Death List Members in the News
May 2007
Charles Nelson Reilly
January 2007
Bobby Hamilton
December 2006
Gerald Ford
November 2006
November 10 - Jack Palance, Dead at age 87
August 2006
Fidel Castro, Kirk Douglas, John Madden
July 2006
Keith Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, Phyllis Diller,
B.B. King, Dale Jarrett, Arnold Palmer
May 2006
Keith Richards, David Blaine
April 2006
Tony Stewart, Gerald Ford, B.B. King, Queen Elizabeth, Mickey Rooney, Bob
Barker, Harry Morgan, Charlton Heston, David Blaine, Vin Scully, Muhammad
Ali, Hugh Hefner, Arnold Palmer, Jerry Lewis
March 2006
Courtney Love, Dale Jarrett, Sterling Marlin, Jerry Lewis, Osama Bin Laden,
Queen Elizabeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Gerald Ford
February 2006
Walter Cronkite, Brian Dennehy, Don Knotts, Willie Mays, Vin Scully, Tony
Bennett, Courtney Love, Bob Barker
January 2006
Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, B.B. King, Walter Cronkite, William Shatner, Courtney
Love, Nick Nolte
December 2005
Richard Pryor, Ozzy Osbourne & Queen Elizabeth, Nick Nolte, Hugh Hefner,
Tony Bennett, Tony Stewart, David Blaine
November 2005
George Michael, Courtney Love, William Shatner, Muhammad Ali
October 2005
Rosa Parks, William Shatner, Joe Namath, B.B. King, Jerry Lewis, Tony Stewart,
Arnold Palmer, Richard Pryor, Jack Klugman, Michael Waltrip, Hugh Hefner,
Dale Jarrett
September 2005
Courtney Love, Ozzy Osbourne, B.B. King, Michael Waltrip, Willie Nelson, Courtney
Love, Jerry Lewis, Arnold Palmer
August 2005
William Shatner, Vin Scully, Ron Popeil, Hugh Hefner, Dale Jarrett, Keith
Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, John Madden, Courtney Love, Richard Pryor, Sterling
Marlin, Tony Stewart, Tony Bennett, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis
July 2005
Arnold Palmer, Richard Pryor, Courtney Love, Jerry Lewis, Muhammad
Ali, Kirk Douglas, Bob Barker, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Stewart, Dale Jarrett,
Phyllis Diller, Michael Waltrip, Gerald Ford, Mickey Rooney, Jack Klugman,
Keith Richards, Nick Nolte, Rosa Parks, Luther Vandross
June 2005
Jim Otto, Vin Scully, Tony Bennett, Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, Queen Elizabeth,
Muhammad Ali, Ozzy Osbourne, Jack Klugman, John Madden
May 2005
Michael Waltrip, Queen Elizabeth, Fidel Castro, Tony Stewart, Walter Cronkite,
Arnold Palmer, B.B. King, George Michael, Vin Scully, Keith Richards, Don
Knotts, Brian Dennehy, Michael Waltrip, Wilford Brimley, Ozzy Osbourne, Willie
Mays, Bob Barker, Nick Nolte, Jim Otto
April 2005
Larry Hagman, Richard Pryor, Willie Mays, Phyllis Diller, David Blaine, Tony
Stewart, Queen Elizabeth, Muhammad Ali, Nick Nolte and William Shatner, B.B.
King, Ozzy Osbourne, Rosa Parks, Luther Vandross, Pope John Paul II
March 2005
Ozzy Osbourne, Pope John Paul II, Courtney Love, Phyllis Diller, Vin Scully,
Fidel Castro, Ed Asner, Bob Barker, B.B. King, Arnold Palmer, Keith Richards,
Muhammad Ali, Jack Palance, Jack Klugman, Sterling Marlin, Joe Namath, Charlton
Heston, Jerry Lewis, Horatio Sanz
February 2005
Pope John Paul II, Wilford Brimley, Tony Stewart, Queen Elizabeth, Willie
Nelson, B.B. King, Ozzy Osbourne, Dale Jarrett, Fidel Castro, Phyllis Diller,
Courtney Love, Gerald Ford, Larry Hagman, Rosa Parks, Mickey Rooney, Hugh
Hefner
January 2005
Willie Mays, Ozzy Osbourne, Arnold Palmer, B.B. King, Vin Scully, John Madden,
Johnny Carson, Brian Dennehy, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Rosa Parks, Jerry
Lewis, Courtney Love, Pope John Paul II, Willie Nelson, Mickey Rooney, Gerald
Ford, Bob Barker
December 2004
Richard Pryor, Queen Elizabeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Richards, Rosa Parks,
Nick Nolte, Don Knotts
November 2004
Kirk Douglas, Ozzy Osbourne, Arnold Palmer, Jerry Lewis, Larry Hagman, Johnny
Carson, Queen Elizabeth, B.B. King, Muhammad Ali
October 2004
Courtney Love, Keith Richards, Tony Bennett, Fidel Castro, Ernest Borgnine,
Mickey Rooney, Willie Nelson, Jack Klugman, Jack Palance, Pope John Paul II,
Hugh Hefner, Rodney Dangerfield
September 2004
Courtney Love, Arnold Palmer, Rosa Parks, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Barker,
Nick Nolte, Tony Bennett
August 2004
Arnold Palmer, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Barker, Brian Dennehy, Ernest Borgnine,
Rosa Parks, Walter Cronkite, Willie Mays, Pope John Paul II, Fidel Castro,
Julia Child, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney, Joe Namath, B.B. King
July 2004
Rosa Parks, Courtney Love, Fidel Castro, Nick Nolte, Don Knotts, Larry Hagman,
Kirk Douglas, William Shatner
November 10, 2006: Jack Palance
dies at 87
Oscar-winner died of natural causes in his California home
LOS
ANGELES - Jack Palance, the craggy-faced menace in “Shane,” “Sudden
Fear” and other films who turned successfully to comedy in his 70s with
his Oscar-winning self-parody in “City Slickers,” died Friday.
