Jack Palance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jack Palance (1974)
Jack Palance (2005)

Jack Palance (real name Wolodymyr Ivanovich Palagnjuk , Ukrainian Володимир Палагнюк ; born  February 18, 1919 in Lattimer Mines , Pennsylvania , †  November 10, 2006 in Montecito , California ) was an American film actor of Ukrainian descent.

biography

Like his father, Jack Palance first worked as a miner as a young man . In the 1940s he was a heavyweight boxer; he performed under the name Jack Brazzo and won his first fifteen fights.

During World War II, Palance joined the United States Army Air Forces . During a training flight in Arizona , he had to parachute himself out of a burning B-24 bomber ; he suffered severe burns that had to be treated surgically several times. As a result, he was discharged from the army. His face remained heavily marked; the impressive physiognomy later made him world famous. After the war he began his acting career.

Palance also had repeated engagements in European films. In 1963, for example, he played an American film producer named Jeremy Prokosch in Jean-Luc Godard's The Contempt (Le mépris) , who wants to finance a sandal film directed by Fritz Lang and focuses less on art than on spectacle. Prokosch's behavior is met with severe criticism from the screenwriter portrayed by Michel Piccoli , which shows the difference between American and European cinema culture.

Known to a large number of viewers in Germany, Palance became known in 1963 through his leading role in the television series "Circus Director Johnny Slate", which was still broadcast in black and white. In it he did not appear as a villain, he solved small and big problems around the events rather as a personable, but uncompromisingly tough director.

Palance could also be seen in Spaghetti Western. Directed by Sergio Corbucci , he starred in The Fearful Two (Il mercenario) in 1968 ; his partners were Franco Nero and Tony Musante . In 1970 Palance was seen in Two Companeros (Vamos a matar, compañeros) at the side of Franco Nero and Tomás Milián in a prominent supporting role.

In 1969 he played Fidel Castro in Richard Fleischer's Che-Guevara - film biography Che! . In the 1975/76 series Bronk , which was also broadcast on German television , he played the detective Lieutenant Alex "Bronk" Bronkov, who looked after his disabled daughter in his private life.

In the German-American co-production Out of Rosenheim (1987) he was seen as a lover of Marianne Sägebrecht . In the 1980s, Palance hosted the television series "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" With his daughter Holly Palance, which was broadcast in German as Ripley's incredible world on RTL . In 1989 he played the gang boss Grissom in the film Batman , who was shot by the "Joker" ( Jack Nicholson ).

In 1991, Palance won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in City Slickers . His appearance during the award ceremony will not be forgotten. He described a brief exchange of words during the casting for the film, where the producers apparently had concerns about his old age of 72 years. Without further ado, he demonstrated that he was still in good physical condition by doing several push-ups on just one arm.

Palance died of heart failure on November 10, 2006 in the presence of his family.

Filmography (selection)

Television productions
  • 1956: Zane Gray Theater (TV series)
  • 1963: Ringmaster Johnny Slate ( The Greatest Show on Earth , TV series)
  • 1968: The story of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
  • 1973: Dracula (Dan Curtis' Dracula)
  • 1979: Buck Rogers (episode Vistula - The Deadly Menace )
  • 1995: Buffalo Girls
  • 1997: Homecoming of Love - The Christmas Miracle of St. Nicholas (I'll Be Home for Christmas)
  • 1998: Christmas in the Wild West (Ebenezer)

Discography (selection)

  • 1970: Palance

reception

  • In one of the books in Robert Rankin's “Brentford Trilogy” , the villains all look like Jack Palance (“he resembled a young Jack Palance”).

literature

  • Gregor Hauser, Peter L. Stadlbaur: Prairie bandits: The gripping world of B-Westerns . Verlag Reinhard Marheinecke 2018, ISBN 978-3-932053-98-6 . Pp. 196-198.

Web links

Commons : Jack Palance  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Palance, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Palagnjuk, Volodymyr (civil); Palanyuk, Volodymyr; Palaniuk, Vladimir; Палагнюк, Володимир (Ukrainian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Lattimer Mines , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 2006
Place of death Montecito , California