{"id":4455,"date":"2015-02-18T16:11:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T16:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4455"},"modified":"2015-04-15T13:25:59","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T13:25:59","slug":"recalling-when-jack-palance-winked-at-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4455","title":{"rendered":"The time Jack Palance winked at me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

Jack Palance, who was born on this day in 1919 and died on Nov. 10 2006, had one of the scariest physiognomies in movies but my favourite memory of him is of a wink.<\/p>\n

When I used to visit Los Angeles from Toronto to do stories for TV Guide Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I stayed at the Sportsmen\u2019s Lodge on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. It had a good coffee shop with a very decent breakfast and it was not unusual to see familiar showbiz faces there.<\/p>\n

One time, as I walked into the restaurant, I spotted Jack Palance walking toward me. With his considerable size, purposeful stride and stern demeanour, he appeared intimidating but I was still very tempted to speak to him. At the last, I elected not to intrude on his path towards breakfast.<\/p>\n

He looked very stern and unfriendly as he approached but as we passed each other it was clear he had spotted that I had recognised him and decided not to react as he broke into a wide smile and winked at me.<\/p>\n

\"palance\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A terrific character actor, Palace won the best supporting award at the Oscars for the modern western comedy \u201cCity Slickers\u201d in 1992 and he did one-arm pushups onstage to show potential casting agents how fit he was at 73.<\/p>\n

His award came around\u00a040 years after his first nominations for David Miller’s noir thriller \u201cSudden Fear\u201d opposite Joan Crawford and Gloria Grahame and George Stevens\u2019s classic western \u201cShane\u201d starring Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur and Van Heflin.<\/p>\n

Palance co-starred in another of the all-time great westerns \u2013 Richard Brooks\u2019s \u201cThe Professionals \u201c (1966) with Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Claudia Cardinale (pictured with Palance top) and Woody Strode \u2013 and other good little westerns such as \u201cThe Lonely Man\u201d (1957) with Anthony Perkins, and William A. Fraker\u2019s likeable \u201cMonte Walsh\u201d (1970) also with Marvin plus Jeane Moreau.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/a>

Jack Palance in George Stevens’s ‘Shane’<\/p><\/div>\n

He made a couple of sharp Robert Aldrich dramas \u2013 Hollywood tale \u201cThe Big Knife\u201d (1955), based on the play by Clifford Odets, with Ida Lupino and Wendell Corey, and World War II picture \u201cTen Seconds to Hell\u201d (1959) with Jeff Chandler and Martine Carol.<\/p>\n

There were many swords-and-sandals vehicles including \u201cThe Barbarians\u201d (1960), \u201cSword of the Conqueror\u201d (1961), \u201cThe Mongols\u201d (1961) and John Frankenheimer\u2019s \u201cThe Horsemen\u201d (1971) with Omar Sharif and Leigh Taylor-Young. His credits also include Percy Adlon\u2019s charming offbeat comedy drama \u201cBagdad Cafe\u201d (1987) and the comic book blockbuster \u201cBatman\u201d (1989).<\/p>\n

Palance played Fidel Castro in Richard Fleischer\u2019s \u201cChe!\u201d (1969) also with Sharif, Long John Silver in \u201cTreasure Island\u201d (1999), and Scrooge in \u201cEbenemer\u201d (1998) plus the title roles in \u201cThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde\u201d (1968) and \u201cBram Stoker\u2019s Dracula\u201d (1974). He succeeded Humphrey Bogart as Roy Earle in \u201cI Died a Thousand Times\u201d, Stuart Heisler\u2019s almost scene-for-scene 1955 remake of W.R. Burnett\u2019s\u00a0 1941 Raoul Walsh thriller \u201cHigh Sierra\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were many, many war pictures and quite a few turkeys, but a Palance picture is invariably worth watching for the intensity he brings to his roles and, who knows, you might also catch a wink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett Jack Palance, who was born on this day in 1919 and died on Nov. 10 2006, had one of the scariest physiognomies in movies but my favourite memory of him is of a wink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1263,2257],"tags":[2350,2349,2348,936,2351],"class_list":["post-4455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-memory-lane","category-recalling","tag-city-slickers","tag-claudia-cardinale","tag-jack-palance","tag-oscars","tag-sportsmens-lodge-hotel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4455"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7163,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions\/7163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}