Eldred Gregory Peck April 5 1916 June 12 2003 was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s In 1999 the American Film Institute named Peck the 12thgreatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner Peck began appearing in stage productions acting in over 50 plays and three Broadway productions He first gained critical success in The Keys of the Kingdom 1944 a John M Stahldirected drama which earned him his first Academy Award nomination He starred in a series of successful films including romanticdrama The Valley of Decision 1944 Alfred Hitchcocks Spellbound 1945 and family film The Yearling 1946 He encountered lukewarm commercial reviews at the end of the 1940s his performances including The Paradine Case 1947 and The Great Sinner 1948 Peck reached global recognition in the 1950s and 1960s appearing backtoback in the booktofilm adaptation of Captain Horatio Hornblower 1951 and biblical drama David and Bathsheba 1951 He starred alongside Ava Gardner in The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1952 and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday 1953 which earned Peck a Golden Globe award Other notable films in which he appeared include Moby Dick 1956 and its 1998 miniseries The Guns of Navarone 1961 Cape Fear 1962 and its 1991 remake The Omen 1976 and The Boys from Brazil 1978 Throughout his career he often portrayed protagonists with fiber within a moral setting Gentlemans Agreement 1947 centered on topics of antisemitism while Pecks character in Twelve OClock High 1949 dealt with posttraumatic stress disorder during World War II He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 an adaptation of the modern classic of the same name which revolved around racial inequality for which he received universal acclaim In 1983 he starred opposite Christopher Plummer in The Scarlet and The Black as Hugh OFlaherty a Catholic priest who saved thousands of escaped Allied POWs and Jewish people in Rome during the Second World War Peck was also active in politics challenging the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1947 and was regarded as a political opponent by President Richard Nixon President Lyndon B Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts Peck died in his sleep from bronchopneumonia at the age of 87
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