Gregory Peck Was An Academy And Golden Globe Award-winning Actor

Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California. His father was a druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fond memories are of his grandmother taking him to the movies every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. He studied pre-med at Berkeley and, while there, Peck got the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' stage play "The Morning Star" (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (1944).

Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged, and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as the amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (1946), Peck was again nominated for the Academy Award and won the Golden Globe. Peck appeared in Westerns such as Duel in the Sun (1946), Yellow Sky (1948) and The Gunfighter (1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award with his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), a story of discrimination, and Twelve O'Clock High (1949), a story of high level stress at bomber command.

With a string of hits behind him, Peck soon took the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic figures in larger-than-life films such as Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) and Moby Dick (1956). He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (1953). After four nominations, Peck finally won the Oscar for his performance as Lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the early 60s, he appeared in two dark films, Cape Fear (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), which dealt with the way people live. He also gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961), one of the biggest cinematic hits of that year.

In the early 70s, he produced two movies, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) and The Dove (1974), while his film career waned. He made a comeback playing the wooden Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (1976). After that, he returned to the bigger than life roles as MacArthur (1977) and the evil Doctor Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978). In the 80s, Peck moved into television with the mini series "The Blue and the Gray" (1982) and the movie The Scarlet and the Black (1983) (TV). In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different part, in Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the liberal owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (1991).

Peck was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning once. He was nominated in 1946 for The Keys of the Kingdom, in 1947 for The Yearling, in 1948 for Gentleman's Agreement, and in 1950 for Twelve O'Clock High. He won the Oscar for best actor in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird, and he received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for 1967.Peck also received many Golden Globe awards. He won in 1947 for The Yearling, in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird, and in 1999 for the TV mini series Moby-Dick. He was nominated in 1978 for The Boys from Brazil. He received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1969, and was given the Henrietta Award in 1951 and 1955 for World Film Favorite — Male.In 1971, the Screen Actors Guild presented Peck with the SAG Life Achievement Award. In 1989, the American Film Institute gave Peck the AFI Life Achievement Award. He received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema in 1996.

On June 12, 2003, Peck died in his sleep from cardiorespiratory arrest, and bronchial pneumonia, age 87, at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, California. His wife of 48 years was at his side. Peck is buried in a mausoleum in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California.