Peck, Gregory
PECK, Gregory
Nationality: American. Born: Eldred Gregory Peck in La Jolla, California, 5 April 1916. Education: Attended high school in San Diego; St. John's Military Academy, Los Angeles; San Diego State University; University of California, Berkeley, graduated 1939; Neighborhood Playhouse theater school, New York, under Sanford Meisner, two years. Family: Married: 1) Greta Konen, 1942 (divorced 1955), three children, one deceased; 2) Veronique Passani, 1955, son: the actor Tony Peck, daughter: the actress Cecilia Peck. Career: Worked as talker at World's Fair, New York, and guide at Radio City; 1940—acted at Barter Theatre, Abingdon, Virginia, and later at theaters in New York; 1943—film debut in Days of Glory; contract with David O. Selznick, and several other film companies; 1948—co-founder, La Jolla Playhouse; 1958—co-producer of film The Big Country; 1965—charter member of National Arts Council; 1967–69—chairman of the Board of Trustees, American Film Institute; 1982—in TV mini-series The Blue and the Gray, and as voice in Baseball, 1994; 1995—toured in one-man show A Conversation with Gregory Peck. Awards: Best Actor, New York Film Critics, for Twelve O'Clock High, 1949; Best Actor Academy Award, for To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962; Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, 1967; Life Achievement Award, American Film Institute, 1989. Agent: Mike Simpson, William Morris Agency, 151 El Camino Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, U.S.A.
Films as Actor:
- 1943
Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur) (as Vladimir)
- 1944
Keys of the Kingdom (Stahl) (as Father Francis Chisholm)
- 1945
Spellbound (Hitchcock) (as John "J. B." Ballantine); The Valley of Decision (Garnett) (as Paul Scott)
- 1946
The Yearling (Brown) (as Pa Baxter); Duel in the Sun (King Vidor) (as Lewt McCanles)
- 1947
The Macomber Affair (Korda) (as Robert Wilson); Gentleman's Agreement (Kazan) (as Phil Green); The Paradine Case (Hitchcock) (as Anthony Keane)
- 1948
Yellow Sky (Wellman) (as Stretch)
- 1949
The Great Sinner (Siodmak) (as Fedja); Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King) (as Gen. Frank Savage)
- 1950
The Gunfighter (Henry King) (as Johnny Ringo)
- 1951
Captain Horatio Hornblower (Walsh) (title role); Only the Valiant (Gordon Douglas) (as Capt. Richard Lance)
- 1952
David and Bathsheba (Henry King) (as David); The World in His Arms (Walsh) (as Jonathan Clark); The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Henry King) (as Harry Street); Pictura (as narrator)
- 1953
Roman Holiday (Wyler) (as Joe Bradley); Night People (Johnson) (as Col. Steve Van Dyke)
- 1955
The Purple Plain (Parrish) (as Forrester); The Million Pound Note (Man with a Million) (Neame) (as Jerry Adams)
- 1956
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (Johnson) (as Tom Rath); Moby Dick (Huston) (as Capt. Ahab)
- 1957
Designing Woman (Minnelli) (as Mike Hagen)
- 1958
The Bravados (Henry King) (as Jim Douglass)
- 1959
Pork Chop Hill (Milestone) (as Lt. Joe Clemons); Beloved Infidel (Henry King) (as F. Scott Fitzgerald); On the Beach (Kramer) (as Dwight Towers)
- 1961
The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson) (as Capt. Mallory)
- 1962
Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson) (as Sam Bowden); To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan) (as Atticus Finch)
- 1963
"The Plains" ep. of How the West Was Won (Hathaway) (as Cleve Van Valen); Captain Newman, M.D. (Miller) (title role)
- 1964
Behold a Pale Horse (Zinnemann) (as Manuel Artiguez)
- 1965
Mirage (Dmytryk) (as David Stillwell)
- 1966
Arabesque (Donen) (as David Pollock); John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums (Herschensohn) (as narrator)
- 1968
The Stalking Moon (Mulligan) (as Sam Varner)
- 1969
MacKenna's Gold (J. Lee Thompson) (as MacKenna); The Most Dangerous Man in the World (The Chairman) (J. Lee Thompson) (as Dr. John Hathaway); Marooned (John Sturges) (as Charles Keith)
- 1970
I Walk the Line (Frankenheimer) (as Sheriff Henry Tawes)
- 1971
Shootout (Hathaway) (as Clay Lomax)
- 1973
Billy Two Hats (Kotcheff) (as Deans)
- 1978
The Boys from Brazil (Schaffner) (as Dr. Josef Mengele)
- 1981
The Sea Wolves (McLaglen) (as Col. Lewis Pugh)
- 1983
The Scarlet and the Black (London—for TV) (as Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty)
- 1986
Directed by William Wyler (Slesin—doc) (as himself)
- 1987
Amazing Grace and Chuck (Silent Voice) (Newell) (as President)
- 1989
Old Gringo (Puenzo) (as Ambrose Bierce)
- 1991
Other People's Money (Jewison) (as Andrew Jorgenson); Cape Fear (Scorsese) (as Lee Heller)
- 1993
The Portrait (Arthur Penn—for TV) (as Gardner Church, + exec pr)
- 1995
Sinatra: 80 Years My Way (doc) (as himself)
- 1996
Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (Robinson—doc)
- 1998
Moby Dick (Roddam—for TV) (as Father Mapple)
- 1999
From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff (Keeve) (as Narrator)
Films as Producer:
- 1958
The Big Country (Wyler) (+ ro as James McKay)
- 1972
The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Davidson)
- 1974
The Dove (Jarrott)
- 1976
The Omen (Richard Donner) (+ ro as Robert Thorn)
- 1977
MacArthur (Sargent) (+ title role)
Publications
By PECK: book—
An Actor's Life, 1978.
