out of his burning B-24 Liberator while on a training flight over southern Arizona. Plastic surgeons repaired as much of the damage that they could, but he was left with a distinctive, somewhat gaunt, look. After much reconstructive surgery, he was discharged in 1944. In 1947 Palance graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama. During his university years, he also worked as a short order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and as a photographer's model, to make ends meet. His acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in Streetcar Named Desire. He eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski. In 1947, Palance made his Broadway debut, followed three years later by his screen debut, in the movie Panic in the Streets (1950). He was quickly recognized for his skill as a character actor, receiving an Academy Award nomination for only his third film role, as Lester Blaine in Sudden Fear. The following year, Palance was Oscar-nominated again, for his role as the evil gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane. Several other Western roles followed, but he would also play such varied roles as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and Attila the Hun. His 1957 portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight won him and Emmy Award for Best Actor. Jean-Luc Godard persuaded him to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the 1963 nouvelle vague movie Le Mιpris, with Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke only 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. Appearing 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 until the turn of the century. Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on March 30, 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, "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). 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. Palance's first wife was Virginia Baker from 1949 to 1966. They had three children; Holly (born 1950), Brooke (born 1952) and Cody (1955-1998). An actor in his own right, Cody Palance appeared alongside his father in the film Young Guns, and was 42 when he died from malignant melanoma in 1998. His father had hosted The Cody Palance Memorial Golf Classic to raise awareness and funds for a cancer center in Los Angeles. Palance was married to 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 October 1, 1996, by Summerhouse Press. True to his roots, Jack Palance acknowledged a life-long endearment for his Pennsylvania heritage and visited there when able. Palance had recently placed his Butler Township, Pennsylvania, Holly-Brooke Farm up for sale and its contents, his personal lifetime collection, up for auction. Palance died November 10, 2006 of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California in Santa Barbara County.[2] Academy Award and Nominations 1952 – Nominated – Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Sudden Fear 1953 – Nominated – Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Shane 1992 – Won – Best Actor in a Supporting Role – City Slickers For a list of his films go to his filmography.