Hollywood said goodbye to rugged character actor Volodymyr Palaniuk last Friday when he died at age 87. The son of a coal miner from Pennsylvania was better known as Jack Palance. Palance’s craggy visage was earned by an early boxing career and plastic surgery after a training accident as a pilot during World War II. He had a face made for menacing film roles and that’s just what he did following graduation from Stanford University in 1947. His first break was as stand-in to Marlon Brando for A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, where he took over the role. He made his film debut in 1950’s Panic in the Streets and earned back-to-back Oscar nominations for bad guy roles in Sudden Fear and the classic western Shane. Forty years later he won the golden statuette for his comedy performance in City Slickers (1991) as Curly. His one-arm push-ups after he accepted the award earned him the biggest notoriety of his long career. It remains one of the most memorable Oscar moments of all time. My personal Jack Palance film festival would include his finest performance, an Emmy-award winning turn as a washed-up fighter in Rod Serling’s TV drama Requiem for a Heavyweight. Also on the “best of” list would be Shane, Panic in the Streets, The Big Knife, City Slickers and Bagdad Café.

Palance with his 1957 Emmy (above); doing push-ups at the Oscars (right).