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Peck
died at his Los Angeles home overnight, with his wife,
Veronique, at his side, Monroe Friedman said.
'She told me very briefly that he died peacefully.
She was with him, holding his hand, and he just went
to sleep. He had just been getting older and more
fragile. He wasn't really ill. He just sort of ran
his course and died of old age'.
Peck's craggy good looks, grace, class and impeccable
diction contributed to his screen image as the decent,
courageous man of action. From his film debut in 1944
with 'Days of Glory', he was every inch the definition
of a movie star. He was nominated for an Oscar five
times, and his range of roles was wide and varied.
He portrayed a priest in 'Keys of the Kingdom', combat
heroes in 'Twelve O'Clock High' and 'Pork Chop Hill',
Westerners in 'Yellow Sky' and 'The Gunfighter', a
romantic in 'Roman Holiday'.
His commanding presence suited him for legendary characters:
King David in 'David and Bathsheba', sea captains
in 'Captain Horatio Hornblower' and 'Moby Dick', F.
Scott Fitzgerald in 'Beloved Infidel', the war leader
'MacArthur', and Abraham Lincoln in the TV miniseries
'The Blue and the Grey'.
Peck's rare attempts at unsympathetic roles were not
universally greated with acclaim. He played the renegade
son in the Western 'Duel in the Sun' and the infamous
Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in 'The Boys from Brazil'.
Off-screen as well as on, Peck conveyed a quiet dignity.
He had one amicable divorce, and scandal never touched
him. He served as president of the Motion Picture
Academy and was active in the Motion Picture and Television
Fund, American Cancer Society, National Endowment
for the Arts and other causes.
'I'm not a do-gooder', he insisted after learning
of the Academy's Jean Hersholt humanitarian award
in 1968. 'It embarrassed me to be classified as a
humanitarian. I simply take part in activities that
I believe in'.
During his first five years in films, Peck scored
four Academy Award nominations as best actor: 'Keys
of the Kingdom' (1944), 'The Yearling' (1946), 'Gentleman's
Agreement' (1947), 'Twelve O'Clock High' (1949).
'Gentleman's Agreement', in which he played a magazine
writer who poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism,
was considered a daring film in its time. Peck commented
in 1971 that his agent cautioned him: 'You're just
establishing yourself, and a lot of people will resent
the picture. Anti-Semitism runs very deep in this
country'.
Peck ignored his advice. 'Gentleman's Agreement' proved
a moneymaker and won the Oscar as best picture.
The actor listed 'Gentleman's Agreement' among his
favorites of his movies. The others: the sea adventure
'Captain Horatio Hornblower'; 'Roman Holiday' in which
he played a reporter to Audrey Hepburn's princess;
'The Guns of Navarone' ('good, all-out entertainment,
though it's really a comedy'); and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
- for which he won the 1962 Oscar as best actor. He
played Atticus Finch, a small-town Southern lawyer
who defies public sentiment to defend a black man
accused of rape.
'I put everything I had into it - all my feelings
and everything I'd learned in 46 years of living,
about family life and fathers and children', he remarked
in 1989. 'And my feelings about racial justice and
inequality and opportunity'.
In 2003, an American Film Institute listing of the
top heroes in film history ranked Peck's Finch as
No. 1.
'I think Gregory Peck's whole career was defined by
that film, because he was the classic, quintessential
American hero - a fellow who puts to hazard his whole
future in order to do something he believes is right
to do', said Jack Valenti, president and chief executive
officer of the Motion Picture Association of America.
In his 60s and 70s, movie roles grew sparse. He appeared
as a U.S. president in 'Amazing Grace and Chuck' (1987),
maverick author Ambrose Bierce in 'Old Gringo' (1989)
and as a humane company owner victimized by a hostile
takeover in 'Other People's Money' (1991).
In 1993 he starred in a made-for-TV movie, 'The Portrait',
with Lauren Bacall, his co-star of 'Designing Woman'
(1957), and his daughter Cecilia.
A 1998 TV miniseries version of 'Moby Dick' cast Peck
in the small role of the preacher Father Mapple. He
had played the protagonist, Ahab, in the 1956 film
version.
'I'm working as much as I like', he commented in 1989.
'I don't want to do, if I can avoid it, anything mediocre.
It's kind of unseemly at my age to come out in a turkey'.
Peck's lonely, disjointed childhood was the kind that
often contributes to the making of actors. He was
born Eldred Gregory Peck on April 5, 1916, in La Jolla,
Calif. 'My mother had found `Eldred' in a phone book,
and I was stuck with it', he said.
The mother was a lively Missourian, the father was
a quiet druggist, son of an Irish immigrant mother.
