ACTOR
Gregory Peck
123 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (123)
- #001
In 1996, Richard Jaeckel, Peck's veteran character-actor co-star in The Gunfighter (1950), was diagnosed with cancer, and his wife had Alzheimer's disease. The Jaeckels had lost their Brentwood home and were more than $1 million in debt, leaving them nearly homeless. The family tried unsuccessfully to place him in the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital; when Peck lobbied for Jaeckel's admission, he was treated within three days. Jaeckel remained at the hospital until his death on 14.6.97.
- #002
After the death of his former co-star Ava Gardner on 25.1.90, Gregory Peck took in her maid and her dog.
- #003
Among his own films, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was Gregory Peck's favorite.
- #004
Gregory Peck's favorite drink was Guinness, which he drank every day. He eventually had a tap installed in his home bar.
- #005
Gregory Peck's favorite leading ladies were reported to be Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and Ava Gardner.
- #006
During his lean years, Gregory Peck supported himself as a Radio City Music Hall tour guide and as a catalog model for Montgomery Ward.
- #007
Gregory Peck's character in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Atticus Finch, was named the greatest screen hero of all time by the American Film Institute in May 2003, just two weeks before Peck's death, beating Indiana Jones in second place and James Bond in third.
- #008
According to at least one biography, Gregory Peck took his role in The Omen (1976) for a large pay cut (only $250,000) but secured 10% of the film's box office gross. It grossed more than $60 million in the US alone and became the highest-earning film of his career.
- #009
In 1972, Gregory Peck appeared on President Richard Nixon's famous "enemies list".
- #010
While serving as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Gregory Peck lobbied the organization's Board of Governors to have feature-length animated films made eligible for Best Picture nominations. It was not until 1991 that Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) became the first animated film nominated for Best Picture, though it did not win.
- #011
Gregory Peck turned down the role in Let's Make Love (1960) that went to Yves Montand because he did not want to work with Marilyn Monroe.
- #012
Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn became friends after working together on Roman Holiday (1953). Peck persuaded Paramount executives to give Hepburn equal star billing rather than an "Introducing" credit, because he believed the film rested dramatically on her shoulders and his character's, not on his own. Hepburn went on to win the Best Actress Oscar at the 1954 Academy Awards, and the two remained close until her death in 1993. That same year, Peck presented the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to her son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, for her work with UNICEF.
- #013
In 1980, Gregory Peck volunteered to be an unpaid TV pitchman for Chrysler Corp., saying he was concerned about the 600,000 jobs needed for the company to survive.
- #014
Gregory Peck's son Stephen had served a tour in Vietnam with the Marines. Although Peck did not agree with the war itself, he was proud of his son's military service.
- #015
After making Arabesque (1966), Gregory Peck stepped away from acting for three years to focus on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society.
- #016
Gregory Peck was Warner Bros.' original choice to play Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). The role was offered to him and he seriously considered it, but he died before he could give them an answer.
- #017
When Gregory Peck came to Italy to shoot Roman Holiday (1953), he was privately depressed over his recent separation from his first wife, Greta, and their impending divorce. During the shoot, however, he met and fell in love with a French woman named Veronique Passani. After his divorce, he married Passani (also known as Veronique Peck), and they remained together for the rest of his life.
- #018
Gregory Peck marched with Martin Luther King Jr.
- #019
At the start of the Hollywood "Red Scare" investigations in 1947, Gregory Peck signed a letter condemning the witch hunts, even though he was warned it could damage his career.
- #020
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gregory Peck 12th among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.
- #021
Gregory Peck's eldest son, Jon, took his own life with a firearm in 1975.
- #022
During the filming of Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Gregory Peck clashed with director Elia Kazan. Kazan told the press he was deeply disappointed in Peck's performance, and the two men never worked together again.
- #023
In 1999, after the Columbine High School massacre, Gregory Peck openly scolded Congress for failing to pass a law preventing young people from buying guns.
- #024
By 1974, after a string of failures, Gregory Peck's career had declined so far that he admitted in an interview he was considering retiring from acting. Two years later, however, he made a tremendous comeback with The Omen (1976).
- #025
A back injury Gregory Peck suffered in college kept him out of service in World War II.
- #026
Gregory Peck appears on a non-denominational US commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series issued on April 28, 2011. Peck is shown as the character Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). It cost 44¢ on the day of issue. First-day ceremonies were held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- #027
Gregory Peck's earliest memory of the cinema is that when he was nine years old he was so frightened by The Phantom of the Opera (1925) that his grandmother let him sleep in her bed that night.
