"That's nothing, really," he said slyly. "As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night ."
That year's Oscar host, Billy Crystal, turned the moment into a running joke, making increasingly outlandish remarks about Mr. Palance's accomplishments throughout the show.
It was a magic moment that epitomized the actor's 40 years in films. Always the iconoclast, Mr. Palance had scorned most of his movie roles.
"Most of the stuff I do is garbage," he once told a reporter, adding that most of the directors he worked with were incompetent, too.
"Most of them shouldn't even be directing traffic," he said.
Movie audiences, though, were electrified by the actor's chiseled face, hulking appearance, and the calm, low voice that made his screen presence all the more intimidating.
His film debut was in 1950, when he played a murderer named Blackie in "Panic in the Streets."
After a war picture, "Halls of Montezuma," he portrayed the ardent lover who stalks the terrified Joan Crawford in 1952's "Sudden Fear." The role earned him his first Academy Award nomination for supporting actor.
The following year brought his second nomination, when he portrayed Jack Wilson, the swaggering gunslinger who bullies peace-loving Alan Ladd into a barroom duel in the Western classic "Shane."
That role cemented Mr. Palance's reputation as Hollywood's favorite menace, and he went on to appear in such films as "Arrowhead" (as a renegade Apache), "Man in the Attic" (as Jack the Ripper), "Sign of the Pagan" (as Attila the Hun), and "The Silver Chalice" (as a fictional challenger to Jesus).
Other prominent films included "Kiss of Fire," "The Big Knife," "I Died a Thousand Deaths," "Attack!," "The Lonely Man," and "House of Numbers."
Weary of being typecast, Mr. Palance moved with his wife and three young children to Lausanne, Switzerland, at the height of his career.
He spent six years abroad, but returned home complaining that his European film roles were "the same kind of roles I left Hollywood because of."
His career failed to regain momentum upon his return, and his later films included "The Professionals," "The Desperadoes," "Monte Walsh," "Chato's Land," and "Oklahoma Crude."
