Gregory Peck on screen, stage, and radio

A black and white photograph of Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Peck as Atticus Finch in a publicity photo for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
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Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck (1916–2003)[1] was an American actor who had an extensive career in film, television, radio, and on stage. Peck's breakthrough role was as a Catholic priest who attempts to start a mission in China in the 1944 film The Keys of the Kingdom, for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.[2][3] In the same year, he played Count Vronsky in a radio adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. He followed this by starring in Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller Spellbound (1945) with Ingrid Bergman. In the late 1940s, Peck received three more nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles as a caring father in The Yearling (1946), a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to write an exposé on American antisemitism in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and a brave airman in Twelve O'Clock High (1949).[4][5][6]

Peck co-founded the theatre company La Jolla Playhouse in 1947 with Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer. He starred in productions of Angel Street and The Male Animal for the company.[7] In 1951, he played Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower in the eponymous film, David in the biblical epic David and Bathsheba with Susan Hayward, and a soldier in the western Only the Valiant with Barbara Payton. Two years later, Peck appeared as a journalist who falls in love with a princess in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953) with Audrey Hepburn. During the late 1950s, he portrayed Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (1956), war hero Joseph G. Clemons in Pork Chop Hill (1959), and writer F. Scott Fitzgerald in Beloved Infidel (1959).

He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Atticus Finch, a lawyer attempting to exonerate a black man wrongly accused of rape in courtroom drama To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).[8] The role topped the AFI's 50 Greatest Screen Heroes.[9] Seven years later, he appeared in the title role of the western Mackenna's Gold, and as a spy in The Chairman. In the late 1970s, Peck played General Douglas MacArthur in the eponymous 1977 film and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978).

Peck made his television debut in 1982 by appearing as President Abraham Lincoln in the miniseries The Blue and the Gray.[7] He followed this with the television film The Scarlet and the Black where he portrayed Catholic priest Hugh O'Flaherty who helped Jews and prisoners of war to hide in World War II-era Rome.[10] For his appearance as Father Mapple in the 1998 miniseries Moby Dick, he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy.[11][12]

  1. ^ Grimes, William (June 12, 2003). "Gregory Peck, a Star of Quiet Dignity, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 22, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  2. ^ Haney 2005, p. 105.
  3. ^ "The 18th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on December 15, 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  4. ^ "The 19th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  5. ^ "The 20th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  6. ^ "The 22nd Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  7. ^ a b Bergan, Ronald (June 14, 2003). "Gregory Peck obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 26, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  8. ^ "The 35th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on November 1, 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  9. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  10. ^ Murphy, Patricia (August 23, 2018). "Msgr Hugh O'Flaherty, the most remarkable Irish cleric you've never heard of". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  11. ^ "Gregory Peck". Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  12. ^ "Moby Dick". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on February 24, 2020. Retrieved February 23, 2020.