格里高利·派克

An actor who combined heroic style with liberal conviction

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
The Guardian,
June 13 2003

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 Neighbourhood 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 organisations 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.