- #028
Gregory Peck was the first native Californian to win an Oscar for Best Actor.
- #029
After Gregory Peck's funeral, mourners at the public service held large black-and-white portraits of him, designed by artist/sculptor Robert Graham, the husband of Anjelica Huston, as they approached the Cathedral. Church officials estimated that about 3,000 people attended. Seats were reserved for his friends, many of them famous — they were instructed to whisper the code word "Atticus" to the red-jacketed ushers who escorted them to their section — Harry Belafonte, Anjelica Huston, Michael York, Louise Fletcher, Tony Danza, Piper Laurie, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart. Michael Jackson, wearing red, caused a stir by arriving 20 minutes late. Peck's first wife, Greta, wearing a bright blue suit and holding a program with a picture of Peck, looked spry and healthy at 92. The service was presided over by Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony. The program included Bible readings by his children Carey, Cecilia and Tony. Mahony said, "He lived his life as God called him and wanted him, with the gifts and talents placed in his room." Brock Peters, who played the black man defended by Peck's character Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), delivered the eulogy. The film led to a close friendship between the two stars that lasted more than 40 years. Peters said, "There is compassion in art," "in compassion there is humanity, in humanity there is generosity and love. Gregory Peck gave us these qualities in full." The crowd visibly warmed to a video-taped performance of a lecture Peck had given a few years earlier. He said he hoped to be remembered first as a good husband, father and grandfather. Then, with quiet power and an unforgettable presence, he added: "I would like to be remembered as a good storyteller."
- #030
Gregory Peck never liked his first name, Eldred; it was a name his mother insisted on giving him because she thought it was different and would set him apart through its uniqueness, but to him it seemed a strange and difficult name to use casually. In his early adulthood he made a habit of using his second name, Gregory, which he would use for the rest of his life.
- #031
In December 2002, Gregory Peck visited his wife at a Los Angeles hospital, where she had undergone surgery to relieve pressure on two of her vertebrae. The sighting of the veteran actor in the hospital fueled press rumors that he was seriously ill.
- #032
In 1969, Gregory Peck received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, awarded by Lyndon B. Johnson.
- #033
Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) ranked 13th on Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
- #034
Gregory Peck served as National Chairman of the American Cancer Society in 1966.
- #035
Peck, along with Peter Ustinov, heaped praise on his friend and two-time co-star David Niven.
- #036
He was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War while continuing to support his son, who was serving there.
- #037
With Veronique Peck, he had two children: Tony Peck (b. 1956) and Cecilia Peck (b. 1958).
- #038
His favorite singers were Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson. He was also a big fan of Elton John.
- #039
He opposed nuclear weapons throughout his life, and for that reason he made On the Beach (1959).
- #040
The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) brought an end to his company, Melville Productions.
- #041
In the early 1990s he considered writing his autobiography. However, after realizing he was not as good a writer as his friend David Niven, he gave up on the idea.
- #042
He graduated from San Diego High School in San Diego, CA, in 1934.
- #043
He was an active supporter of creating an AIDS fund.
- #044
He was voted the 12th greatest actor on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Greatest Screen Legends.
- #045
As a young actor in Hollywood he was a heavy drinker. In 1949 he was hospitalized for a heart spasm, and while filming David and Bathsheba (1951) he was hospitalized with a suspected heart attack. Although it turned out to be a palpitation caused by his lifestyle and overwork, he later began drinking less. However, he did not quit smoking for many more years.
- #046
In the spring of 1939 he skipped his graduation from the University of California, Berkeley, and traveled by train to New York as a coach passenger with 160 dollars in his pocket and a letter of introduction to begin his acting career.
- #047
In a 1987 interview, he admitted that he had an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the filming of Spellbound (1945).
- #048
He was cast by producer Darryl F. Zanuck in the epic film David and Bathsheba (1951) because Zanuck thought Peck had a "biblical face."
- #049
The two people Gregory Peck most regretted never working with were John Ford and Greta Garbo.
- #050
In 1947, Gregory Peck founded the La Jolla Playhouse with Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer at La Jolla High School in La Jolla, CA. The name "La Jolla Playhouse" is now used for a theatre complex on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, in California.
- #051
Gregory Peck always wanted to appear in a William Shakespeare play, but when the opportunity arose in 1951, he decided it was too late for him to begin.
