Walter Jack Palance 1919 – 2006

His Career

His acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in Streetcar Named Desire. He eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski.

In 1947, Palance made his Broadway debut, followed three years later by his screen debut, in the movie Panic in the Streets (1950). He was quickly recognized for his skill as a character actor, receiving an Academy Award nomination for only his third film role, as Lester Blaine in Sudden Fear.

Jack Palance earned his second Oscar nomination playing cold-blooded gunfighter Jack Wilson in 1953s cinema classic Shane.

The following year, Palance was Oscar-nominated again, for his role as the evil gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane. Several other Western roles followed, but he would also play such varied roles as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and Attila the Hun.
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.

Jean-Luc Godard persuaded him to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the 1963 nouvelle vague movie Le Mépris, with Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke only English.

While still busy making movies, in the 1980s, Palance also co-hosted (with his daughter Holly Palance), the television series Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Appearing in Young Guns (1988) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989) reinvigorated Palance's career and demand for his services kept him involved in new projects each year right up until the turn of the century.

Courtesy of Wiki