Gregory Peck From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Gregory Peck

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Publicity photo of Peck, 1948 Born Eldred Gregory Peck April 5, 1916 La Jolla, California, U.S. June 12, 2003 (aged 87) Los Angeles, California, U.S. Bronchopneumonia Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, California, U.S. St. John's Military Academy San Diego High School San Diego State University University of California, Berkeley Actor, Humanitarian 19422000 San Diego, California, U.S.

Died Cause of death Resting place Residence Education Alma mater Occupation Years active Home town

Political party Religion Spouse(s) Children Family

Democrat Catholic Greta Kukkonen (194255; divorce) Veronique Passani (19552003; his death) 5; including Cecilia Peck Ethan Peck (grandson) Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe, Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award, National Medal of Arts, Presidential Medal of Freedom

Awards

Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 June 12, 2003) was an American Academy Award winning actor. One of the world's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play major film roles until the late 1970s. He is best known for his performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at #12. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1983.[1]

Contents
[hide] 1 Early life 2 Acting career 2.1 Stage 2.2 Film 2.3 Later work

3 Politics 4 Personal life and death 5 Awards and honors 6 Filmography 7 See also

8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

Early life[edit source]

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California, the son of Missouri-born Bernice Mae "Bunny" (ne Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a New York-born chemist and pharmacist. His father was of Irish (maternal) heritage and English (paternal) heritage, [2][3] while his mother had Scottish and English ancestry.[4] Peck's father was a Catholic, while his mother converted to the denomination when she married his father. Peck was related to Thomas Ashe, who took part in the Easter Rising fewer than three weeks after Peck's birth and died while on hunger strike in 1917, through his Irish-born paternal grandmother, Catherine Ashe. Peck's parents divorced by the time he was six years old and he spent the next few years being raised by his maternal grandmother.[5] Peck attended a Roman Catholic military school, St. John's Military Academy, in Los Angeles at the age of 10. His grandmother died while he was enrolled there, and his father again took over his upbringing. At 14, Peck attended San Diego High School and lived with his father.[6] When he graduated, he enrolled briefly at San Diego State Teacher's College, (now known as San Diego State University), joined the track team, took his first theatre and public-speaking courses, and joined the Epsilon Eta fraternity.[7] He stayed for just one academic year, thereafter obtaining admission to his first-choice college, the University of California, Berkeley.[8] For a short time, he took a job driving a truck for an oil company. In 1936, he declared himself a pre-medical student at Berkeley, and majored in English. Standing 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) he rowed on the university crew. The Berkeley acting coach decided Peck would be perfect for university theater work. Peck developed an interest in acting and was recruited by Edwin Duerr, director of the university's Little Theater. He appeared in five plays during his senior year. Although his tuition fee was only $26 per year, Peck still struggled to pay, and had to work as a "hasher" (kitchen helper) for the Gamma Phi Beta sorority in exchange for meals. Peck would later say about Berkeley that, "it was a very special experience for me and three of the greatest years of my life. It woke me up and made me a human being."[9] In 1997 Peck donated $25,000 to the Berkeley crew in honor of his coach, the renowned Ky Ebright.

Acting career[edit source]

Stage[edit source]
After graduating from Berkeley with a BA degree in English, Peck dropped the name "Eldred" and headed to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse with the legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner. He was often broke and sometimes slept in Central Park.[10] He worked at the 1939 World's Fair and as a tour guide for NBC's television broadcasting. In 1940, Peck learned more of the acting craft, working in exchange for food, at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, VA, appearing in five plays including Family Portrait and On Earth As It Is.[11]

His stage career began in 1941 when he played the secretary in a Katharine Cornell production of George Bernard Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma. Unfortunately, the play opened in San Francisco just one week before the attack on Pearl Harbor.[12] He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Emlyn Williams' The Morning Star in 1942. His second Broadway performance that year was in The Willow and I with Edward Pawley. Peck's acting abilities were in high demand during World War II, because he was exempt from military service owing to a back injury suffered while receiving dance and movement lessons from Martha Graham as part of his acting training. Twentieth Century Fox claimed he had injured his back while rowing at university, but in Peck's words, "In Hollywood, they didn't think a dance class was macho enough, I guess. I've been trying to straighten out that story for years."[13] In 1947 Peck co-founded The La Jolla Playhouse, at his birthplace, with Mel Ferrer and Dorothy McGuire.[14] This local community theater and landmark (now in a new home at the University of California, San Diego) still thrives today. It has attracted Hollywood film stars on hiatus both as performers and enthusiastic supporters since its inception.

Film[edit source]