ACTOR JACK PALANCE DIES IN L.A.

Oscar-winning actor Jack Palance, who starred as a heartless gunslinger in the classic western "Shane," died at his California home on Friday at age 87, his spokesman said. Palance, who won an Academy Award for playing a tough cowboy in the 1991 comedy "City Slickers" and famously performed one-armed push-ups on stage at the ceremony, died of natural causes, spokesman Dick Guttman said. He usually played menacing villains and was also nominated for Oscars for "Shane" and 1952's "Sudden Fear," in which he played opposite Joan Crawford as a man out to kill his wife. Born Vladimir Palahnuik in Pennsylvania in 1919, he was a professional boxer and a decorated World War Two veteran before his long career in movies. Guttman said Palance died at his home in Montecito, California, surrounded by members of his family.