Screen Legend Jack Palance Dies

But now Jack Palance’s roles will be left to history. The veteran actor died Friday. He was either 85 or 87, depending on which source you believe.

One thing you can’t doubt is the impression the actor made on motion picture history during his legendary 40-year career.

Modern audiences know him best from his role as the acid tongued Curly Washburn in the hit comedy “City Slickers” and its sequels.

But he was around long before that.

He was born Vladimir Palaniuk in Pennsylvania, but started out as a professional boxer in the 1940s, fighting under the name Jack Brazzo. It was that profession that gave him that peculiar face that looked like it had been in too many fights.

His pugilistic endeavours ended when WWII began and he took up a different kind of fight against the Nazis, winning both the Purple Heart and a Good Conduct Medal.

When the conflict ended, his acting career began.

And legend has it that it started as only Palance could.

He was an understudy to the legendary Marlon Brando in the Broadway production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”. When the star invited Palance to work out in his dressing room, the fledging actor accidentally missed the punching bag and knocked Brando out cold.

When the star attraction had to be attended to in hospital, Palance took his place on stage to great acclaim, thus creating and taking advantage of his own showbiz break.

Hollywood followed soon after and Palance appeared in a number of legendary films. His most famous may be “Shane”, the Western about a loner cowboy.

Other famous appearances came in “Batman”, “Tango & Cash” and “The Halls of Montezuma”, as well as TV shows ranging from The Twilight Zone to the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his “Slickers” role in 1992 and left a glittering showbiz audience in hysterics by performing some one armed push-ups on stage.

“That’s nothing, really,” he quipped. “As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn’t make a difference.”

He was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1952 for “Shane” and again in 1953 for “Sudden Fear”, but he lost both times.

His last film was “Back When We Were Grown-ups” in 2004.

Palance was something of an oddity. Reports indicate he never watched a single one of his film performances. But audiences did and loved him in all of them.

“Most of the stuff I do is garbage,” he once told a reporter, adding that most of the directors he worked with were incompetent.

Jack Palance died of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California. He leaves behind a wife, three children and a host of great memories.