Gregory Peck

Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916, in the neighborhood of La Jolla in San Diego, California, to Bernice Mae "Bunny" (née Ayres; 1894–1992), and Gregory Pearl Peck (1886–1962), a Rochester, New York–born chemist and pharmacist. His father was of English (paternal) and Irish (maternal) heritage, and his mother was of English and Scots ancestry. She converted to her husband's religion, Catholicism, and Peck was raised as a Catholic. Through his Irish-born paternal grandmother, Catherine Ashe (1864–1926), Peck was related to Thomas Ashe (1885–1917), who participated in the Easter Rising less than three weeks after Peck's birth and died while being force-fed during a hunger strike in 1917.

Peck's parents divorced when he was five and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother, who took him to the movies every week. At the age of 10 he was sent to a Catholic military school, St John's Military Academy in Los Angeles. While he was there his grandmother died. At 14 he moved back to San Diego to live with his father. He attended San Diego High School, and after graduating in 1934 enrolled for one year at San Diego State Teachers’ College (now known as San Diego State University). While there he joined the track team, took his first theatre and public-speaking courses and pledged the Epsilon Eta fraternity. Peck had ambitions to be a doctor and later transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, as an English major and pre-medical student. Standing at 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m), he rowed on the university crew. Although his tuition fee was only $26 per year, Peck still struggled to pay and took a job as a "hasher" (kitchen helper) for the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority in exchange for meals.

At Berkeley, Peck's deep, well-modulated voice gained him attention, and after participating in a public speaking course he decided to try acting. He was encouraged by an acting coach, who saw in him perfect material for university theatre, and he became more and more interested in performing. He was recruited by Edwin Duerr, director of the university's Little Theater, and appeared in five plays during his senior year, including as Starbuck in Moby Dick. Peck later said about his years at 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." In 1996 Peck donated $25,000 to the Berkeley rowing crew in honor of his coach, Ky Ebright.

1939–1943: Beginnings and stage roles

Peck did not graduate with his friends because he lacked one course. His college friends were concerned for him and wondered how he would get along without his degree. "I have all I need from the university," he told them. 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. He worked at the 1939 World's Fair as a barker, at Rockefeller Center as a tour guide for NBC television and at Radio City Music Hall. Before 1940 he dabbled in modelling and worked in exchange for food at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, where he appeared in five plays, including Family Portrait and On Earth As It Is.

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. The play opened in San Francisco just one week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. 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 since he had been exempted from military service because of a back injury suffered while receiving dance and movement lessons from Martha Graham as part of his acting training. Twentieth Century Fox later claimed he had injured his back while rowing in college, 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." Peck performed in a total of 50 plays, including three short-lived Broadway productions, 4–5 road tours, and summer theater.

1944–1946: Hollywood breakthrough

After gaining stage recognition, Peck was offered his first film role at RKO Radio Pictures, the male lead in the war-romance Days of Glory (1944), directed by Jacques Tourneur, alongside top-billed Tamara Toumanova, a Russian-born ballerina. Peck portrayed the leader of Russian guerrillas resisting the Germans in 1941 who stumble across a beautiful Russian dancer (Toumanova), who had been sent to entertain Russian troops; they protect her by letting her join their group. During production of the film, Tourneur "untrained" Peck from his theater training where he was used to speaking in a formal manner and projecting his voice to the entire hall. Peck considered his performance in the film as quite amateurish and did not wish to watch the film after it was released. The film lost money at the box office, disappeared from theaters quickly, and was largely dismissed by critics.

At the time of the film's release, critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times assessed it as slow-moving and verbose, adding that Peck's acting was stiff. Film historian Barry Monush has written, "Peck's star power was evident from the word go." Following the release of the film, Peck gained the attention of producers, but rather than participate in the studio system, he decided to remain a freelancer with the ability to choose his roles, signing non-exclusive contracts with four studios, including an unusual dual contract with 20th Century Fox and Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick.