- #052
After making Roman Holiday (1953), Gregory Peck told the producers that Audrey Hepburn was certain to win an Oscar (it was her first major role) and that they should put her name above the title. They did, and she did.
- #053
Early in his career, Peck spent time working at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, VA (the State Theatre of Virginia). A picture hangs in the theatre showing how he worked both behind the scenes and on stage with an old truck. The Barter has also featured names such as Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal, Larry Linville and Kevin Spacey.
- #054
Gregory Peck was the second choice to play Prof. Henry Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), after Sean Connery turned the role down. Harrison Ford has cited Peck as one of his favourite actors and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) as one of his favourite films.
- #055
Gregory Peck was the son of New York-born Gregory Pearl Peck (8/3/1886-8/25/1962) and Missouri-born Bernice Mae (née Ayres) Maysuch (8/8/1894-4/27/1992). Both died in California.
- #056
Gregory Peck was the grandfather of the actor Ethan Peck.
- #057
Brock Peters delivered the eulogy at Gregory Peck's funeral and burial on 16.06.05. In To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Peters played Tom Robinson, the black man accused of raping a white girl whom Atticus Finch (Peck's character) defends in court.
- #058
While making The Bravados (1958), Gregory Peck decided to become a real-life cowboy and bought a large working ranch near Santa Barbara, CA, already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle.
- #059
Along with Dorothy McGuire, Mel Ferrer and David O. Selznick, Gregory Peck founded the La Jolla Playhouse in his hometown, where he produced many classics. Film commitments kept him from returning to Broadway, but he occasionally appeared at the Playhouse to satisfy his appetite for live theatre, and over the years he kept it standing firmly with a strong, respected name.
- #060
Gregory Peck strongly opposed the use of atomic weapons in World War II, believing that a naval blockade would starve Japan into unconditional surrender.
- #061
Early in his film career, a critic suggested that Peck's acting was so wooden it resembled an Indian cigar store.
- #062
In 1948, amid the anti-Communist hysteria sweeping the country during the McCarthy "Red Scare", Peck was summoned before a "fact-finding committee" set up by the California State Legislature to expose alleged communists and their "sympathizers" in the entertainment industry. Along with several other stars, Peck received a subpoena because of his association with a number of "liberal" organizations and causes. He gave the committee a list of all the organizations he had contributed money to, along with their letterheads, and said he had made those contributions because they were legitimate organizations. He told the committee, "I am not now and never have been associated with any communist organization or any supporter of communism. I am not a communist, I have never been a communist, and I have no sympathy for communist activities."
- #063
Gregory Peck was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6100 Hollywood Blvd. on 2/8/60.
- #064
Gregory Peck was honorary chairman of the Los Angeles Library Foundation.
- #065
The friendship Gregory Peck began with director William Wyler on Roman Holiday (1953) nearly ended in early 1957, during the stressful shoot of The Big Country (1958), which Peck co-produced; the two men clashed so often that they eventually became unable to get along. Three years later, after Wyler won the Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), they repaired their friendship, but they never worked together again.
- #066
Gregory Peck's election as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in 1967 was seen as heralding a new, younger, more progressive and decidedly liberal era of filmmaking in Hollywood.
- #067
After Charlton Heston turned down the offer to make Midway (1976), Gregory Peck was given the role of Ambassador Robert Thorn in The Omen (1976).
- #068
Gregory Peck personally chose Lewis Milestone to direct the anti-war film Pork Chop Hill (1959), because Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) had made a deep impression on him.
- #069
Peck owned a racehorse named Owen Sedge and watched it finish seventh in the 1963 Grand National. He then returned to America to attend the Oscars, where he won the Best Actor award for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
- #070
Peck visited Michael Jackson on the set of the "Smooth Criminal" segment of Moonwalker (1988). Among the other visitors to the film set were Robert De Niro and Bruce Willis.
- #071
Peck turned down the Oscar-winning role of Marshal Will Kane in High Noon (1952), which went to Gary Cooper, because he thought the story was too similar to The Gunfighter (1950). When the film became a great success, Peck admitted he had made a mistake, but said he did not believe he could have played the character as well as Cooper.
- #072
One of Peck's greatest heroes since childhood was President Abraham Lincoln. Peck was initially anxious about portraying him in The Blue and the Gray (1982), because at 66 he was ten years older than Lincoln was when he was assassinated. About 17 years later, when director Rod Lurie made him his first choice to play a fictional US President in The Contender (2000), Peck turned the offer down, saying he was "too damn old."
