Jack Palance--Not Just Another Pretty Face

HT to Grim on this one:

There was more to the man than that, however: he was a heavyweight fighter, under the name Jack Brazzo, with twelve knockouts and fifteen wins in his career. And, yes, he was a veteran:
With the outbreak of World War II, Palance's boxing career ended and his military career began. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured when he bailed out of his burning B-24 Liberator while on a training flight over southern Arizona, where he was a student pilot. Plastic surgeons repaired as much of the damage that they could, but he was left with a distinctive, somewhat gaunt, look. After much reconstructive surgery, he was discharged in 1944.

Palance died recently, RIP...