Fighting under the name 'Jack Brazzo', he won his first 15 fights, 12 by knockout, before losing a 4th round decision to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi on December 17, 1940. He subsequently dropped out to try his hand at professional boxing. Athletics was his ticket out of the mines when he won a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina. Palance worked in the mines in his early years but averted the same fate as his father. His father, an anthracite miner, died of black lung disease. Of Ukrainian descent, Palance was born Volodymyr Ivanovich Palahniuk (later taking Walter Jack Palance as his legal name) on Febru(although some sources, including his death certificate, cite 1920) in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania (coal country), one of six children born to Anna (nee Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk.

It would take a grizzled, eccentric comic performance 40 years later, however, for him to finally grab the coveted statuette. Enhanced by his tall, powerful build, icy voice, and piercing eyes, he earned two 'Best Supporting Actor' nominations early in his career. Jack Palance quite often exemplified evil incarnate on film, portraying some of the most intensely feral villains witnessed in 1950s westerns and melodrama.

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