Gregory Peck

The actor who dodged the war

Gregory Peck arrived in Hollywood with a suitcase and a back injury that spared him from fighting in World War II. That physical ailment was his ticket to stardom, because while other actors were at the front, he was landing the best roles at the studios. In 1944, he debuted with Days of Glory, but it was his second film that blew up the industry's expectations.

For his role as a missionary in The Keys of the Kingdom, he received his first Oscar nomination and established the archetype of the serene man that would stay with him for five decades. Audiences embraced his integrity immediately. But Peck did not want to be just a kind face, so he sought projects that would test his authority on screen.

In 1946, he shot Duel in the Sun, and the scandal was enormous. The censors of the era didn't look kindly on America's clean-cut golden boy playing a sexually charged, violent outlaw. Despite religious criticism, the film was a massive box office hit. It grossed more than ten million dollars on its original release and proved that his name alone could fill movie theaters.

And the gamble paid off.

Unlike other stars, Peck never had a long exclusive contract with a single studio. That freedom allowed him to choose scripts with a political edge that others avoided out of fear of the blacklist. In 1947, he starred in Gentleman's Agreement to expose antisemitism in American society. It was a risky decision that earned him another Academy Award nomination.

Building a Moral Icon

In 1953, Peck traveled to Rome to shoot a light comedy that would become a genre staple. During the production of Roman Holiday, he insisted that his co-star's name appear alongside his on the posters. That actress was an unknown Audrey Hepburn, and Peck knew she would win an Oscar before filming wrapped. He was right.

But the defining moment of his career came in 1962 with the release of To Kill a Mockingbird. The character of Atticus Finch merged so completely with his personality that the line between actor and man disappeared forever. Peck used his own wardrobe and drew on his father's gestures to bring the Alabama lawyer to life.

He won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1963.

After that peak of fame, his career entered a phase of commercial projects with uneven results. In 1961, he had led the cast of The Guns of Navarone, the highest-grossing film of that year. However, the seventies were harder for actors of his generation who didn't fit into the new, raw, violent auteur cinema.

The Lean Years and the Return to Horror

Many considered his career commercially finished until he accepted a role in a supernatural horror film in 1976. The shoot of The Omen was surrounded by accidents and real tragedies, but the film became a global phenomenon. It grossed more than sixty million dollars in the United States alone and returned Peck to the industry's front line at age sixty.

Peck also worked as a producer on several occasions, always seeking stories with social weight. In 1958, he produced and starred in The Big Country, a Western that worked as an allegory for the Cold War. His interests off screen led him to serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences between 1967 and 1970, where he modernized the voting systems.

The actor never officially retired.

His last screen appearance was in 1998 in a television version of Moby Dick, where he played Father Mapple. Curiously, in 1956 he had starred in the film version as Captain Ahab. In 2003, Peck died at his home in Los Angeles from bronchopneumonia at the age of eighty-seven.