World
Art Celebrities Journal Remembers...
GREGORY PECK: An actor who combined heroic style with liberal conviction
By Duncan
Campbell.
Photo: Roman
Holiday (1953).
Poster adornment to a
thousand student rooms, Roman Holiday was the film that sealed Gregory Peck in
Hollywood aspic as a romantic ideal. Tootling round Rome on a Vespa, wearing a
smart suit, and with Audrey Hepburn riding pillion as a rebellious princess
... that's how to live.
When there was talk earlier this year of the
Oscars being postponed because of the war in Iraq, there were many references
to a previous cancellation, in 1968, following the assassination of Martin
Luther King.
The then president of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, who announced the postponement, said that it was
"the only appropriate gesture of respect" and made it clear that a film awards
ceremony paled beside the tragedy of Dr King's death. The president was
Gregory Peck, whose espousal of liberal causes and opposition to racism and
anti-Semitism were reflected in a number of roles he played. Throughout his
life, he always stressed that his roles on screen were just parts that he
played and did not compare with the true heroics of such men as Dr King whom
he admired so much. Now he has died, aged 87, fellow members of the industry
around the world have paid tribute both to his body of work and his modest and
laconic style. Peck was already in his mid-20s when he finally decided to
embark on a career in acting. Born in southern California, in La Jolla, his
father was a pharmacist of Irish descent, who separated from his mother when
Peck was only six. He spent part of his childhood at a Roman Catholic military
academy. He graduated from San Diego state college and headed on to Berkeley
to study English. Having decided to try his luck on the stage, he moved east
and made his debut in The Morning Star by Emlyn Williams with the New York
Neighborhood Playhouse in 1942. Because of a spinal injury suffered as a
student during a rowing accident, Peck was excused military service and was
thus on hand when Hollywood needed to fill the gaps left by some of their
stars who had joined up.
It was his second
film, The Keys of the Kingdom, made in 1944, that was to turn him into a star.
He played the part of a Scottish priest - he always made much of his Celtic
background - working as a missionary in China. It drew Peck to the filmgoing
public's attention when he was nominated for an Oscar, the first of five
nominations. During the 1940s, Peck was active in organizations that were
sometimes later denounced as communist fronts. He was a member of the
Hollywood Democratic Committee, formed in 1943 to give backing to Roosevelt,
and his commitment to the liberal wing of the Democratic party remained.
One
of his more controversial roles was that of a journalist who pretends to be
Jewish to experience anti-Semitism first hand in the 1947 film, Gentleman's
Agreement. He took the role although his agent warned him: "You're just
establishing yourself and a lot of people will resent the picture.
Anti-Semitism runs deep in this country." It won Peck an Oscar nomination. It
was not
until his fifth nomination for To Kill A
Mockingbird, the 1962 film with which he is perhaps most closely associated,
that Peck was finally to win an Oscar. The film came at a time when equal
rights were still far from accepted in the southern states, and Peck always
said that he was proud to have played such a part as that of Atticus Finch,
who challenges the jury in the trial to face down racism. Some of his admirers
wanted him to run against Ronald Reagan when the latter ran for a second term
as governor of California but Peck made it clear that he would not welcome
that sort of a role, although he had often been involved in political
campaigns.
His acting
range was wide: from Captain Horatio Hornblower in the 1951 film of that name
to General Douglas MacArthur in MacArthur, and from the Nazi Josef Mengele in
The Boys from Brazil in 1978 to novelist F Scott Fitzgerald in Beloved Infidel
in 1959. His career was long enough to allow him to appear in two versions of
Moby Dick, more than 40 years apart, the second a television version in which
he had a cameo role. Other notable films included everything from The Guns of
Navarone to Arabesque, Cape Fear to The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.
His career included fewer dud films than many other actors of
his generation, not least because he was discerning about what sort of parts
he would take. Off-screen, he was active on both the arts and health issues.
He was at one time chairman of the American Cancer Society. In 1942, Peck
married his first wife, Greta. They had three children, Jonathan, a television
and radio journalist who committed suicide at 30, Stephen, and Carey. The
couple divorced in 1954. Peck then married Veronique Passani, a French
journalist. They had two children, Anthony and Cecilia.
End of the article.