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JACK PALANCE He appeared as Carl Grissom in Batman. |
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REAL NAME: |
Vladimir Palanuik |
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H EIGHT: |
1,90 (6'3'') |
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B ORN: |
Feb. 18, 1919 |
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B IRTHPLACE: |
Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, USA. |
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F AMILY: |
Spouse: Virginia Baker (1949 - 1966) (divorced); 3 children. |
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After more than 40 years in pictures, Jack Palance finally won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for City Slickers (1991), playing a tough, wheezy, old cowboy with rapidly hardening arteries. As he accepted his award, he felt compelled to demonstrate that his physical condition in the film had nothing to do with the actual state of his health, and he demonstrated his physical prowess by doing a set of one-arm push-ups. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured during World War 2. Plastic surgeons repaired the obvious damage but left him with a distinctive, somewhat menacing look. He became an actor after the war and had several stage roles before coming to the movies. In his first film (billed as Walter Jack Palance), Elia Kazan's tingling Panic in the Streets (1950), the actor made a definite impression, as a plague-carrying fugitive hunted by military physician Richard Widmark. Following Halls of Montezuma (1950), he got to menace Joan Crawford in Sudden Fear (1952) and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He received a second nomination for his unforgettable portrayal of a pathological gunfighter in Shane (1953), and won an Emmy for Best Actor as the prizefighter in "Requiem for a Heavyweight" on CBS' "Playhouse 90" (1956). His other films during this fertile period include The Silver Chalice (1954), The Big Knife, I Died a Thousand Times (both 1955), Attack! (1956, playing a "hero" of sorts), The Lonely Man (1957), and The Man Inside (1958). Inexplicably, by the early 1960s, Palance was toiling in a seemingly endless string of marginal films, including Sword of the Conquerer, The Mongols (both 1961), and Warriors Five (1962). (A happy exception was 1963's Contempt for director Jean-Luc Godard.) In 1963-64 Palance played the part of Johnny Slate in the ABC series "The Greatest Show on Earth." The Professionals (1966) brought Palance back to the attention of American filmmakers; he landed a meaty role in The Desperados and played Fidel Castro in Che! (both 1969). Palance was in demand during the last gasp of the Western through the early 1970s in pictures like The McMasters, Monte Walsh (both 1970), and Oklahoma Crude (1973), but he was again forced into the international arena to remain active, churning out an alarming number of foreign-language turkeys. Palance has also occasionally ventured into the realm of "art" movies with the dreadful Warhol factory tedium of Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and the German-made Bagdad Cafe (1988), in which he played a "dropout" artist living at a remote cafe in the American southwest. Batman (1989) brought him back to the Big Time with a vengeance, casting him as a sleazy crime king; then City Slickers offered him a role with humor and heart, a perfect invitation for Oscar voters to respond not only to a performance but to a career. More recently, he appeared in Solar Crisis (1992), Cops and Robbersons (1994, playing straight to Chevy Chase), and City Slickers2: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994, as his deceased character's twin brother) and participated in a number of TV documentaries. |
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FILMOGRAPHY: |
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2001 |
Prancer Returns |
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1999 |
Treasure Island |
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1998 |
The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo |
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1996 |
War Games |
Narrator |
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1994 |
The Swan Princess |
voice |
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1994 |
City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold |
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1994 |
Cops and Robbersons |
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1993 |
Cyborg 2 |
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1992 |
Legends of the West |
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1991 |
City Slickers |
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1990 |
Solar Crisis |
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1989 |
Outlaw of Gor |
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1989 |
Tango and Cash |
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1989 |
Carl Grissom |
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1988 |
Gor |
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1988 |
Young Guns |
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1988 |
Out of Rosenheim |
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1982 |
Alone in the Dark |
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1980 |
Bloody Avenger aka For a Silver Dollar |
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1980 |
Hawk the Slayer |
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1980 |
Without Warning |
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1979 |
Angel's Brigade |
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1979 |
Cocaine Cowboys |
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1979 |
The Shape of Things to Come |
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1978 |
One Man Jury |
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1978 |
Unknown Powers |
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1977 |
Portrait of a Hitman |
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1977 |
Welcome to Blood City |
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1976 |
Diamante Lobo |
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1976 |
Eva Nera aka Black Cobra aka Erotic Eva |
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1976 |
L' Infermiera aka The Sensuous Nurse |
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1976 |
I Padroni della citta aka The Big Boss |
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1976 |
Safari Express |
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1976 |
