Gregory Peck
April 5, 1916 — June 12, 2003
Gregory Peck was an American actor whose tall, steady physical presence and resonant voice made him the embodiment of moral integrity on the Hollywood screen, most indelibly as the fearless small-town lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) — a role the American Film Institute named the greatest screen hero of all time.
From La Jolla to the Stage
Born Eldred Gregory Peck on April 5, 1916, in La Jolla, California, he grew up largely separated from his parents (who divorced when he was three) and was raised primarily by his maternal grandmother. He enrolled at UC Berkeley intending to study medicine but was drawn to drama and moved to New York, where he worked at the Neighborhood Playhouse. A spinal injury kept him from military service in World War II — allowing him to rise quickly in Hollywood as male stars were depleted by enlistment. His film debut in Days of Glory (1944) was immediately followed by The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), which earned him his first Oscar nomination.
Atticus Finch and the Oscar
Peck received five Academy Award nominations before winning for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), for which he was also named the AFI's greatest hero in cinema history. His portrayal of Atticus Finch — the small-town Alabama lawyer who defends a Black man falsely accused of rape during the Depression — crystallized the ideals of principled moral courage in American culture. He also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953) opposite Audrey Hepburn, and Cape Fear (1962). In the 1970s he appeared in the blockbuster horror film The Omen and in Richard Donner's 1978 film Boys from Brazil.
Did You Know?
Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, gave Gregory Peck her father's gold watch after watching his performance as Atticus Finch — a character she had based on her own father. She attended the Academy Awards ceremony in 1963 and reportedly wept when Peck won. The two became close lifelong friends. Peck later said that of all the roles he played in his career, "If I'm remembered for nothing else, I'll be remembered for Atticus Finch, and I'm very proud of that."
Activism and Legacy
Beyond acting, Peck was a committed liberal activist throughout his career — a supporter of civil rights, a vocal opponent of McCarthyism, and a board member of the American Cancer Society and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which he served as president. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969. He died on June 12, 2003, at age 87. His deep, steady voice — and the sense that the person speaking was fundamentally trustworthy — made him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the screen's personification of the decent man."