Who was Gregory Peck?

Gregory Peck was a versatile, award-winning American film and stage actor. His career spans over 50 years of his life.He was a legendary actor who began his acting career in the 1940s and continued through the 1990s. He was one of the most popular and respected Hollywood actor of Hollywood’s Golden Age. He starred in many multiple roles such as romance, drama, Westerns,thrillers, horror etc. He is best known for his role as Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, into a family of pharmacists. His original name was Eldred Gregory Peck. His parents, Bernice “Bunny” Mae and Gregory Pearl Peck , divorced when he was six years old and lived with his maternal grandmother in La Jolla.

Education

Peck attended the Military Academy in St. Johns in Los Angeles when he was ten years old. He graduated from San Diego High School in 1933 and, later transferred to the University of California, Berkeley. His father’s wanted him to become a doctor however Peck did not interest much in pursuing medical school. After graduating, he took a year-long course in acting and public speaking at San Diego State Teachers College.

Acting Career of Gregory Peck

He became interested in acting while attending the University of California, Berkeley, and later move to New York to further his interest. Before he made his first professional debut in 1942 in Emlyn Williams’s play Morningstar, he played small roles in short-run travelling shows. His first film was poorly received by audiences.

His fame rose when he played a Russian guerrilla warrior in his first Hollywood film Days of Glory in 1944. His acting career continued to thrive when he played missionary priest Father Francis Chisholm in 1946’s The Keys of the Kingdom. It earned him his first Oscar nomination, earned him critical acclaim for his acting, and his career began to blossom.1946 he starred in Duel in the Sun of King Vidor. Peck was nominated for a second Oscar for his performance as a Civil War veteran in The Yearling (1946).

In 1948, came Gentlemen’s Agreement in which Peck, who played Philip Schuyler Green , was nominated for Best Actor. The film was also nominated for Best picture. With his exceptional talent and burly good looks, Peck quickly established himself as one of the leading figures of his era. In many other notable films of the 1940s and 50s his most memorable work from this period was Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) and World War II feature film Twelve O’Clock High (1949) – for which he was nominated for his fourth Oscar.

Over the next few years, he continued to appear in important and successful films such as the The Gunfighter in 1950, romantic comedy Roman Holiday in 1953 with Audrey Hepburn in her debut . In Roman Holiday, Hepburn plays an English Princess, Ann, tired of her work and her tight schedule,  runs away from work one night. Joe Bradley, an American newsman, played by Gregory Peck makes her acquaintance and pretends not to know her identity. He guides her on an unforgettable day around Rome.

Played Ahab in 1956’s Moby Dick, and brought the world’s terrors and nuclear war to the screen in 1959’s On the Beach and in 1961 also The Gun of Navarone. There were also many other notable films throughout his long career. After several Best Actor nominations, Peck finally won an Oscar in To “Kill a Mockingbird”. It was  released at the height of the US Civil Rights Movement in 1962, the role played by Peck will forever remain classic.

Height Weight and Zodiac sign of Gregory Peck

How tall was Gregory Peck?

Gregory Peck was 6 ft 3 in (190 cm) tall

Photos of Gregory Peck

Oscar Awards and Other Honours

The award, commonly known as the Oscar, is a prestigious award that recognizes artistic and technical achievement in the film industry. It is awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Gregory Peck has been nominated five times for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. However he won  only once for his role  in To Kill a Mockingbird (1963).

1945 The Keys of the Kingdom-Nominated 
1946 The Yearling – Nominated 
1947 Gentleman’s Agreement – Nominated 
1949 Twelve O’Clock High – Nominated 
1962 To Kill a Mockingbird -Won 

Peck has also received several lifetime achievement awards, including the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award. Peck won his only Emmy Award for his performance in Moby Dick. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Peck as one of the greatest male stars of all time, ranking him 12th.

For his humanitarian and political work Peck has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts by the United States government for his achievements in entertainment.

Gregory Peck spouse

Peck married twice firstly to Finnish-born Greta Kukkonen and second to Véronique Passani. Peck married his first wife Greta Kukkonen in October 1942. The couple had three sons together-Jonathan, Stephen and Carey Pau.They were divorced in December 1955.Peck’s eldest son was found dead in his home on June 26, 1975. During his first marriage, Peck confessed in a 1987 interview, he had an affair with Spellbound co-star Ingrid Bergman.

