Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck's first film performance was in, Days of Glory (1944). A film which tells the story of a group of Soviet guerrillas fighting back against impossible odds during the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia.

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor five times, four of which came in his first five years of film acting: for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). Among his other films were Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947), The Gunfighter (1950), Moby Dick (1956), On the Beach (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Roman Holiday (1953). Peck and Hepburn were close friends until her death; Peck even introduced her to her first husband, Mel Ferrer.



Peck once again teamed up with director William Wyler in the epic Western The Big Country (1958), which he co-produced.

Peck won the Academy award with his fifth nomination, playing Atticus Finch, a Depression-era lawyer and widowed father, in a film adaptation of the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Released in 1962 during the height of the US civil rights movement in the South, this movie and his role were Peck's favorites. In 2003, Atticus Finch was named the top film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute.

He served as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1967, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Film Institute from 1967 to 1969, Chairman of the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund in 1971, and National Chairman of the American Cancer Society in 1966. He was a member of the National Council on the Arts from 1964 to 1966.

Peck, was known to do most of his own fight scenes, rarely using body or stunt doubles. In fact, Robert Mitchum, often said that when Peck once accidentally punched him for real during their final fight scene in the movie Cape Fear, he felt the impact for days afterward.




Here is a clip from one of my favorite Gregory Peck's movies, Duel in the Sun(1946).A Western film directed by King Vidor, produced and written by David O. Selznick, which tells the story of a Mestiza (half-Native American) girl who goes to live with her Anglo relatives, becoming involved in prejudice and forbidden love. Cast: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore.