Decades before he starred as racketeer rancher Lawrence Murphy in Christopher Cain’s 1988 Western movie Young Guns, Jack Palance played an equally iconic villain in his first Western film. Palance’s role as gunfighting killer Jack Wilson in Shane began a career-long run of performances in 16 different Western movies, one of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Palance became one of the oldest actors ever to win an Oscar when he took home a statuette for City Slickers in 1992, yet it’s his performances as Western villains that have cemented his legacy as one of the greatest ever actors in the genre. Through his roles in both Shane and Young Guns, the actor was also involved in two of the best shootout scenes in any Western movie. Whether he was playing a fearsome gunslinger or a tyrannical rancher of the Old West, Palance knew just how to embody the arch nemesis of a Western hero.

Jack Palance Played Great Western Villains In Both Shane & Young Guns

The 2 Movies Were Made 35 Years Apart, But Palance Is Terrifying In Both Of Them

In Shane and Young Guns, Palance plays two of the cruelest villains in the history of cinematic Westerns, but each of them is markedly different from the other. Shane’s Jack Wilson is a cold-blooded killer whose indifference to the lives he takes makes him the most feared marksman in the movie. Only its тιтular man of few words would dare to go up against Wilson in a gunfight and expect to come out alive.

Meanwhile, Young Guns, which is about to be followed up by a second sequel featuring the return of Emilio Evestez, sees Palance play a ruthless cattle rancher in league with New Mexico’s Santa Fe Ring. Irish gangster-cowboy Lawrence Murphy allies himself with cartels and corrupt politicians in an attempt to force a rival rancher off his land. Murphy has more to say than Jack Wilson, and lets his subordinates do his bidding for him. But he’s just as frightening in his own way, sneering at his rivals arrogantly and bragging about having the state’s rich and powerful in his pocket.

Shane & Young Guns Weren’t Jack Palance’s Only Memorable Western Roles

He Starred In 16 Western Movies Overall, Including City Slickers And Its Sequel

Young Guns and Shane are perhaps the most iconic Western movies to have starred Jack Palance. While Young Guns has become a successful cinematic franchise, Shane inspired an acclaimed remake in the form of Clint Eastwood’s 1985 movie Pale Rider. However, they’re only two of the 16 Western films that Palance starred in during his storied career.

Shane established him as a Western specialist, which later led to a flurry of spaghetti Western projects in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the best of which is 1968’s The Mercenary. In addition, Palance excelled in his role as veteran cowboy Chet Rollins in William A. Fraker’s 1970 classic Western Monte Walsh.

Jack Palance’s Western Movies:

Palance’s most famous Western role to those less familiar with the genre is likely Curly Washburn in City Slickers, a comedy starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby as New Yorkers who decide to go on a cattle drive out West. It’s this role that won the veteran actor his Oscar, but to seasoned Western fans, he’ll always be known as Jack Wilson from Shane or Lawrence Murphy from the original Young Guns movie.