Knell, The Bloody Avegner |
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1976 |
The Cop in the Blue Jeans |
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1975 |
Africa Express |
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1975 |
The Four Deuces |
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1975 |
The Cry of the Wolf |
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1973 |
Craze aka Demon Master aka The Infernal Idol |
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1973 |
Dracula |
As Count Dracula. |
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1973 |
Imagine |
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1973 |
Oklahoma Crude |
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1973 |
Brothers Blue |
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1972 |
Con Men |
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1972 |
The Big and the Bad |
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1971 |
Chato's Land |
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1971 |
The Horsemen |
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1970 |
Compareros |
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1970 |
Monte Walsh |
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1969 |
The McMasters |
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1969 |
Attack Force Normandy |
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1969 |
Battle of the Comandos aka Legion of the Damned |
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1969 |
Che! |
As Fidel Castro |
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1969 |
The Desperados |
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1969 |
Marquis de Sade: Justine aka Deadly Sanctuary |
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1968 |
Flash 30 |
Himself |
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1968 |
They Came to Rob Las Vegas |
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1968 |
The Mercenary |
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1967 |
Kill a Dragon |
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1967 |
Torture Garden |
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1966 |
The Spy in the Green Hat |
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1966 |
The Professionals |
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1965 |
Once a Thief |
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1963 |
Il Criminale |
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1963 |
Contempt |
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1962 |
Warriors Five |
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1962 |
Barabbas |
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1962 |
Sword of the Conqueror |
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1961 |
The Mongols |
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1961 |
The Last Judgement |
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1960 |
The Barbarians |
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1960 |
Treno di Natale |
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1960 |
Austerlitz |
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1959 |
Ten Second to Hell |
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1959 |
Ten Seconds to Hell |
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1959 |
Beyond all Limits |
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1958 |
The Man Inside |
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1957 |
House of Numbers |
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1957 |
The Lonely Man |
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1956 |
Attack |
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1955 |
I Died a Thousand Times |
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1955 |
The Big Knife |
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1955 |
Kiss of Fire |
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1955 |
Sign of the Pagan |
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1954 |
The Silver Chalice |
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1954 |
Man in the Attic |
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1953 |
Arrowhead |
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1953 |
Flight to Tangier |
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1953 |
Second Chance |
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1953 |
Shane |
Credited as Walter Jack Palance |
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1952 |
Sudden Fear |
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1950 |
Halls of Montezuma |
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1950 |
Panic in the Streets |
Crdited as Walter Jack Palance. |
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TELEVISION: |
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2000 |
Night Visions |
series |
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1999 |
Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End |
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1997 |
Ebenezer |
As Scrooge. |
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1997 |
I'll Be Home for Christmas |
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1995 |
Buffalo Girls |
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1994 |
Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics |
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1992 |
When it was a Game 2 |
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1992 |
Keep the Change |
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1985 |
Tales of the Haunted |
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1982 |
Ripley's Believe it or Not |
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1981 |
Evil Stalks this House |
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1980 |
The Golden Moment |
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1980 |
The Ivory Ape |
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1979 |
The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang |
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1975 |
Bronk |
Series. As Detective ''Bronk''. |
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1975 |
The Hatfields and the McCoys. |
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1974 |
The Godchild |
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1968 |
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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1966 |
Alice through the Looking Glass |
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1963 |
The Greatest Show on Earth |
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