Actors - Jack Palance

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	Actors - Jack Palance

Jack Palance (born Volodymyr Palahniuk) (born February 18, 1919) is an Academy Award winning American actor. While he is best known to modern movie audiences as both the characters of Curly and Duke in the City Slickers
movies his career has spanned half a century of film and television appearances.

Of Ukrainian descent, Palance was born in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania. During World War II, Palance, a B-24 bomber pilot, crashed and received severe burns that led to extensive facial surgery, resulting in his gaunt, pinched face.

Palance broke into the motion picture industry in 1950 and was quickly recognized for his skill as a character actor, receiving an Academy Award nomination for only his third movie role, as Lester Blaine in Sudden Fear
. The following year, he was nominated again, this time for his role as the evil gunfighter Wilson in Shane
. Several other Western roles would follow, but he would also play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula and Attila the Hun. In 1957, Palance won the Emmy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight
.

In the 1980s, Palance, along with his daughter Holly, hosted the Ripley's Believe It or Not! television series.

He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1991 for City Slickers. Stepping to the microphone to accept the award, he looked at Billy Crystal, the host of the awards program and his co-star in the movie, and said, "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 turned it into a running gag as at various points in the broadcast he announced that Palance was backstage on the Stairmaster; had bungie-jumped from the Hollywood sign; rendezvoused with the space shuttle in orbit; fathered all the children in a production number; been named "People" magazine's Sexiest Man Alive; and 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.

There is an urban legend that Palance liked Marisa Tomei so much that in 1992 he announced her as an Oscar winner for her part in My Cousin Vinny
while there actually was another name on his note. According to the legend, this mistake was considered too embarrassing to correct. This is of course a legend and is not considered to have much, if any, relation to the truth.

For his contribution to the television industry, Jack Palance has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6608 Hollywood Blvd. In 1992, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

He currently resides in Tehachapi, California in retirement.

Filmography

Panic in the Streets
(1950)
Halls of Montezuma (1950)
Sudden Fear
(1952)
Shane
(1953)
Second Chance (1953)
Arrowhead (1953)
Flight to Tangier (1953)
Man in the Attic
(1953)
Sign of the Pagan (1954)
The Silver Chalice
(1954)
Kiss of Fire (1955)
The Big Knife
(1955)
I Died a Thousand Times (1955)
Attack (1956)
The Lonely Man (1957)
House of Numbers (1957)
The Man Inside (1958)
Ten Seconds to Hell (1959)
Beyond All Limits (1959)
Been Born on Train (1960)
Austerlitz (1960)
The Barbarians (1960)
The Mongols (1961)
The Last Judgement (1961)
Sword of the Conqueror (1962)
Barabbas
(1962)
Warriors Five (1962)
Night Train to Milan (1963)
Encounter with Fritz Lang (1963) (short subject)
Contempt
(1963)
Paparazzi (1964) (short subject)
Bardot and Godard (1964) (short subject)
Once a Thief (1965)
The Professionals
(1966)
Torture Garden (1967)
Kill a Dragon (1967)
The Mercenary (1968)
They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1968)
Flash 30 (1968) (short subject)
A Bullet for Rommel (1968)
Justine (1969)
The Desperadoes (1969)
Che! (1969)
Legion of the Damned (1969)
The McMasters (1970)
Monte Walsh (1970)
Compañeros (1971)
The Horsemen (1971)
The Sting of the West (1972)
And So Ends (1972) (documentary) (narrator)
It Can Be Done, Amigo (1972)
Chato's Land (1972)
Craze (1973)
The Short and Happy Life of the Brothers Blue (1973)
Oklahoma Crude (1973)
Africa Express (1975)
The Cry of the Wolf (1975)
The Secrets of a Sensuous Nurse (1975)
The Cop in Blue Jeans (1976)
Bloody Avenger (1976)
Safari Express (1976)
The Four Deuces (1976)
God's Gun (1976)
Black Cobra (1976)
Mister Scarface (1976)
Portrait of a Hitman (1977)
Welcome to Blood City (1977)
The One Man Jury (1978)
Cocaine Cowboys (1979)
Angels' Brigade
(1979)
The Shape of Things to Come (1979)
Hawk the Slayer
(1980)
Without Warning (1980)
Alone in the Dark (1982)
Bagdad Café
(1987)
Gor (1988)
Young Guns
(1988)
Batman
(1989)
Outlaw of Gor (1989)
Tango & Cash
(1989)
Solar Crisis
(1990)
City Slickers
(1991)
Legends of the West (1992) (documentary)
Eli's Lesson (1992)
Cyborg 2 (1993)
Cops and Robbersons (1994)
City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold
(1994)
The Swan Princess
(1994) (voice)
The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo (1998)
Treasure Island
(1999)
From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff (1999) (documentary)

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