Palance died of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., surrounded by family, said spokesman Dick Guttman. He was 87.
When Palance accepted his Oscar for best supporting actor he delighted viewers of the 1992 Academy Awards by dropping to the stage and performing one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his physical prowess.
“That’s nothing, really,” he said slyly. “As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn’t make a difference whether she’s there or not.”
That year’s Oscar host, Billy Crystal, turned the moment into a running joke, making increasingly outlandish remarks about Palance’s accomplishments throughout the show.
It was a magic moment that epitomized the actor’s 40 years in films. Always the iconoclast, Palance had scorned most of his movie roles.
“Most of the stuff I do is garbage,” he once told a reporter, adding that most of the directors he worked with were incompetent, too.
“Most of them shouldn’t even be directing traffic,” he said.
Movie audiences, though, were electrified by the actor’s chiseled face, hulking presence and the calm, low voice that made his screen presence all the more intimidating.
Tough guy from early on
His film debut came in 1950, playing a murderer named Blackie in “Panic
in the Streets.”
After a war picture, “Halls of Montezuma,” he portrayed the ardent lover who stalks the terrified Joan Crawford in 1952’s “Sudden Fear.” The role earned him his first Academy Award nomination for supporting actor.
The following year brought his second nomination when he portrayed Jack Wilson, the swaggering gunslinger who bullies peace-loving Alan Ladd into a barroom duel in the Western classic “Shane.”
That role cemented Palance’s reputation as Hollywood’s favorite menace, and he went on to appear in such films as “Arrowhead” (as a renegade Apache), “Man in the Attic” (as Jack the Ripper), “Sign of the Pagan” (as Attila the Hun) and “The Silver Chalice” (as a fictional challenger to Jesus).
Other prominent films included “Kiss of Fire,” “The Big Knife,” “I Died a Thousand Deaths,” “Attack!” “The Lonely Man” and “House of Numbers.”
Weary of being typecast, Palance moved with his wife and three young children to Lausanne, Switzerland, at the height of his career.
He spent six years abroad but returned home complaining that his European film roles were “the same kind of roles I left Hollywood because of.”
His career failed to regain momentum upon his return, and his later films included “The Professionals,” “The Desperadoes,” “Monte Walsh,” “Chato’s Land” and “Oklahoma Crude.”
When he appeared as Fidel Castro in 1969’s “Che!” about Latin American revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, he told a reporter: “At this stage of my career, I don’t formulate reasons why I take roles — the price was right.”
He also appeared frequently on television in the 1960s and ‘70s, winning an Emmy in 1965 for his portrayal of an end-of-the-line boxer in “Requiem for a Heavyweight.”
He and his daughter Holly Palance hosted the oddity show “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” and he starred in the short-lived series “The Greatest Show on Earth” and “Bronk.”
Forty-one years after his auspicious film debut, Palance played against type, to a degree. His “City Slickers” character, Curly, was still a menacing figure to dude ranch visitors Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby, but with a comic twist. And Palance delivered his one-liners with surgeon-like precision.
Career journey had many twists
Through most of his career, Palance maintained his distance from the Hollywood
scene. In the late 1960s he bought a sprawling cattle and horse ranch north
of Los Angeles. He also owned a bean farm near his home town of Lattimer,
Pa.
Although most of his film portrayals were as primitives, Palance was well-spoken and college-educated. His favorite pastimes away from the movie world were painting and writing poetry and fiction.
A strapping 6-feet-4 and 210 pounds, Palance excelled at sports and won a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina. He left after two years, disgusted by commercialization of the sport.
He decided to use his size and strength as a prizefighter, but after two hapless years that resulted in little more than a broken nose that would serve him well as a screen villain, he joined the Army Air Corps in 1942.
A year later he was discharged after his B-24 lost power on takeoff and he was knocked unconscious.
The GI Bill of Rights provided Palance’s tuition at Stanford University, where he studied journalism. But the drama club lured him, and he appeared in 10 comedies. Just before graduation he left school to try acting professionally in New York.
“I had always wanted to express myself through words,” he said in a 1957 interview. “But I always thought I was too big to be an actor. I could see myself knocking over tables. I thought acting was for little ... guys.”
Humble beginnings
He made his Broadway debut in a comedy, “The Big Two,” in which
he had but one line, spoken in Russian, a language his parents spoke at home.
The play lasted only a few weeks, and he supported himself as a short-order cook, waiter, lifeguard and hot dog seller between other small roles in the theater.
His career breakthrough came when he was chosen as Anthony Quinn’s understudy in the road company of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” then replaced Marlon Brando in the Stanley Kowalski role on Broadway. The show’s director, Elia Kazan, chose him in 1950 to for “Panic in the Streets.”
Born Walter Jack Palahnuik in Pennsylvania coal country on Feb. 18, 1919, Palance was the third of five children of Ukrainian immigrants. His father worked the mines for 39 years until he died of black lung disease in 1955.
In interviews, Palance recalled bitterly that his family had to buy groceries at the company store, though prices were cheaper elsewhere.
Yet, he told a Saturday Evening Post writer, he had “a good childhood, like most kids think they have.”
“It was fine to play there in the third-growth birch and aspen, along the sides of slag piles,” he said.
From the Associated Press
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