There was sad news this weekend as legendary thesp Jack Palance swaggered off into the sunset.
He launched his career in 1950, and became famous for playing thugs and villains, particularly in Westerns, war and crime drama. 1952’s Sudden Fear, which saw him stalking a terrified Joan Crawford, earned him his first Oscar nomination, and he nabbed a second nom the following year as bullying gunslinger Jack Wilson in Shane.
A variety of film and TV roles followed, before Palance became tired of Hollywood typecasting and went to Europe. But he returned six years later, complaining that European directors were offering him similar roles.
41 years after he first launched himself onto the screen, he finally broke free of the bad guy niche by playing, well a villain – but for laughs in City Slickers. And that role not only boosted his career, but launched one of the Oscar ceremony’s greatest running jokes – Palance’s demonstration of his ability to do one handed push-ups (you try it when you reach your eighties).
"I am deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of my dear friend Jack Palance, a true movie icon," Billy Crystal said in a statement on Friday. "Winning the Oscar for that movie and the one-arm push-ups he did on the show will link us together forever, and for that I am grateful."
Palance, who will be sorely missed, was 87.