He had such a familiar face. That aquiline nose, unwavering stare, the firmly set jaw — a face at once recognized as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Joseph Mengele, Ambrose Bierce and, most true to the actor's character, Atticus Finch.
Gregory Peck, star of an endless list of classic films including "To Kill A Mockingbird," "Spellbound" and "Roman Holiday," died Wednesday at his Los Angeles home. He was 87.
His wife, Veronique Passini Peck, was by his side, his publicist said, holding his hand as he slept away. The cause of death, said publicist Monroe Freedman, was simply old age.
"I have great sorrow in announcing the news that Greg passed overnight in his home, where he loved to be," said Mr. Freedman.
With a thick, commanding baritone voice that sounded as if it echoed off of a mountain, Peck appeared in 52 movies, debuting in the 1944 "Days of Glory." He starred next in "The Keys of the Kingdom," for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination. He later received Oscar nods for "The Yearling" (1946), "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), and "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949).
Peck eventually won an Academy Award for his 1962 portrayal of the upstanding Southern lawyer Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird." The father who taught his children empathy and understanding was the actor's favorite role.
"People still remember," he said proudly when he was 81, "and young men say they became lawyers because of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' "
The role was so indelible that just a week ago the American Film Institute cited Peck's Atticus as the No. 1 movie hero of all time. Its importance was underscored by the timing of the film's release: The movie about a lawyer who defends a black accused of raping a white woman fell right in the middle of the Civil Rights era.
Peck specialized in playing such controversial roles, capitalizing on his quiet dignity to play politically courageous roles. Another of these was the magazine writer in "Gentleman's Agreement," who discovers the depth of anti-Semitism in this nation when he acts as if he's Jewish for a story. Despite the film's sensitive nature for its time, "Gentleman's Agreement" won the Oscar for best picture.
A committed Hollywood liberal and community activist, Peck was president of the Motion Picture Academy and also was involved with the American Cancer Society, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other causes. (When he won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Motion Picture Academy in 1968, Peck grumbled that he wasn't a "do-gooder.")
The tall, brooding actor was born Eldred Gregory Peck in La Jolla, Calif., near San Diego, on April 5, 1916. When he was just 19 and a pre-med student at the University of California at Berkeley, he played Starbuck, the first mate to Captain Ahab. Twenty-two years later he starred as Ahab himself in the 1957 John Huston film.
Peck studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. There he learned a technique similar to the so-called "method" acting.
"Some of the kids do seem to go to ridiculous extremes," he said. "They almost make it a religion. I think it's possible to use those techniques without turning it into a religion.
"I read interviews with some of those method actors and they seem so self-absorbed, so wrapped up in their own work — as though acting were the end-all and be-all. I find that boring. You go and do it."
In his time, Peck worked with the nation's greatest producers and directors. Moguls like Darryl Zanuck, Harry Cohn, Louis B. Mayer exercised a short of paternal judgment about what the public wanted.
Peck recalled, "They'd push a 'star-button' and a 'director-button' and a 'writer button' and buy a book and say, 'You start shooting on June 15.' And you did."
The tendency was to have you repeat your previous successes, he said. "And that was not so stupid. You can talk all you want about versatility. Everyone admired Alec Guinness. But the public does not line up to see Alec Guinness. The public lines up to see Robert Redford."
People like Humphrey Bogart got so good at playing the same role that they established an immediate connection with the audience, said Peck.
"He found that he could communicate with almost an acting shorthand. He would bring to the role his way of looking at things, his own attitudes on death and life and so on."
Peck did the same thing, in his own, understated way; getting at the heart of the man and finding a way to reveal it. He came to Hollywood in the waning years of World War II. (A spinal injury kept him out of the service.) Despite his overnight success with "The Days of Glory," Peck admitted he was dazzled by the movie stars he met in those early days.
"If I was invited to a dinner party and saw Gary Cooper and Humphrey Bogart talking to Carole Lombard," he said, "well, I was in awe of people like that.
"They were interesting people in their own right, he said. "Not necessarily great actors like Olivier. But they were interesting. And they did things and reacted in an interesting way. A director can't tell you how to do that. It's either in you or it's not."
Obviously it was in Peck, too. A vein of quality — almost unmatched — ran through his films. There was always something of the old world about Peck even when he was playing the villainous brother in "Duel in the Sun" or a back-country bootlegger in "I Walk the Line." Characteristically, Peck always downplayed his own acting.
"If you have a good script, the rest is easy," he said. "My tendency has been to read a script as a reader and not think of myself in any of the parts.
"If it holds my interest and it's a good piece of writing, then I'd say, 'Well, what part do they want me for? Oh, I'd be fine for that.' "
The thing about Peck — whether he was playing F. Scott Fitzgerald or a burned-out gunfighter — is that as an actor he never faked it. And people could tell.
"If something affects (the audience) in a good way," he said, "it's because the emotions are real. They are exactly what they were. To make any sense about it, it's emotion. You draw on feelings. And you hope that produces the right expression."
You recall the feelings from some past experience, or maybe just out of your imagination."
Peck managed it, he said, any way he could. He last appeared on film in 1991, first in "Old Gringo" with Jane Fonda and then in a cameo in "Cape Fear" in 1991. (Peck had starred in the original 1962 "Cape Fear" with Polly Bergen and Robert Mitchum, which Peck also produced.)
Besides his second wife of 48 years, Peck is survived by three sons, Jonathan, Stephen and Carey, from a previous marriage to Greta Rice. (Jonathan committed suicide at 30 in 1975.) He and his second wife had two children, Anthony and Cecilia, and several grandchildren.
Funeral plans have not been announced.