Jack Palance, the leather-faced, gravelly voiced actor who earned Academy Award nominations for "Sudden Fear" and "Shane," and who finally captured the Oscar almost 40 years later as the crusty trail boss in the 1991 comedy western "City Slickers," has died. He was 87.
Palance, who had been in failing health with a number of maladies, died Friday of natural causes at the Montecito home of his daughter Holly, family members said.
He was one of the best-loved bad guys in motion picture and television history -- the murderous husband in "Sudden Fear" (1952), the creepy gunslinger in "Shane" (1953) and the cantankerous cattle driver Curly in "City Slickers" -- and kept acting well into his 80s.
"When it comes to playing hard-bitten cowboys, there could never be anyone better than Jack," "City Slickers" director Ron Underwood told The Times on Friday. "He was a scary, intimidating guy with a very warm and giving heart."
Palance's performance accepting the Oscar may have been more memorable than the gnarly star turn that earned it.
Upon winning, he dropped to the stage floor of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and delighted the audience with vigorous one-armed push-ups. Septuagenarian actors, he said, must continually prove their virility to keep working in youth-oriented Hollywood.
The surprise stunt provided fodder for a series of ad-libbed jokes throughout the evening by Billy Crystal, his "City Slickers" co-star and the show's host. The next year's ceremony, in 1993, opened with Palance -- then 74 -- using his teeth to tow across the stage a 20-foot-tall Oscar statuette ridden by Crystal.
"I am deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of my dear friend Jack Palance, a true movie icon," Crystal said in a statement Friday. "Winning the Oscar for that movie and the one-armed push-ups he did on the show will link us together forever, and for that I am grateful."
The two men worked together again in the 1994 sequel "City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold." Since Palance's Curly had died in the first film, he portrayed Curly's equally curmudgeonly identical twin. "Only Palance returns with a flourish," the Times review said. "He's as gnarled and critter-like as ever."
He had shown a flair for funny in the comic fable "Bagdad Cafe" (1988), in which he played a retired Hollywood set painter turned primitive artist. Palance was "a constant revelation and delight," the Times review said, and emerged "as a terrific comedian."
