RUSTLING UP CAREER IN LITERATURE : FAMED FILM COWBOY TURNS TO WRITING.

Byline: Karen Thacker Special to the Daily News

Inside Jack Palance's Tehachapi Mountain ranch home is the decor expected for the house of a veteran actor of Westerns.

There are an American-Indian head bust, hand-carved covered wagon models, an eagle statue, walls covered with ``Old West''-style paintings, a rusty barrel full of assorted weaponry and on the floor an animal pelt.

A thin cigar hangs from the corner of Palance's mouth as he greets a visitor in his home's rear entryway, and one of the first things he says is, ``Does anyone have a match?''

Except for the tweed jacket he's wearing, Jack Palance very much resembles the tough old cowboy, Curly, of his most popular film of the '90s, ``City Slickers.''

But what's unexpected is Palance's latest venture: a love story in blank verse released a few months ago by Summerhouse Press.

His book, ``The Forest of Love,'' gives readers a glimpse of the experiences and expressions of love in a story that intimately shares a man's frustrated love for a woman and his love for nature - specifically the forest.

``It could be about Jack Palance,'' he said of the story. ``I wasn't concerned about Jack Palance when writing it.''

Palance, 75, who received an Academy Award nomination as the evil hired gunman in ``Shane'' in 1953, an Emmy for ``Requiem for a Heavyweight'' in 1957 and an Oscar for ``City Slickers,'' started writing ``The Forest of Love'' years ago, and recently finished and touched up the book - his first published literary work.

Why did editors encourage a love story first?

``Perhaps it is the one that is the furthest away from my image,'' he said.

The book also includes simple black and white sketches of forest scenes and starkly contrasting Van Gogh-style nudes in vivid color.

The sketches, he muses, ``took a long time. Sure, took as long as 10 minutes,'' he said with a grin.

Stacks of his artwork lie casually about various rooms of the dwellings on the 1,200-acre ranch he bought in 1963. It's a hobby that has been filling his time for years.

One work printed in his book lay Monday under a pile of paintings on a bed in an adobe house, the only one that survived the 1952 Tehachapi Earthquake.

Others are stacked loosely in his painting room - a room built onto the barn that came with the ranch. Dirty brushes and paint tubes are scattered around among dusty furniture, trunks and other relics collected over the years.

The large number of artworks displayed in rooms all around his property are not his - many are from friends. He doesn't hang his own work.

He also has boxes of notebooks and papers of things he's written - stories, diaries full of experiences - writings he's just now starting to publish.

The son of a Pennsylvania coal miner, Palance also worked the mines. But he found his way out with a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina.

He spent time as a professional boxer and flew a B-24 bomber for the Army Air Force during World War II until a crash left Palance - then Lt. Voladimir Palahnuik - with severe head injuries. He has not flown a plane since.

After the war, Palance attended Stanford University, majoring in journalism with a minor in drama.

``I was always interested in acting - in grade school, high school, college - it wasn't just something that happened,'' he said. At Stanford, he was in virtually every production they did - one just followed another.

He heard the stories of how tough it was to break into acting, but he had the taste for the profession and wanted more.

``Journalism paid so badly at that time,'' he recalled.

Although he hasn't counted out acting, and is currently considering a role of the grandfather in a new movie version of ``Heidi,'' he is putting more time into his writing now and has a novel planned for release in six months.

``It's about the problems between a man and a woman and a man and his life,'' he said.

Although he has many diaries, he has no plans for a biography, but would use the journals for different purposes in his writing.

``The pronoun `I' can at times be kind of offensive,'' he noted.

Another reason is he doesn't see his life as unique to anyone else's.

``Life is a series of events you're thrust into,'' he said.

Actor to sign book copies

TEHACHAPI - Actor Jack Palance will sign copies of his first published work, ``The Forest of Love,'' from 1 to 4 p.m. Feb. 8 at The Apple Shed, 333 E. Tehachapi Blvd.

Palance will read an excerpt from his book and field questions and answers about the writing process from 1 to 1:30 p.m. Autographs will follow.

Several paintings featured in Palance's book will be on display.

Palance has spent most of his life painting and writing, and one of his two homes is in the Tehachapi Mountains.

The book signing is also an opportunity to raise funds for the Tehachapi Humane Society. One dollar from each book sold will go toward vouchers for spaying and neutering dogs and cats belonging to low-income families. The benefit was coordinated through another local author, romance novelist Chelley Kitzmiller.

The Apple Shed is a bakery, deli, farmers market and gift shop renovated from a 1940s building used for shipping local products.

``The Forest of Love'' is published by Summerhouse Press and is priced at $22.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: (Ran in SAC and AV--color in AV only) Academy Award-winning actor Jack Palance released ``The Forest of Love,'' a love story penned in blank verse a few months ago.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News

Box: (Ran in AV only) Actor to sign book copies (see text)