- #073
In 1962 Peck appeared in the original version of Cape Fear (1962), playing Sam Bowden. He was later brought back for another version of Cape Fear (1991), playing Max Cady's lawyer.
- #074
Valiant (1951) was the only film Peck truly disliked. After starring in The Gunfighter (1950), he felt that taking the western was a step backwards.
- #075
Peck was considered for the role played by Rock Hudson in Ice Station Zebra (1968).
- #076
For their groundbreaking 1996 comic book Kingdom Come, Mark Waid and Alex Ross based the design of the older Bruce Wayne/Batman on Peck. Frank Miller also based the design of the young Bruce in his iconic story Batman: Year One on him.
- #077
According to Lewis Milestone, Pork Chop Hill (1959) was cut by nearly twenty minutes because Peck's wife felt that her husband made his first appearance in the picture too late. Whether or not this is true, the film shows signs of post-production tampering, along with flashes of several cut scenes beneath the main title credits.
- #078
Peck was named the 27th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere magazine.
- #079
Peck was a leading opponent of US intervention in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He believed the United States should have maintained good relations with the Soviet Union and China after the Second World War.
- #080
John Wayne was reportedly offered two of Peck's most iconic roles, which he turned down: The Gunfighter (1950) and Twelve O'Clock High (1949).
- #081
Peck's favorite director was Henry King, and his favorite co-star was Ava Gardner.
- #082
Peck's children with Greta Kukkonen were Jonathan Peck (1944-75), Stephen Peck (b. 1946) and Carey Paul Peck (b. 1949).
- #083
Peck seriously considered challenging then-California Governor Ronald Reagan's 1970 re-election campaign, but decided against it at the last minute despite pressure from the California Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee at both state and national level.
- #084
While filming Yellow Sky (1948), Peck fell from a horse and broke his ankle in three places.
- #085
In 1987 Peck joined Burt Lancaster, Martin Sheen and Lloyd Bridges in narrating a TV commercial for People for the American Way, opposing the confirmation of President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, the ultra-conservative judge Robert Bork. Bork, who had come under heavy criticism for his loud opposition to civil rights legislation in the past, was ultimately not confirmed by the Senate.
- #086
Gregory Peck was a close friend and ardent supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, spending a great deal of time at the White House and the Johnson Ranch. Toward the end of Johnson's presidency, however, relations between the two men grew strained because of Peck's outspoken opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
- #087
Gregory Peck was offered the role of Detective Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O (1968) but turned it down. The part went to Jack Lord.
- #088
In 1971, Gregory Peck was Chairman of the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund.
- #089
Gregory Peck agreed to appear in David and Bathsheba (1951) as a response to Cecil B. DeMille's biblical epics.
- #090
Gregory Peck earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley (1939). He also rowed on the university's crew team.
- #091
Gregory Peck studied acting with Michael Chekhov, who would later play a supporting role in Spellbound (1945).
- #092
Gregory Peck was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1967).
- #093
As a board member of Handgun Control Inc. (alongside Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon), Gregory Peck was sometimes criticized for his friendship with Charlton Heston, a longtime advocate of gun ownership who served as President of the National Rifle Association (NRA) from 1998 to 2003. When gun-control activist James Brady, who was gravely wounded during the assassination attempt on his boss Ronald Reagan, asked him why, Peck said, "We're colleagues rather than friends. When we meet, we're courteous to each other. Of course I strongly disagree with him on gun control."
- #094
Gregory Peck was first cast in Quo Vadis (1951) in the role played by Robert Taylor opposite Elizabeth Taylor. The film was shot in Rome for about two weeks under John Huston's direction until the studio halted production after executives were unhappy with the footage.
- #095
Gregory Peck was a founding member of the National Council on the Arts (1964-66).
- #096
Gregory Peck was a close friend of former French President Jacques Chirac.
- #097
Gregory Peck once owned a thoroughbred named "Different Class," which was the favorite in the 1968 Grand National in the United Kingdom but finished third.
- #098
Gregory Peck campaigned for Harry S. Truman in the 1948 presidential election.
- #099
Gregory Peck was a Democrat throughout his life and generously donated his time and money to many causes.
- #100
After his parents divorced, Gregory Peck spent much of his childhood with relatives.
