Walter Jack Palance[1] (/ˈpæləns/ PAL-əns; born Volodymyr Ivanovych Palahniuk;[a] February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an American screen and stage actor, known to film audiences for playing tough guys and villains.

Born in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, Palance served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.

Subsequently, Palance played a variety of both supporting and leading film roles, often appearing in crime dramas and Westerns.

Beginning in the late 1950s, he would work extensively in Europe, notably in a memorable turn as a charismatic-but-corrupting Hollywood mogul in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt.

His newfound popularity spurred a late-career revival, and he played high-profile villain roles in the blockbusters Young Guns (1988) and Tango & Cash (1989), and culminating in his Oscar and Golden Globe-winning turn as Curly in City Slickers.

[7] Boxing under the name Jack Brazzo, Palahniuk lost his only recorded match, in a four-round decision on points, to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi in a Pier-6 brawl rough fight.

"[12] Palance enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and was trained as the pilot of a B-24 Liberator bomber.

[1] He suffered head injuries and burns during a 1943 crash, with various sources citing it as a patrol off the coast of California,[11] or a training flight near Tucson, Arizona (at what is now Davis–Monthan Air Force Base).

Palance won a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but left after two years, disgusted by commercialization of the sport.

[15] During his university years, he worked as a short order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and a photographer's model.

He was Attila the Hun in Sign of the Pagan with Jeff Chandler, and Simon Magus in the Ancient World epic The Silver Chalice (both 1954) with Paul Newman.

In 1957, Palance won an Emmy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight.

He was reunited with Robert Aldrich and Jeff Chandler when they worked on Ten Seconds to Hell (1959), filmed in Germany, playing a bomb disposal expert.

He made Beyond All Limits (1959) in Mexico, and Austerlitz (1960) in France, then did a series of films in Italy: Revak the Rebel, Sword of the Conqueror, The Mongols, The Last Judgment, and Barabbas (all 1961), and Night Train to Milan and Warriors Five (both 1962).

Jean-Luc Godard persuaded Palance to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the nouvelle vague movie Le Mépris (1963) with Brigitte Bardot.

[29] In 1964, his presence at a recently integrated movie theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, prompted a riot from segregationists who assumed Palance was there to promote civil rights.

In the following year he appeared in the television film Alice Through the Looking Glass, directed by Alan Handley, in which he played the Jabberwock, and had a featured role opposite Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster in the Western adventure The Professionals.

His films were often international co-productions by this time: They Came to Rob Las Vegas, The Mercenary (both 1968), The Desperados, and Marquis de Sade: Justine (both 1969).

Palance had another role in Monte Walsh (1970), from the author of Shane, opposite Lee Marvin, but the film was a box-office disappointment.

He supported Bud Spencer in It Can Be Done Amigo and Charles Bronson in Chato's Land (both 1972), and had the lead in Sting of the West (1972) and Brothers Blue (1973).

[citation needed] In Great Britain he appeared in a highly acclaimed TV film, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973), in the title role; it was directed by Dan Curtis.

He supported Ursula Andress in Africa Express and L'Infermiera, Lee Van Cleef in God's Gun, and Thomas Milian in The Cop in Blue Jeans (all 1976).

[34] In 1980, Jack Palance narrated the documentary The Strongest Man in the World by Canadian filmmaker Halya Kuchmij, about Mike Swistun, a circus strongman who had been a student of Houdini.

He made memorable appearances as villains in Young Guns (1988) as Lawrence Murphy, Tango & Cash (1989) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989).

He also performed on Roger Waters' first solo album release, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), and was in Outlaw of Gor (1988) and Solar Crisis (1990).

At various points in the broadcast, Crystal announced that Palance was "backstage on the StairMaster", had 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.

[38] He appeared in Cyborg 2 (1993); Cops & Robbersons (1994) with Chevy Chase; City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994); and on TV in Buffalo Girls (1995).

[39] In 2001, Palance returned to the recording studio as a special guest on friend Laurie Z's album Heart of the Holidays to narrate the classic poem "The Night Before Christmas".

In 2004, he starred in another television production, Back When We Were Grownups, once again directed by Ron Underwood, opposite Blythe Danner; it was his final performance.

[47] Novelist Donald E. Westlake stated that he sometimes imagined Palance as the model for the career-criminal character Parker he wrote in a series of novels under the name Richard Stark.