Jack Palance (February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was a Ukrainian American film actor. With his rugged facial features, Palance was best known to modern movie audiences as both the characters of Curly and Duke in the two City Slickers movies, the first for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but his career spanned half a century of film and television appearances.
Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr Palahniu...
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Jack Palance (February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was a Ukrainian American film actor. With his rugged facial features, Palance was best known to modern movie audiences as both the characters of Curly and Duke in the two City Slickers movies, the first for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but his career spanned half a century of film and television appearances.
Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr Palahniuk (Ukrainian: Володимир Палагнюк) in the Lattimer Mines section of Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, the son of Anna (née Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk, who was an anthracite coal miner. Palance's parents were Ukrainian immigrants, his father a native of Ivane Zolote in Southwestern Ukraine and his mother from the Lviv region. He worked in coal mines during his youth before becoming a boxer.
In the late 1930s, Palance started a professional boxing career. Fighting under the name Jack Brazzo, Palance reportedly compiled a record of 15 consecutive...
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