In Peck's second movie, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), he played an 80-year-old Roman Catholic priest who looks back at his undertakings during over half a century of his determined, self-sacrificing missionary work in China. The film shows the character aging from his 20s to 80; Peck was featured in almost every scene. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor, which was Peck's first nomination. Although the film finished only 27th at the box office in North America for 1944, Jay Carr of Turner Classic Movies refers to it as Peck's breakthrough performance, while writer Patrick McGilligan says that it "catapulted him to stardom". At the time of release, Peck's performance was lauded by Variety and The New York Times, despite mixed reviews for the film itself. The Radio Times referred to it as "a long, talkative and rather undramatic picture" but admitted that "its success saved Peck's career". Craig Butler of AllMovie states "he gives a commanding performance, full of his usual quiet dignity and intelligence, and spiked with stubbornness and an inner fire that make the character truly come alive".

In The Valley of Decision (1945), a romantic drama about intermingling social classes, Peck plays the eldest son of a wealthy steel mill owner in 1870s Pittsburgh who has a romance with one of his family's maids, portrayed by Greer Garson. who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Upon release, reviews from The New York Times and Variety were somewhat positive, with Peck's performance described as commanding. It was North America's highest-grossing movie of 1945.

Peck's next film was the first of two collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, the suspense-romance Spellbound (1945), opposite Ingrid Bergman. Peck plays a man who is thought to be the new director of the psychiatric facility where Bergman's character works as a psychoanalyst, while his amnesia and disturbing visions suggest he may be a murderer. Peck and Hitchcock were described as having a cordial but cool relationship. Hitchcock initially hoped that Cary Grant would play the male lead. Peck later stated that he thought he was too young when he first worked with Hitchcock and that the director's on-set indifference to his character's motivation, important to Peck's acting style, shook his confidence. Peck's chemistry clicked with his screen partner Bergman; the actors were romantically linked at the time.

Released at the end of 1945, Spellbound was a hit, ranking as the third-most successful film of 1946. Spellbound was well received by critics at the time, as was Peck's performance. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film, stating that Peck's performance "restrained and refined, is precisely the proper counter to Bergman's exquisite role"; Frank Miller of Turner Classic Movies has written that the movie accelerated the rise of Peck into a Hollywood star and even "a major sex symbol." Producer David O. Selznick noted that during preview tests of the movie, the women in the audiences had substantive reactions to the appearance of Peck's name during the opening credits, stating that during his first few scenes the audience had to be shushed to quiet down. Spellbound was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, although it was not in the National Board of Review's top ten films of the year.

In The Yearling (1946), Peck portrays a kind-hearted father, opposite onscreen wife, Jane Wyman, whose son finds and insists on raising a three-day-old fawn in 1870s Florida. Reviews upon release were very positive with Bosley Crowther evaluating it as a film that "provides a wealth of satisfaction that few films ever attain". The Yearling was a box office success, finishing with the ninth highest box office gross for 1947, and landed six Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor. Peck won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for performance. In recent decades, it has continued to receive critical praise with Barry Monush writing that it was "one of the best-made and most-loved family films of its day".

Peck took his first "against type" role, playing a cruel, amoral cowboy, in the Western soap opera Duel in the Sun (1946) with top-billed Jennifer Jones as the provocative temptress-object of Peck's love, anger, and desire. Their chemistry is described by film historian David Thomson as "a constant knife fight of sensuality". Joseph Cotten starred as Peck's righteous half brother and competitor for the affections of the "steamy, sexpot" character of Jones; the movie was resoundingly criticized and even banned in some cities due to its lurid nature. The publicity around the eroticism of Duel in the Sun, one of the biggest movie advertising campaigns in history, used a new tactic of opening in hundreds of theaters across the U.S. at once, saturating the theaters in cities where it opened, resulting in the film's being the second highest-grossing movie of both 1947 and all of the 1940s. Nicknamed "Lust in the Dust", the film received mostly negative reviews upon release- Bosley Crowther wrote that "performances are strangely uneven," although Jones received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The opinions of Peck's performance have been polarized.

In October 1942, Peck married Finnish American Greta Kukkonen (1911–2008), with whom he had three sons: Jonathan (1944–1975), Stephen (b. 1946), and Carey Paul (b. 1949). They were divorced in December 1955. Peck's eldest son was found dead in his home on June 26, 1975, in what authorities believed was a suicide. "It's the most terrible thing that has happened to me in my life," Peck said once. "You never get over a thing like that."

