George Peppard

George Peppard (Detroit, October 1, 1928 - Los Angeles, May 8, 1994) was an American film and television actor.

Biography

George Peppard Jr. was born on October 1, 1928, in Detroit, Michigan, the son of building contractor George Peppard and opera singer Vernelle Rohrer.

After finishing high school he did his military service in the naval artillery. Peppard enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in July 1946, reaching the rank of corporal. He began his civil engineering studies at Purdue University, possibly with the intention of working in the family business.

He alternated his studies with jobs as a taxi driver, a bank employee and a motorcycle mechanic. He then transferred to the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1955.

He enrolled in Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University the same year his father passed away, leaving an unfinished construction project that George finished.

After college, he studied at the Actor's Studio acting school in New York.

Artistic career

After completing his training, he began working in television films and in the theater. His first television appearance of his was in 1956 with The United States Steel Hour, accompanied by a young man named Paul Newman. A few years later he would perform the play The Pleasure of His Company which would earn him a contract with MGM. His first film for the cinema was made in 1957, in which he repeated a role that he had already played on Broadway.

His popularity grew in his subsequent films, especially when he took part in Scandal came with him (1960) alongside Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker and George Hamilton; and he reached his peak thanks to Breakfast at Tiffany's ( Breakfast at Tiffany's , 1961) with Audrey Hepburn. His subsequent films were also successful, especially The Insatiables (1964), co-starring Alan Ladd and Tobruk in 1967.

However, his career began to decline due to his alcoholism and difficult personality. He began to be less requested by producers and studios, so that he had to intervene in films of lesser interest. The television series Banacek (1972-1973) made him an admired actor for a while, but his film career continued to decline. In 1978 he made his directorial debut with Five Days From Home , a film that was well received. However, Peppard was not interested in repeating the experience. He devoted himself mainly to movies and television series as he saw that his film career was coming to an end.

He once again achieved considerable success with the series The A-Team (called El equipo A in Spain and Los Magníficos or < i>Brigada A in Latin America) with Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz, a production that made him very popular in all the countries that broadcast it. Five seasons of it were recorded in the period 1983-87, with a total of 98 episodes.

Because he was a heavy smoker, Peppard was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992, though that wouldn't stop him from continuing acting, having completed the pilot episode for a new series in the works.

Private life

Married five times, he had three children -two from his first marriage and one from his second. One of his wives was Elizabeth Ashley, whom he met in The Insatiables .

A chain smoker and given to drinking, he spent his last years in rehab with other alcoholics for his recovery. When he was 60 years old, he fell ill with lung cancer that forced him to retire from show business and which caused his death —specifically from complications arising from the treatment of said disease— at the age of 65. On May 8, 1994, Peppard died in Los Angeles, California due to respiratory complications, two days after being admitted to the hospital.

Filmography

• The Tigress (1992)
• Night of the Fox (1990)
• Ultra Warrior (1990)
• Labyrinth in the city of Los Angeles (1988)
• Team A (1983-87)
• Playing with Death (1982)
• Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981)
• Your Ticket Is No Longer Valid (1981)
• Battle Beyond the Stars(1980)
• From Hell to Victory (1979)
• Five Days from Home (1979)
• Doctors' Hospital (1975-76)
• Mid-Air Crash (TV) (1975)
• Newman's Law (1974)
• Infernal alley♪Damnation Alley (1977) (1973))
• Banacek (TV) (1972-74)
• The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972)
• One More Train to Rob (1971)
• Cannons for Cordoba (1970)
• The Executioner (1970)
• Pendulum (1969)
• Castle of cards (1968)
• What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968)
• P.J. (1968)
• Rough Night in Jericho (1967)
• Tobruk (1967)
• The Blue Max (1966)
• The Third Day (1965)
• Operation Crossbow (1965)
• The insatiable (1964)
• The Victors (1963)
• The Conquest of the West (1962)
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
• The Subterraneans (1960)
• With him came the scandal (1960)
• Pork Chop Hill (1959)
• The Strange One (1957)

Television

• Kraft Television Theatre (1956-1957, Peppard appears in the episodes The Long Flight and Flying Object at Three O'Clock High)
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1957, on the role of Evan Wallace, episode The Diplomatic Corpse)
• Banacek (1972-1974, on the role of researcher Thomas Banacek)
• The A-Team (1983-1987, on Col's role. John "Hannibal" Smith)