G. Peck Biography
Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California, in 1926. His father was a pharmacist and he studied medicine at the University of Berkeley, but his passion for theater pushed him to move to New York. Here he attended the Neighborhood Playhouse acting school and made his Broadway debut in 1942 in the comedy The Morning Star by Emlyn Williams.
Exempted from military service after a spinal injury, he moved to Hollywood where, in 1944, he made his debut in the modest war film Days of Glory (Tamara, Daughter of the Steppe) by Jacques Tourneur, produced by RKO. Success came quickly, in less than a year, with an Oscar nomination for his second performance: that of Francis Chisholm in The keys of the kingdom by John M. Stahl, where he played an orphan who becomes a missionary priest in China.
A role that gives him even greater popularity is that of the character with violent and negative traits in King Vidor's Duel in the Sun, a baroque western opposite Jennifer Jones in the role of the disturbing Pearl Chavez. In the role of the tormented General Frank Savage in Twelve o' clock high directed by H. King, Peck offers one of his best characterizations and receives a fourth Oscar nomination.
Peck also demonstrates great flexibility in King's The gunfighter, where he plays Ringo, a lonely cowboy without resorting to the typical stereotypes of the genre. In 1956, he returned to a more dramatic role in The man in the gray flannel suit, based on S. Wilson's bestseller, where he played an average American in a post-war society.
His fifth attempt brought him the Oscar for best performance in To kill a mockingbird, thanks to his performance in the role of the progressive lawyer Atticus Finch, who defends a black man falsely accused of rape in a small town in the South of the United States in thirties.
Peck encountered several failures in his career, but managed to return to prominence in 1970, in the twilight psychological drama I Walk the Line, directed by John Frankenheimer, where he played Sheriff Henry Tawes.
Considered a cinema legend, Gregory Peck has demonstrated great flexibility and longevity in his career, remaining one of Hollywood's most beloved stars. He experienced the pain of the suicide of his eldest son Jonathan in 1975 and continued acting into old age, also making his horror debut with the film The Omen in 1976.