By PECK: articles—
"Le Plus Beau Jour de notre vie," interview with Guy Braucourt, in Ecran (Paris), July-August 1972.
"Gregory Peck on The Trial of the Catonsville Nine," interview with G. Woodside, in Take One (Montreal), December 1972.
"Gregory Peck: He's the Man," interview with Ron Haver, in American Film (New York), March 1989.
On PECK: books—
Thomas, Tony, Gregory Peck, New York, 1977.
Freedland, Michael, Gregory Peck: A Biography, New York, 1980.
Griggs, John, The Films of Gregory Peck, Secaucus, New Jer-sey, 1984.
Molyneaux, Gerard, Gregory Peck: A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, Connecticut, 1995.
On PECK: articles—
Stein, J., "Gregory Peck," in Films in Review (New York), March 1967.
Films Illustrated (London), October 1980.
Haskell, Molly, "Gregory Peck," in The Movie Star, edited by Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981.
Buckley, Michael, "Gregory Peck," in Films in Review (New York), April and May 1984.
Clark, John, filmography in Premiere (New York), October 1989.
Current Biography 1992, New York, 1992.
Murphy, Kathleen, "The World Is in His Arms," in Film Comment (New York), March-April 1992.
Campbell, V., "Gregory Peck in 'To Kill a Mockingbird,"' in Movieline (Escondido), November 1994.
Denerstein, Robert, "A Class Act," in Rocky Mountain News (Den-ver), 18 September 1995.
Norman, Barry, "Peck: More Statesman Than Superstar," in Radio Times (London), 23 August 1997.
Stars (Mariembourg), no. 28, 1997.
* * *
When Gregory Peck was designated an enemy of the conservative Nixon establishment, it was as much a recognition of his role within the social symbolism of Hollywood films, as a reaction to his personal involvement with liberal causes. If James Stewart, in his work for Frank Capra, nostalgically embodies the populist image of the smalltown good citizen, Peck creates the figure of the decent and fairminded reformer or the fundamentally good man who rises to the moral demands of the occasion. Only rarely have other qualities of Peck's persona been explored, particularly the resentment and anger which his intensity suggests. It is in these uncharacteristic roles that he has done some of his most interesting as well as some of his worst acting.
After some experience with New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, Peck moved to Hollywood where, classified as 4-F, he worked steadily during the war. In his first role, as an Eastern front guerilla in Jacques Tourneur's Days of Glory, he demonstrated the requisite qualities of the versatile leading man. By the end of the 1940s Peck had established himself as both a commercial and critical success. He received Oscar nominations for Gentleman's Agreement—a perfect showcase for his intensity and aroused righteousness, The Yearling, and The Keys of the Kingdom. The acclaim however, was more for the likable persona Peck had created than for any demonstration of acting virtuosity.
In the 1950s and 1960s he played many similar roles, the apotheosis of his reformer character coming in To Kill a Mockingbird, a film in which Peck's humble and antiracist small-town lawyer is a successful mix of populist goodwill and political commitment. Less impressive versions of the same conscience-stricken character are to be found in Twelve O'Clock High, Captain Horatio Hornblower, and Pork Chop Hill.
Those roles that explore the dark side of his personality indicate both his virtues and limitations as an actor. In the Freudian Western Duel in the Sun he demonstrated early in his career that he could successfully evoke both sexual obsession and sociopathy. Performances in The Gunfighter, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Paradine Case, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro exhibited a very human frailty that was only glimpsed in his more optimistic roles. Peck's failure to portray adequately the complexities of a compulsive figure in such films as Moby Dick, MacArthur, and The Boys from Brazil indicates the limitations of his skill as an actor.
Peck, like many of the characters he played, has a social conscience. He has been involved in charitable, political, and film industry causes. In 1965, he became a member of the National Council on the Arts, then he was elected chairman of the American Cancer Society the following year. From 1967 to 1969, he was on the Board of Trustees of the American Film Institute. He served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Peck also received the Medal of Freedom and the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
—R. Barton Palmer, updated by Linda J. Stewart
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Peck, Gregory
Gregory Peck, 1916–2003, American movie actor, b. La Jolla, Calif., as Eldred Gregory Peck. Peck studied at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and debuted on Broadway in The Morning Star (1942) and in film in Days of Glory (1944). He achieved stardom in 1944 with his role in The Keys to the Kingdom and went on to become one of the screen's most enduring leading men. Tall and dark with a resonant baritone voice, Peck often portrayed characters who displayed quiet strength and nobility in the face of adversity, as he did most notably in his Academy Award–winning role of Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Among the many other movies in which he starred are Spellbound (1945), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Twelve O'Clock High (1949), The Gunfighter (1950), Roman Holiday (1953), Moby Dick (1956), On the Beach (1959), Cape Fear (1962, 1991), The Omen (1976), The Boys from Brazil (1978), and Old Gringo (1989). He appeared in several television productions in the 1980s and 90s. A prominent Hollywood liberal who was active in many charities, Peck also served as chairman (1967–69) of the American Film Institute and president (1967–70) of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
See biographies by M. Freedland (1980), G. Molyneaux (1995), G. Fishgall (2002), and L. Haney (2004); J. Griggs, The Films of Gregory Peck (1984, repr. 1988); Barbara Kopple, dir., A Conversation with Gregory Peck (documentary film, 1999).
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Peck, (Eldred) Gregory
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