Jack Palance: A Good Bad Man

Originally published November 13, 1954

“I learned how to hate when I was a kid,” says Walter Jack Palance. “In the hard-coal mines.” As a villain in nearly 90 percent of his roles, he has never forgotten the elementary tutoring of his childhood rough-and-tumble in a Northeastern Pennsylvania coal town. He has changed from an arrogant, stiff-necked youngster to a mild-spoken, thoughtful family man. But he can still summon up at will the turbulent emotions that he once experienced. This ability, together with his unusual face, makes him the foremost portrayer of “heavy roles” in Hollywood.

The deadliness of his deep-set stare, the shine of his high cheekbones and the honest witness of his dipsy–doodled nose, his tousled, lusterless black hair and belligerent muscular stance give him the edge on virtually all movie villains. Palance adds to this a voice that is almost suave in its gentility.

He wryly claims that even his four-year-old daughter, Holly Kathleen, is impressed. “Say something, Daddy,” she urged him one night. “Every person says you have a nice soft voice, anyway.”

He thinks that his so-called obsession for playing the darker side of villainy on the screen is easily explainable: “In any dramatic scene, the central figure is always the villain, not the hero. He has the most interest for the audience. The actor who inspires a healthy hatred will make more money than any other.” No actor who has made an outstandingly knavish screen portrayal has ever missed stardom. Palance knows; in his fourth picture he got star billing — about twice as fast as it usually happens.

To get “reality” for his villains, Palance sometimes goes to extremes. For his part in Shane, he trained the way he used to prepare for his professional fights. He actually got his draw and fire — without any particular aim — down to three-fifths of a second. The writer of the book complained that no one could fire a .44 with gloves on. Palance gently pointed out that he was already doing it.

—“Hollywood’s Frightening Lover”
by Richard G. Hubler, November 13, 1954

This article appears in the March/April 2023 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.