Palance, Jack

Jack Palance stands in front of his 1953 GMC pickup on his Techachapi, Calif., ranch on a foggy Monday afternoon in late January. Palance, known for his acting roles, has recently published a book of poetry that also contains some of his paintings. (Associated Press Photo)
Jack Palance

Palance's local roots inspire his tender side
by Dennis Anderson, Associated Press Writer
Tehachapi, Calif. (AP)
It's more than a half-century's journey for actor Jack Palance from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to his 1,300-acre cattle ranch in the cradle of the fogshrouded Tehachapi Mountains.
Palance, son of a coal miner and a 12-2 veteran of the boxing ring, has had his share of knockouts and knocks in an actor's life waged like a prize fight on stage, screen and television.
These days, the veteran star of such Hollywood classics as "Shane" and the Golden Age of live television's "Requiem for a Heavyweight," compares his life and career to the longevity of a tree.
The actor is a lion in winter. Or, maybe an oak, like the ones that spread their acorns across the rolling hills of his ranch, 100 miles due north of Hollywood.
Trees often get a better deal in life than people, Palance figures, and he has expressed those sentiments in a book-length poem called "The Forest of Love," published by Summerhouse Press.
Jack Palance, of the one-handed pushup at Oscar ceremonies. Jack Palance, the Angel of Death from "Shane." Jack Palance, poet of love?
Exactly. Capping a career of playing signature tough guys, Palance, at 77, is showing the world his tender side.
Palance, who used his coal miner's hands to win prize money in the ring, isn't shy about being known as a tough guy. But he is by turns a tender, and even vulnerable, tough guy.
The actor's "The Forest, of Love" details a man's frank yearnings for love and intimacy with women through the autumn of his years.
And Palance - who threw a knife at a cowboy's crotch in his Oscar-winning role as Curly in "City Slickers" - reads his poetry, too, including an appearance today at the Apple Shed bookstore in Tehachapi.
A portion of the proceeds goes for Iow-cost spaying and neutering by the Tehachapi Humane Society.
So, the Angel of Death guy who keeps a wolf for a pet in real life also extends kindness to kitties and puppy dogs.
Even if this oak tree of a man is mellowing, his face always looks as if it's carved from seasoned wood. But there is a humor in his eyes, which can twinkle from their Mt. Rushmore depths atop his rough-hewn cheeks.
Palance wonders openly at how quickly a performing career that blossomed over five decades has sped by.
"I don't spend time thinking about the movies I've been in," he said. "It's just something that was. A walk in the forest is more important than thinking about myself as an actor."
Palance says he would even trade places with the trees of his poetic forest.
"Some of the trees on this property are over 500 years old," he said, looking out the window of his rambling ranch home. "When you think about the longevity of a tree, compared to a human, it makes you wonder - it makes you think, maybe you should have been a tree."
The actor's poetic forest, he peculates, emerged in his mind from the forested country of his - youth in Lattimer Mines, Pa., near Hazleton. He still has a farm near there in Drums.
"The beauty of that forest is so lovely it's unbelievable," he remarked during an interview at his comfortable ranch house, which is decorated in early John Ford.
Western art and Frederic Remington-style cowboy bronzeworks are everywhere, and you get the feeling John Wayne could saunter in at any moment for a hand of poker on the Wyatt Earp card table.
The rolling green hills outside recall the coal country of his youth, where he spends part of the year now, keeping the trees forever in his heart.
"When you think about the trees in their glory time, from the greening until the changing of the guard with the reds in September and October, there is such a feeling of wonderment, that there can be such a thing."
Not quite how Curly would put it.
From: Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Jan. 21, 1997