Stars & Players · Biography
Jack Palance
1919–2006 · Actor
Biography
Jack Palance (born Volodymyr Palahniuk; February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an American actor. Known for playing tough guys and villains, he was nominated for three Academy Awards, all for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, receiving nominations for his roles in Sudden Fear (1952) and Shane (1953) and winning almost 40 years later for his role in City Slickers (1991).
Born in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, Palance served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He went on to briefly attend Stanford University before pursuing a career in the theatre. He made his film acting debut in Panic in the Streets (1950). Following his roles in Sudden Fear and Shane, Palance starred as Count Dracula in the 1974 television film Bram Stoker's Dracula, and played crime lord Yves Perret in Tango & Cash (1989). He also served as the host of the ABC television series Ripley's Believe It or Not! (1982–1986). In 2006, Palance died of natural causes at the home of his daughter Holly in Montecito, California.
Notable Noir Roles
A medical examiner discovers that an innocent shooting victim in a robbery died of bubonic plague. With only 48 hours to find the killer, who is now a ticking time bomb threatening the entire city, a …
Actor Lester Blaine has all but landed the lead in Myra Hudson's new play when Myra vetoes him because, to her, he doesn't look like a romantic leading man. On a train from New York to San Francisco, …
London, 1888: on the night of the third Jack the Ripper killing, soft-spoken Mr. Slade, a research pathologist, takes lodgings with the Harleys, including a gloomy attic room for "experiments." Mrs. H…
A prize-fighting boxer with a lethal right punch falls for a gangster's moll on the run in Mexico.