His parents divorced when their son was 6. His next
two years were divided between them, then he spent
two years with his maternal grandmother in La Jolla.
At 10 he was shipped off to a Roman Catholic military
academy in Los Angeles where he was indoctrinated
by 'tough Irish nuns and square-jawed ROTC officers'.
Peck majored in English at the University of California
at Berkeley and rowed on the crew. One day he was
accosted by the director of the campus little theater
who said he was looking for a tall actor for an adaptation
of 'Moby Dick'.
'I don't know why I said yes', he recalled in a 1989
interview. 'I guess I was fearless, and it seemed
like it might be fun. I wasn't any good, but I ended
up doing five plays my last year in college'.
Dropping the name of Eldred, he headed for New York
after graduation with $195 in his pocket. He studied
with Sanford Meisner and Martha Graham, worked as
a barker at the 1939 World's Fair and as a tour guide
at NBC. After summer stock and a tour with Katherine
Cornell in 'The Doctor's Dilemma', he made his Broadway
debut as the lead in Emlyn Williams' 'Morning Star'.
A half-century later he remembered opening night:
'In the dressing room I gave myself a kick and said,
`Get out there!' I was jittery for the first five
minutes, and then I wasn't jittery anymore. You can
die up there and say, `Call it off, give 'em their
money back and let 'em go home'. Or you can collect
yourself and do it'.
The play flopped, but Peck's performance brought interest
from Hollywood. He accepted a modest film, 'Days of
Glory', a story of Russian peasants during the Nazi
invasion, mostly to use the $10,000 salary to pay
off his dentist and other creditors. Then Darryl Zanuck
offered him 'Keys of the Kingdom'.
Soon Peck was under non-exclusive contracts to four
studios; he refused an exclusive pact with MGM despite
Louis B. Mayer's tearful pleading. With most of the
male stars absent in the war, the studios desperately
needed strong leading men. Peck was exempt from service
because of an old back injury.
A Roosevelt New Dealer, Peck campaigned for Harry
Truman in 1948 'at a time when nobody thought he had
a chance to win'. He continued championing liberal
causes, producing an anti-Vietnam War film in 1972,
'The Trial of the Catonsville Nine' and helping the
campaign against the nomination of Robert Bork to
the Supreme Court in 1987.
Rumors arose periodically that Peck planned to run
for office. They started when Ronald Reagan defeated
Edmund G. 'Pat' Brown for governor of California in
1966. Brown cracked: 'If they're going to run actors
for governor, maybe the Democrats should have run
Greg Peck'.
'I never gave a thought to running', Peck always replied.
'Not even in my heart of hearts do I have an ambition
to do that'.
Peck married his first wife, Greta, in 1942 and they
had three sons, Jonathan, Stephen and Carey. Jonathan,
a TV reporter, committed suicide at the age of 30.
After their divorce in 1954, he married Veronique
Passani, a Paris reporter. They had two children,
Anthony and Cecilia, both actors.
The films of Gregory Peck
"Days of Glory," 1944
"The Keys of the Kingdom," 1945
"The Valley of Decision," 1945
"Spellbound," 1945
"The Yearling," 1946
"The Macomber Affair," 1947
"Duel in the Sun," 1947
"Gentleman's Agreement," 1947
"The Paradine Case," 1948
"Yellow Sky," 1948
"The Great Sinner," 1949
"Twelve O'Clock High," 1950
"The Gunfighter," 1950
"Only the Valiant," 1951
"David and Bathsheba," 1951
"Captain Horatio Hornblower," 1951
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro," 1952
"The World in His Arms," 1952
"Roman Holiday," 1953
"Night People," 1954
"The Million"Pound Note" or "Man With a Million,"
1954
"The Purple Plain," 1954
"The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," 1956
"Moby Dick," 1956
"Designing Woman," 1957
"The Bravados," 1958
"The Big Country," 1958
"Pork Chop Hill," 1959
"Beloved Infidel," 1959
"On the Beach," 1959
"The Guns of Navarone," 1961
"To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962
"Cape Fear," 1962
"How the West Was Won," 1962
"Captain Newman M.D.," 1964
"Behold a Pale Horse," 1964
"Mirage," 1965
"Arabesque," 1966
"The Stalking Moon," 1969
"Mackenna's Gold," 1969
"The Chairman" or "The Most Dangerous Man in the World,"
1969
"Marooned," 1969
"I Walk the Line," 1970
"Shoot"Out," 1971
"Billy Two Hats," 1974
"The Omen," 1976
"MacArthur," 1977
"The Boys from Brazil," 1978
"The Sea Wolves," 1980
"Amazing Grace and Chuck," 1987
"Old Gringo," 1989
"Other People's Money," 1991
"Cape Fear," 1991
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