Gregory Peck

Eldred Gregory Peck, known as Gregory Peck (La Jolla, San Diego, April 5, 1916-Los Angeles, June 12, 2003), was a American actor. For his performance as Atticus Finch in the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) he won the Oscar for best actor.

Peck also received Oscar nominations for his performances in The Keys to the Kingdom (1944), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (The Invisible Barrier, 1947) and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States, awarded Peck the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck one of Hollywood's Greatest Actors.

Early Years

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in San Diego, California, in the midst of the La Jolla community, the son of Gregory Pearl Peck, a pharmacist of Armenian-Irish descent, and Bernice Mae Ayres, of Irish-Armenian descent. Scottish. Peck's father was Catholic and his mother converted to Catholicism after they were married. Despite a strict life centered on Catholicism, his parents divorced when he was still very young and his childhood was spent in the company of his grandmother, a great movie fan who took him to see movies every weeks.

When he was 10 years old he was sent to a Catholic military school, Saint John's Military Academy in Los Angeles. When he was studying at this academy, his grandmother passed away. At the age of 14 he went to live in San Diego with his father, studying at the San Diego High School.

From a pharmacist father, he set out to study medicine, but abandoned the idea at the University of Berkeley, when he discovered his vocation for acting in the college theater group. He went to act and study acting in New York, at the famous Neighborhood Playhouse. In 1941 he made his stage debut, on Broadway, with works such as The Morning Star or The Willow and I .

Peck (on the right) with his father, c. 1930

Peck's parents divorced when he was five years old, and he was raised by his maternal grandmother, who took him to the movies every week. At the age of 10, he was sent to a Catholic military school, the San Juan Military Academy in Los Angeles. While he was studying there, his grandmother died. At age 14, he returned to San Diego to live with his father. He studied at San Diego High School, and, after graduating in 1934, enrolled for a year at the San Diego State Normal School (now known as San Diego State University). There he joined the track team, took his first courses in theater and speech, and joined the Epsilon Eta fraternity. Peck had ambitions to be a doctor, and later transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, as an English major and pre-med. Standing 6 ft 3 in (1.9 m), he rowed in the college crew. Although tuition was only $26 a year, Peck still had trouble paying it and took a job as a hasher at the school. (kitchen helper) for the Gamma Phi Beta in exchange for meals.

At Berkeley, Peck's deep, well-modulated voice caught his attention, and after taking a public speaking course, he decided to try acting. He was encouraged by an acting teacher, who saw in him the perfect material for university theater, and he became increasingly interested in acting. He was recruited by Edwin Duerr, director of the university's Little Theater, and acted in five plays during his senior year, including the role of Starbuck in Moby Dick. Peck later said of his years at Berkeley that it "was a very special experience for me and three of the best years of my life." He woke me up and made me a human being.” In 1996, Peck donated $25,000 to the Berkeley rowing crew in honor of his coach, the well-known Ky Ebright.

Film career

Gregory Peck in the trailer Holidays in Rome

In 1944, he left the stage to focus his career on cinema. Her film debut came with Days of Glory (1944), a film directed by French-American director Jacques Tourneur. Glory Days is a strange and remarkable war film, and he plays a Russian in the midst of Russians (it was the time of war collaboration with the USSR).

Success came with his second film, The Keys to the Kingdom (1944), by the great director John M. Stahl, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for the first time.

In 1945, Alfred Hitchcock entrusted him with the leading role of Spellbound (known as Remember in Spain, Cuéntame tu vida in Argentina, i>Hechizado in Mexico), co-starring Ingrid Bergman; then I would do with it The Paradine Trial. And he moved viewers in the passionate and tragic final scene of the Western drama, King Vidor's Duel in the Sun (1947), with Jennifer Jones.

He was considered an actor of limited versatility, but very sober and effective in the roles that suited him, owner of a solid stage presence and undeniable masculine appeal, whose main characteristic was the remarkable expression of his grim gaze with which he highlighted his characters. He was involved in westerns, comedies, war movies, romantic movies, and costumbristas, etc.

Some of the titles of the films he starred in are: The Invisible Barrier (1947), by Elia Kazan; Yellow Sky (1948), by William A. Wellman; David and Bathsheba (1951) with Susan Hayward; The World in His Hands (1952) with Anthony Quinn; Roman Holidays (1953) and Horizons of Greatness (1958), both by William Wyler, where he rubbed shoulders with Audrey Hepburn and Jean Simmons, respectively, The Bravados (1958) with Joan Collins and The Final Hour (1959) with Ava Gardner.

Then he participated in the blockbuster How the West Was Won (1962) and had leading roles in films such as: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), for which he won a Oscar; Arabesque (1966) with Sophia Loren; Mackenna's Gold (1969); I watch the way (1970); The Prophecy (1976) with Lee Remick; Los niños del Brasil (1978) with Lawrence Olivier and James Mason, and finally in The Scarlet and the Black (1983) and in Old Gringo (1989) with Jane Fonda. In 1982, he gave a remarkable characterization of Abraham Lincoln in the television series The Blue and the Gray.

One of his most accomplished performances and perhaps the most remembered was that of the intricate Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, directed by John Huston in 1956 and his other acting milestone was giving life to General Mac Arthur, in the film The Rebel General (MacArthur) (1977), directed by Joseph Sargent. He maintained a long standing status as a Hollywood star through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, beginning his artistic decline in the 1970s. However, he was one of the few actors of classic Hollywood cinema who remained active until the end of the XX century.

Private life

Gregory Peck in 2000.

Gregory Peck's tomb at Our Lady of Angels Cathedral.

He maintained a close friendship with the actress Audrey Hepburn (along with whom he collaborated in humanitarian tasks), had an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the filming of the film Spellbound and cultivated an image of a discreet man, correct and upright in all his public life.

In 1942, he married Greta Kukkonen, a Finnish hairdresser who worked at the film studios. He had three children with her, but he ended up divorcing her in 1955 to remarry French journalist Véronique Passani. He could never fully get over the divorce of his parents and the suicide of his eldest son, Jonathan Peck (31 years old) that occurred in 1975.

He died in his sleep at home on June 12, 2003 at age 87 of bronchopneumonia, with his wife Véronique by his side. He was entombed in the mausoleum of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels; in the city of Los Angeles in California (USA). The eulogy of him was read by Brock Peters.

Social activity

In his last years he was closely linked to the cultural life of Los Angeles, leading one of the programs of the library of this city to promote reading. Peck was at the forefront of numerous charities and political movements. He chaired the American Cancer Society, the American Film Institute, and the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He opposed the Vietnam War and considered running to prevent Ronald Reagan's re-election as governor of California, but ultimately did not.

Filmography

Awards

Oscar Awards

BAFTA Awards

Cannes International Film Festival

San Sebastian International Film Festival