GREGORY PECK BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:

Gregory Peck was born April 5th, 1916 in La Jolla, CA with the birth name, Eldred Gregory Peck. He was the son of Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and pharmacist, and Missouri-born Bernice Mae.  At the young age of six, his parents got divorced and he went to live with his grandmother.  Peck went to Roman Catholic military school, St. John's Military Academy, in Los Angeles, in 1926. While still in school, his grandmother passed away. 
 
He moved back in with his father and enrolled in San Diego High School. After graduating from school, Peck went to San Diego State University.  He was also employed as truck driver, for an oil company.  In 1936, Peck enrolled as a pre-med student at UC Berkeley, majoring in English. During his time in school, the head of the school drama program took notice of Peck and he was cast in 5 different school plays.  

He graduated from University in 1939 with a degree in English and decided to drop the name Eldred.  He moved to New York to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse, with Sanford Meisner.  Peck's Broadway debut came in 1942, "The Morning Star". The same year, he did, "The Willow and I" with Edward Pawley.
 
Peck married Finnish-born Greta Kukkonen in 1942. The couple had three sons - Jonathan, Stephen and Carey Peck. In 1949, Peck founded The La Jolla Playhouse, in San Diego, California with his friends - Jose Ferrer and Dorothy McGuire.
 
In 1944, Peck made his debut in movies with the film, "Days of Glory’" followed by, "The Keys of the Kingdom" starring with Vincent Price, Edmund Gwenn, Thomas Mitchell, Benson Fong, Roddy McDowall and Cedric Hardwicke, which won him his first Academy Award nomination. 1945 followed with roles in  "The Valley of Decision" co-starring Greer Garson, Donald Crisp, Lionel Barrymore, Preston Foster, Marsha Hunt, Dan Duryea, Jessica Tandy and Reginald Owen and Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" also starring Ingrid Bergman, Leo G. Carroll and Rhonda Fleming. The film that won him his first Golden Globe as well as the second Academy Award nomination was, "The Yearling" (1946) co-starring Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr. and Chill Wills. In the next two years, he won two more Academy Award nominations for, "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947) co-starring Dorothy McGuire, Celeste Holm, John Garfield and June Havoc and "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949) also starring Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, Gary Merrill and Millard Mitchell, which he was also given the NYFCC Award for Best Actor and was nominated for four Academy Awards.
 
The 1950's continued to follow with more success.  Roles in films such as, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1952) starring with lovely Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner, "The Gun Fighter" (1950) co-starring Helen Wescott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Richard Jaeckel, Skip Homeier and Karl Malden, "Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951) and featuring Virginia Mayo, "The World in His Arms" (1952) also starring Ann Blyth and Anthony Quinn, "Roman Holiday" (1953) co-starring Audrey Hepburn in her Oscar winning role, "Night People" (1954) starring alongside Broderick Crawford, Walter Abel and Buddy Ebsen, "Moby Dick" (1956) starring with Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, Royal Dano and the great Orson Welles and "The Big Country" (1958) starring alongside Jean Simmons, Burl Ives, Chuck Connors, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston and Charles Bickford, plus many more were keeping him employed and increasing his popularity. In 1955, Peck divorced his first wife and that same year married a Paris News Reporter, Veronique Passani.  Together they had two children and she remained as his final wife till his death.
 
It was in 1962 with his role as Atticus Finch in, "To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962) that he finally won his first Academy Award, which also turned out to be his only Academy Award for best actor.  His career was beginning to slow down in the late 60's early 70's and his roles were less memorable.  However, there were some films that still were successful, "The Omen" (1976) with Lee Remick and David Warner and "The Boys From Brazil" (1978) joining Laurence Olivier, John Dehner, Lili Palmer and James Mason, followed by in the TV miniseries "The Blue and the Gray" (1982) featuring an allstar cast such as Lloyd Bridges, Stacy Keach, Colleen Dewhurst, Sterling Hayden, Paul Winfield, Diane Baker, Warren Oates, Rory Calhoun, Robert Vaughn, Geraldine Page and Rip Torn.
 
During the 80's, Peck directed his interest towards television. Starring in the mini-series "The Blue and the Gray" and  also seen in the television film "The Scarlet and The Black" (1991) featuring Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud, followed with an appearance in the remake of "Cape Fear".  Shortly after he retired from active film-making.

Peck did return to film two more times in 1998, when he starred in the remake of one of his most famous films, "Moby ‘Dick" and in 2000 in which he did his last film ,"A Conversation With Gregory Peck", a documentary.
 
Gregory Peck passed away June 12th, 2003 of natural causes at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, California. He was buried in a mausoleum in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, in Los Angeles, California.  During his lifetime he  achieved many awards such as, Golden Globe Award For Best Actor in 1947 for "The Yearling" and 1963 for, "To Kill A Mockingbird".  He was the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1967.  He was always known for portraying characters with honesty and integrity and although his final films are mostly forgettable, Peck was in 1991 listed amongst "Greatest Male Stars of All Time", by the American Film Institute.

In 1969 President Lyndon Johnson honored Gregory Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his lifetime of humanitarian efforts.

Gregory Peck was also given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the Motion Picture Industry.
 

Filmography
 
1944   Days of Glory
1944   Keys of the Kingdom
1945   The Valley of Decision
1945   Spellbound
1946   The Yearling
1946   Duel in the Sun
1947   The Macomber Affair
1947   Gentleman's Agreement
1947   The Paradine Case
1949   Twelve O'Clock High
1949   The Great Sinner
1950   The Gunfighter
1951   David and Bathsheba
1951   Only the Valiant
1951   Captain Horatio Hornblower
1952   The World in His Arms
1952   The Snows of Kilimanjaro
1953   The Million Pound Note
1953   Roman Holiday
1954   Night People
1954   The Purple Plain
1956   Moby Dick
1956   The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit
1957   Designing Woman
1958   The Big Country
1958   The Bravados
1959   Pork Chop Hill
1959   Beloved Infidel
1959   On the Beach
1961   The Guns of Navarone
1961   Cape Fear
1962   To Kill a Mockingbird 
1962   How The West Was Won
1963   Captain Newman, M.D.
1964   Behold a Pale Horse
1964   John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums
1965   Mirage
1966   Arabesque
1968   The Stalking Moon
1969   Marooned
1969   Mackenna's Gold
1969   The Chairman
1970   I Walk the Line
1971   Shoot Out
1974   Billy Two Hats
1976   The Omen
1977   MacArthur
1978   The Boys from Brazil
1980   The Sea Wolves
1982   The Blue and the Gray
1989   Old Gringo
1991   Other People's Money 
1991   The Scarlet and The Black
1991   Cape Fear
1998   Moby Dick