Wallace was born in New York City. When he was 13 his family moved to McMechen, West Virginia. While still in his teens Wallace worked as a coal miner and also joined the Civilian Conservation Corps.  He joined the U.S. Navy in 1936 and served for eight years. Wallace served in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, where he earned the title of light heavyweight champion.  After leaving the Navy, Wallace worked as a bartender in Hollywood, California. One night gossip columnist Jimmie Fidler was in the bar and heard Wallace singing along with the jukebox for tips. Fidler was impressed with Wallace’s voice and introduced him to some contacts at the film studios.  In 1952 Wallace auditioned for a character part in Radar Men from the Moon and landed the starring role of Commando Cody. To play Cody, Wallace’s outfit consisted of a leather jacket, a silver bullet-shaped helmet, and an atomic-powered rocket pack controlled by three dials: up/down, fast/slow and on/off. Wallace appeared to fly in the serial by lying face-down on a long two-by-four that stuck out horizontally from a platform in front of a rear-projection screen.  In 1991, he appeared in the TV film The Boys, followed by Minority Report in 2002.   One of his last roles was an appearance in an episode of the CBS sitcom The King of Queens in 2003.

In 1955, on the set of Forbidden Planet, Walter Pidgeon introduced him to Richard Rodgers.  Wallace’s Broadway debut was in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Pipe Dream, starring the operatic soprano Helen Traubel.  Wallace’s next break on Broadway came when he was chosen to replace John Raitt in The Pajama Game when Raitt left the cast to co-star in the film version of the musical. He starred opposite Mary Martin in the 1963 flop Jennie.  While appearing in The Most Happy Fella at the Long Beach Community Music Theatre (a theatre company competing with Long Beach Civic Light Opera) in 1963, Wallace met Jane A. Johnston, whom he later married. The couple later appeared together in road company productions of Company, Kiss Me, Kate, and Funny Girl.  Wallace died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from injuries he sustained during a fall while on vacation in Pisa, Italy.  He was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.