His family were at his home in Montecito, California, when he died of natural causes, a spokesman said.

Born in Pennsylvania of Ukrainian descent, Palance won fame as a hard man in films such as Shane and Sudden Fear. He turned to comedy in Oscar for best supporting actor.

On receiving the accolade at the 1992 Academy Awards, he delighted the audience by performing a series of onearm push-ups on the stage.

Palance was born Vladimir Palahnuik in 1919, the son of a coal miner, and took up boxing in the 1930s. He turned to acting after decorated service in the Second World War and made his film debut in Panic In The Streets (1950).

He received an Oscar nomination for Sudden Fear, and then achieved greater fame a year later, in 1953, playing evil gunslinger Jack Wilson in Shane, for which he received another Oscar nomination.

He spent the majority of his career playing the bad guy, including Dracula and mob boss Carl Grissom in Tim Burton's film adaptation of Batman. He once said most of his roles were "garbage" and most of his directors incompetent.

"Most of them shouldn't even be directing traffic, " he said.