JACK PALANCEFew actors of his generation played the sinister villain as consummately as Jack Palance who died on 10 November, 2006, aged 87.Disfigured in a flying accident during the Second World War Palance’s features were distinctively gaunt and this led to him being habitually cast as the bad guy during an acting career that spanned over half a century.Mr Palance was a skilled character actor who was nominated for two Oscars early in his career though he was to hit something of a slump in terms of stand-out roles during his middle years.But he returned at the age of 73 to turn in an Oscar-winning performance as cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers.Jack Palance was born Volodymyr Palahnyuk on 18 February, 1919, in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, one of five children to parents who were Ukrainian immigrants. His father was a coal miner.Mr Palance followed his father into the mines before starting a professional boxing career. He reportedly won 15 consecutive bouts, 12 with knockouts before deciding that pugilism was not the career for him.He was awarded a Purple Heart during the Second World War but his face was badly burned as he bailed out of a plane in Arizona where he was training to be a pilot. After much reconstructive surgery he was discharged in 1944.After leaving Stanford University with a degree in drama in 1947, Mr Palance caught his first acting break understudying Marlon Brando in the stage version of A Streetcar Named Desire.He made his screen debut in Panic in the Streets in 1950 and in the same year he featured in Halls of Montezuma about the US Marines in World War II where he was credited as “Walter (Jack) Palance.”In 1952 Mr Palance was nominated for an Oscar for only his third role for his portrayal of Lester Blaine, a crazed stalker in Sudden Fear. He followed this up the following year with another Oscar-nominated performance as gunslinger, Jack Wilson in Shane. Mr Palance continued to work steadily during the 1970s and 80s to little critical acclaim and it was not until he appeared in Young Guns in 1988 and Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989 that his career took a turn for the better.At the age of 73, Palance finally won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his memorable performance as cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. He famously did one-armed press-ups on stage after accepting the trophy.Mr Palance married his first wife Virginia in 1949 and together they had three children – Holly, Brooke and Cody. The marriage ended in 1966 and Palance was remarried to Elaine Rogers in 1987.As well as his Oscar, Mr Palance won an Emmy Award in 1957 for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6088 Hollywood Boulevard.Although he was also an accomplished painter and poet, it is as one of cinema’s most memorable bad guys that Mr Palance will be best remembered.After his death journalist Mike Clark wrote in USA Today: “Palance was the kind of actor who could make mediocre movies entertaining.”
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