Peck married second time with Véronique Passani On New Year’s Eve in 1955, the day after his divorce with Greta Kukkonen was final. She was a Paris news reporter who had interviewed Peck in 1952 before he went to Italy to film Roman Holiday. He fell in love with her when she interviewed him. They had one son- Anthony Peck, and one daughter, Cecilia Peck. They were together until Peck’s death. Gregory Peck passed away at the age of 87, on June 12th, 2003,from a bronchial ailment while asleep at his home in Los Angeles.

Top movies of Gregory Peck 

• Spellbound (1945)

Gregory Peck and Alfred Hitchcock worked together in only two films, A Case for Paladins and spellbound. spellbound was based on the 1927 novel The House of Edwards by Dr. Hilary St. George Saunders and John Palmer. Starred by Peck along with Ingrid Bergman and Produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is about a psychiatrist who protects the identity of an amnesiac patient accused of murder while trying to regain his memory. The film was a commercial and critical success. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Hitchcock’s first Oscar nomination for Best Director.

The Guns of Navarone(1961)

Directed by J. Lee Thompson,Produced and written by Carl Foreman, Starred by Gregory Peck as Mallory, Anthony Quinn as Andrea, David Niven as Miller, Stanley Baker as Brown,

Anthony Quayle as Franklin, James Darren as Pappadimos.
The film was based on Scottish author Alistair MacLean novel of the same name.

Plot-A small group of Allied soldiers sent on a seemingly impossible mission to a Nazi-controlled Island of Kheros in Greece. Their mission was to detonate two giant Nazi weapons so that they can rescue passing Allied ships and 2,000 trapped British soldiers. The mission was led by Gregory Peck. The film was an enormous success, receiving seven 1961 Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and winning for Best Special Effects.

Yearling (1946)

The Yearling, directed by Clarence Brown, produced by Sidney Franklin, is an American Family Western film. The film was adapted from the 1938 novel of the same name of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s. The novel awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1939.

The film stars Gregory Peck as Ezra “Penny” Baxter, Jane Wyman as Orry Baxter, Claude Jarman Jr. as Jody Baxter., Chill Wills as Buck Forrester, and Forrest Tucker as Lem Forrester. The film was set in post-Civil War era Florida, it centers on a young boy (Claude Jarman Jr.) who forms a bond with a fawn. He convinces his parents to take the fawn as a pet and raise on their farm, but they has to kill the fawn when it begins to eat their poverty-stricken family’s crops. Gregory Peck was cast as the father and Jane Wyman as the mother. The film received a number of Academy Award nominations, including best picture.

To kill a mocking bird (1962)

The film was based on the novel Written by: Harper Lee. The novel won the Putlizer Prize for fiction. The film  was produced by Alan J. Pakula and directed by Alan J. Pakula Robert Mulligan . Starring- Gregory Peck, John Megna and Frank Overton.

Plot-The film discusses social issues of United States of the 1930s- civil rights; racism ; effects of the mob mentality; perception; inconsistency of humanity; gender roles. Atticus, a widow lawyer, played by Peck strongly believes all people deserve fair treatment and defends a black man against a rape charge and his children against the prejudice. Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Fench, earned his only Oscar for acting. The film was selected for preservation in the National Fim Registry in 1995.

How The West Was Won(1963)

It is an epic American western film regarded as one of Hollywood’s greatest epic, starring multiple hollywood stars –       James Stewart (Linus Rawlings)
Debbie Reynolds (Lilith Prescott)
George Peppard (Zeb Rawlings)
Karl Malden (Zebulon Prescott)
Richard Widmark (Mike King)
Henry Fonda (Jethro Stuart)
John Wayne (Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman)
Gregory Peck (Cleve Van Valen)
SpencerTracy (Narrator)

It was directed by 3 famous directors- Henry Hathaway, John Ford and George Marshall and produced by Bernard Smith.

Plot-The film starts with a story, How the West was Won, narrated by Spencer Tracy. The story tells a multi-generational movement of a family-Prescott from the East to the west, Covering a fifty year period from 1839 – 1889 and their challenges in the untamed West. The film contained five sections providing the bridge between each time period. : the 1830s river- migration, the 1840s plain- gold rush, the Civil War, the construction of the railroad and the “outlaws of the untamed Wild West. The film was nominated  eight Academy Awards and won three: Best story and screenplay( written directly for screen ), Best sound and Best Editing.

Net Worth of Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck was one of the richest actor  of Golden Age of Hollywood who had a net worth of $40 million.

When did Gregory Peck died?

Gregory Peck left the world on June 12, 2003 at the age of 87. He died from  bronchial ailment while asleep at his home in Los Angeles. His second wife, Veronique, was by his side at the time of his death.

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