- #101
Gregory Peck is one of eight actors nominated for an Oscar for a performance as a priest. In chronological order, the others are: Spencer Tracy for San Francisco (1936) and Boys Town (1938); Charles Bickford for The Song of Bernadette (1943); Bing Crosby for Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945); Barry Fitzgerald for Going My Way (1944); Karl Malden for On the Waterfront (1954); Jason Miller for The Exorcist (1973); and Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt (2008). Tracy, Crosby and Fitzgerald won Oscars for their performances.
- #102
Orson Welles once hoped to make a film about the DC Comics hero Batman starring Gregory Peck, but the project never came to fruition. It turned out to be a hoax.
- #103
In 1979, Gregory Peck was inducted into the Great Western Performers Hall of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
- #104
Gregory Peck was named the 58th Greatest Movie Star of All Time by Entertainment Weekly.
- #105
Gregory Peck's Armenian roots came from his paternal grandfather Sam Peck, an English immigrant. After marrying his second wife, Veronique Passani, Peck traced her lineage and discovered his Armenian ancestry. Encouraged to learn more about his partial Armenian heritage and to learn the language, he took brief Armenian lessons in his later years.
- #106
Gregory Peck traveled to Alabama to campaign for Donald W. Stewart, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate running in a special election to complete the term of U.S. Senator James B. Allen, who died in office. Stewart won the seat.
- #107
Peck appears on the Cal Berkeley alumni list as a member of the Class of 1942 in the English department, and he acted in 'Little Theatre' plays on campus sponsored by the Associated Students. While the university's Music and Drama Committee was chaired by Prof. William Popper, the university's Department of Dramatic Arts was being newly established in 1941, near the end of his time as a student.
- #108
Peck's ancestors included Irish, English, some German and distant Welsh. His paternal grandparents were Samuel Peck and Catherine Ashe, and his maternal grandparents were John Daggett Ayers and Katherine Elizabeth Forse. His father's grandmother was an immigrant from County Kerry, Ireland. He was a relative of the Irish patriot Thomas Ashe, who fought in the 1916 Easter Rising and died the following year on hunger strike. Most of his other ancestors came from families that had lived in New England since the 1600s.
- #109
Until the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Gregory Peck strongly opposed the possibility of the United States entering World War II.
- #110
In 1998, Gregory Peck was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC.
- #111
While studying at UC Berkeley, Gregory Peck worked as a waiter at the school's Gamma Phi Beta sorority house.
- #112
Peck and The Big Country (1958) co-star Charlton Heston both portrayed the notorious Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele: Peck in The Boys from Brazil (1978) and Heston in My Father (2003).
- #113
Gregory Peck played a lawyer in four films: The Paradine Case (1947), Cape Fear (1962), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Cape Fear (1991).
- #114
Peck appeared in eight Oscar Best Picture nominees: Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), How the West Was Won (1962) and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). The only winner was Gentleman's Agreement.
- #115
Gregory Peck was the father-in-law of Daniel Voll.
- #116
Gregory Peck was a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, awarded by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation (1986).
- #117
After working on Broadway, Gregory Peck went to Hollywood in 1943 and made his film debut with Days of Glory (1944).
- #118
Peck was set to star in The Proud Ones (1956), but the role was ultimately played by Robert Ryan.
- #119
Gregory Peck was the maternal grandson of John Ayres (1847-1912), born in Missouri, and Kate Ayres (née Forse, 1853-1942), born in Pennsylvania.
- #120
On 14.08.2021, Gregory Peck was honored with a filmography tribute during Turner Classic Movies' Summer Under the Stars event.
- #121
Gregory Peck studied at the University of California, then enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.
- #122
After making Gentleman's Agreement, Peck and his co-star Dorothy McGuire founded the La Jolla Playhouse in California.
- #123
Three of the American Film Institute's 100 most thrilling films star Gregory Peck: Cape Fear (1962) at No. 61, The Omen (1976) at No. 81 and The Guns of Navarone (1961) at No. 89.
Continue through the archive
- The Guns of Navaroneas Capt. Keith Mallory
- The Boys from Brazilas Dr. Josef Mengele
- Cape Fearas Sam Bowden
- How the West Was Wonas Cleve Van Valen (segment: The Plains)
- Spellboundas John Ballantyne
- The Big Countryas James McKay
- Moby Dickas Captain Ahab
- On the Beachas Cmdr. Dwight Lionel Towers
- Twelve O'Clock Highas Gen. Savage
- The Paradine Caseas Anthony Keane
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