During his first marriage, Peck had a brief affair with Spellbound co-star Ingrid Bergman. He confessed the affair to Brad Darrach of People in a 1987 interview, saying: "All I can say is that I had a real love for her, and I think that's where I ought to stop.... I was young. She was young. We were involved for weeks in close and intense work."

On New Year's Eve in 1955, the day after his divorce was final, Peck married Véronique Passani (1932–2012), a Paris news reporter who had interviewed him in 1952 before he went to Italy to film Roman Holiday. He asked her to lunch six months later, and they became inseparable. They had a son, Anthony Peck (b. 1956), and a daughter, Cecilia Peck (b. 1958). The couple remained married until Peck's death. His son Anthony is a former husband of supermodel Cheryl Tiegs. Peck had grandchildren from both marriages. One of his grandsons from his first marriage is actor Ethan Peck.

Peck was the owner of thoroughbred steeplechase race horses. In 1963, Owen's Sedge finished seventh in the Grand National. Another of his horses, Different Class, raced in the 1968 Grand National. The horse was favored, but finished third.

Peck's hobbies included gardening, reading, and listening to music, including classical, opera and jazz. Peck and his wife often hosted dinners in support of the arts and humanitarian or social justice causes.

Peck was Roman Catholic, and once considered entering the priesthood. Later in his career, a journalist asked Peck if he was a practicing Catholic. Peck answered: "I am a Roman Catholic. Not a fanatic, but I practice enough to keep the franchise. I don't always agree with the Pope.... There are issues that concern me, like abortion, contraception, the ordination of women...and others." His second marriage was performed by a justice of the peace, not by a priest, because the Church prohibits remarriage if the first spouse is still living and the first marriage was not annulled. Peck was a significant fund-raiser for the missionary work of a priest friend of his, Father Albert O'Hara, and served as co-producer of a cassette recording of the New Testament with his son Stephen.

In 1947, while many Hollywood figures were being blacklisted for similar activities, Peck signed a letter deploring a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of alleged communists in the film industry. A life-long Democrat, Peck was suggested in 1970 as a possible Democratic candidate to run against Ronald Reagan for the office of California Governor. Although he later admitted that he had no interest in being a candidate himself for public office, Peck encouraged one of his sons, Carey Peck, to run for political office. He was defeated both times by slim margins in races in 1978 and 1980 against Republican U.S. Representative Bob Dornan, another former actor.

Peck revealed that former President Lyndon Johnson had told him that, had he sought re-election in 1968, he intended to offer Peck the post of U.S. ambassador to Ireland – a post Peck, owing to his Irish ancestry, said he might well have taken, saying, "[It] would have been a great adventure." The actor's biographer Michael Freedland substantiates the report, and says that Johnson indicated that his presentation of the Medal of Freedom to Peck would perhaps make up for his inability to confer the ambassadorship. President Richard Nixon placed Peck on his "enemies list," owing to Peck's liberal activism.

Peck was outspoken against the Vietnam War, while remaining supportive of his son, Stephen, who fought there as a Marine officer forward observer. In 1972, Peck produced the film version of Daniel Berrigan's play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine about the prosecution of a group of Vietnam protesters for civil disobedience. Despite his reservations about American general Douglas MacArthur as a man, Peck had long wanted to play him on film, and did so in MacArthur in 1976. Peck was a close friend of French president Jacques Chirac.

In 1978, Peck traveled to Alabama, the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, to campaign for Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Donald W. Stewart of Anniston, who defeated the Republican candidate, James D. Martin, a former U.S. representative from Gadsden. In 1987, Peck undertook the voice-overs for television commercials opposing President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of judge Robert Bork. Bork's nomination was defeated. Peck was also a vocal supporter of a worldwide ban of nuclear weapons, and a life-long advocate of gun control.

Documents declassified in 2017 show that the National Security Agency had created a biographical file on Peck as part of its monitoring of prominent US citizens.