[Elspode]

I am a lover of Westerns. When I was a kid, the heyday of the Western was past, but a few classics still rolled out now and then, often starring The Duke. It wasn't until I was older, and made a point of watching older oaters, that I discovered and learned to appreciate Jack Palance.

If ever a man was born to wear a Stetson, it was Jack. Big, strapping, with a face that looked as though it had been extracted from Mount Rushmore, Palance filled a movie screen like few others ever could. His villains were the most menacing, his heroes the most thrilling, and his ladies men the most...unlikely.

Most of our modern generation fell in love with Palance when he starred in "City Slickers", alongside Billy Crystal. Playing Curly, an amalgam of every steely-eyed hardass he'd ever portrayed, Palance turned an otherwise unremarkable fishes out of water story into a genuinely funny, genuinely warm, genuinely surprising romp suitable for the whole family.

Palance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for that portrayal, delighting audiences and spurring the most hilarious series of adlibbed jokes from presenter Crystal when Palance did a set of one arm pushups on stage while accepting his Oscar. His fame was born anew at the age of 70, and he became a household name once again.

Jack Palance has passed on at the age of 87, possibly the last of great cowboys, headed for his last roundup. Yippie I Oh, Jack.