BERMUDIAN film and television producer Arthur Rankin Jr. has been mourning the death of Oscar-winning actor Jack Palance (pictured) who he cast in a 1980 made-for-TV film shot entirely on location in Bermuda.

Palance won an Academy Award in 1994 for his role in the Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers. A World War Two veteran, the craggy-faced Palance menaced the heroes in Shane, Sudden Fear and other classic film. He died on November 10 at the age of 87 of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California.

In 1980 the imposing, six-foot-three Palance - who specialised in playing villains during his five-decade Hollywood career - spent several weeks in Bermuda cast against type as the hero in Mr. Rankin's made-for-television movie The Ivory Ape.

The Ivory Ape was written and produced by Mr. Rankin and aired on prime time on the ABC television network. The film featured such local performers as Grace Rawlins, Charles Jeffers, Marlene B. Landy, Jane Bainbridge, John Lough and George Rushe in supporting roles.

Palance starred in the film as Bermuda-based big game hunter Marc Kazarian. The plot focuses on a hunt for a rare albino gorilla, recently captured in Africa, which escapes from a freighter bound for New York that's forced to dock on the island during a storm. In a nod to the classic Empire State Building climax of 1931's King Kong, the albino ape is finally tracked to the steeple of Holy Trinity Church, Harrington Sound. The gorilla is killed by a trigger-happy Bermudian before Palance's Kazarian character - who has turned his back on his former career as a hunter can save the animal, a female which has just given birth.

One of the few live-action efforts from Mr. Rankin and his American partner Jules Bass (whose animated seasonal productions include Rudolph the Red NosedReindeer and The Little Drummer Boy).