A pharmacist’s son, Gregory Peck attended military school and San Diego State College before enrolling as a premed student at the University of California at Berkeley. There he developed a taste for acting, and upon graduation he headed to New York, where he studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and supported himself as an usher at Radio City Music Hall and as a concession barker at the 1939 World’s Fair. He made his Broadway debut in The Morning Star (1942), the first of three consecutive flops in which he appeared, although critics liked Peck’s performances.
Invited to Hollywood, Peck made his first film appearance as a Russian guerrilla fighter in Days of Glory (1944). Because of an earlier spinal injury, he was unable to serve in World War II. This circumstance enabled him to emerge as one of the most popular leading men of the 1940s. He earned his first Academy Award nomination for his performance as an idealistic missionary priest in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), and three years later he received a second Oscar nomination for his interpretation of a journalist who poses as a Jew in order to expose anti-Semitism in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947). Peck’s other notable films from this decade include The Valley of Decision (1945), Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Yearling (1946), and Yellow Sky (1948).
Although Peck worked with most of the major Hollywood directors of the day, including Hitchcock, King Vidor, William Wellman, William Wyler, Vincente Minnelli, and Lewis Milestone, he did some of his finest work for Henry King. In King’s Twelve O’Clock High (1949), The Gunfighter (1950), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Bravados (1958), and Beloved Infidel (1959), Peck portrayed outwardly strong and authoritative individuals whose inner demons and character flaws threaten to destroy them. He was finally honoured with an Academy Award for his performance as the ethical and compassionate Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). His subsequent screen roles included an anguished father in the popular horror film The Omen (1976), the titular American general in MacArthur (1977), and a rare villainous turn as Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978).
Throughout his career, Peck received the most praise for his portrayals of stoical men motivated by a quest for decency and justice. He was also widely admired and respected as one of the motion picture industry’s most cooperative and least egotistical stars. Outside of his film work, he was tirelessly active in civic, charitable, and political causes. He served as chairman of the American Cancer Society and of the trustee board of the American Film Institute (which he cofounded), and for three years he was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and in 1969, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Always politically liberal, Peck was active in causes dealing with charities, politics or the film industry. He died in June 2003, aged 87.
He was voted the 27th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine, and named the 12th greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends list by the American Film Institute. His character from To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, was voted the greatest screen hero of all time by the American Film Institute in May 2003, only two weeks before his death (beating out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third).
The Keys to the Kingdom
Spellbound
Duel in the Sun
Gentleman's Agreement
The Paradine Case
Yellow Sky
Twelve O'Clock High
Captain Horatio Hornblower
Only the Valiant
Roman Holiday
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Moby Dick
Designing Woman
The Big Country
continued on next page
Invited to Hollywood, Peck made his first film appearance as a Russian guerrilla fighter in Days of Glory (1944). Because of an earlier spinal injury, he was unable to serve in World War II. This circumstance enabled him to emerge as one of the most popular leading men of the 1940s. He earned his first Academy Award nomination for his performance as an idealistic missionary priest in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), and three years later he received a second Oscar nomination for his interpretation of a journalist who poses as a Jew in order to expose anti-Semitism in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947). Peck’s other notable films from this decade include The Valley of Decision (1945), Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Yearling (1946), and Yellow Sky (1948).
Although Peck worked with most of the major Hollywood directors of the day, including Hitchcock, King Vidor, William Wellman, William Wyler, Vincente Minnelli, and Lewis Milestone, he did some of his finest work for Henry King. In King’s Twelve O’Clock High (1949), The Gunfighter (1950), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Bravados (1958), and Beloved Infidel (1959), Peck portrayed outwardly strong and authoritative individuals whose inner demons and character flaws threaten to destroy them. He was finally honoured with an Academy Award for his performance as the ethical and compassionate Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). His subsequent screen roles included an anguished father in the popular horror film The Omen (1976), the titular American general in MacArthur (1977), and a rare villainous turn as Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978).
Throughout his career, Peck received the most praise for his portrayals of stoical men motivated by a quest for decency and justice. He was also widely admired and respected as one of the motion picture industry’s most cooperative and least egotistical stars. Outside of his film work, he was tirelessly active in civic, charitable, and political causes. He served as chairman of the American Cancer Society and of the trustee board of the American Film Institute (which he cofounded), and for three years he was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and in 1969, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Always politically liberal, Peck was active in causes dealing with charities, politics or the film industry. He died in June 2003, aged 87.
He was voted the 27th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine, and named the 12th greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends list by the American Film Institute. His character from To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, was voted the greatest screen hero of all time by the American Film Institute in May 2003, only two weeks before his death (beating out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third).
The Keys to the Kingdom
Spellbound
Duel in the Sun
Gentleman's Agreement
The Paradine Case
Yellow Sky
Twelve O'Clock High
Captain Horatio Hornblower
Only the Valiant
Roman Holiday
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Moby Dick
Designing Woman
The Big Country
continued on next page
.
Man he was sexy in those glasses!
