One of Hollywood's most acclaimed and durable male stars, Gregory Peck, whose long career is studded with such glorious film classics as Gentleman's Agreement (1947), The Gunfighter, (1950), Roman Holiday (1953) and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar), died on June 12 in his Beverly Hills homes of natural causes. He was 87.

He was born Eldred Gregory Peck on April 5, 1916, in La Jolla, California. His father was La Jolla's first pharmacist. His parents divorced when he was six, and after moving around in various homes between them, he eventually settled in with his father in 1930 at age 14 and entered San Diego High School. Upon graduation, he entered the University of California at Berkeley and, due to pressure by his father, was Pre-Med major. Peck soon realized that a career in Medicine was not for him, and he switched his major to English. The story of how Peck developed a taste for theater is amusing as it is innocuous. While walking on campus one day he was approached by the director of the Campus Theater. He was looking for a tall actor (Peck was 6'2", a towering height for his day) to play the lanky role of Starbuck for an adaptation of Moby Dick. Although he had virtually no formal training, Peck took the role, and his love for the craft of acting was immediate.

Dropping the name of Eldred, he headed for New York after graduation at Berkeley. Like most actors struggling for a career in the Big Apple, Peck supported himself with a string of odd jobs: a barker at the 1939 World's Fair, a tour guide at Rockefeller Center, and he even modeled for photographers, appearing in a Montgomery Ward catalog. Persistency paid off though, when he auditioned and was accepted in the Neighborhood Playhouse, a legendary acting school that was run by Sanford Meisner.

It wasn't long before Peck found some stock work and by 1942, he made his way to Broadway, starring in Emlyn Williams' wartime drama Morning Star, with Gladys Cooper and Wendie Barrie. The play closed after 24 performances and Peck went right into the next one, John Patrick's The Willow and I with Martha Scott as his leading lady. It ran a bit longer, lasting 28 performances, yet Peck received positive reviews and caught the attention of some Hollywood scouts. He accepted the role, offered by RKO, of Vladmir, a freedom fighter, in Jaques Tourneur's Days of Glory (1944), a story of Russian peasants resisting the Nazi invasion. Peck later admitted that he took the offer to use the $10,000 salary to pay off his dentist and other creditors, never considering that cinema stardom was just around the corner.

When 20th Century Fox's Darryl Zanuck offered the part of Father Francis Chisholm, the taciturn Scottish missionary in John M. Stahl's The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), to Peck, it was only his second film, but he played the role with such vigor and presence, that audiences and critics were enthralled. Peck earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and with most of Hollywood's male stars absent in the war (he was exempt from service because of an old back injury), Peck's good looks and acting chops made him the choice as a strong leading man.

His next role was for MGM, opposite Greer Garson in Tay Garnett's lush drama Valley of Decision (1945). Here Peck earned raves (not to mention an ever-growing female fan base) as a capable romantic lead. If Peck's game of Studio hopscotch seems a bit confusing (three different movie studios in his first three films), it's because Peck had the audacity not to sign a long-term contract with any major studio. Instead, he worked earnestly to work with scripts that he felt had merit. Risky as a proposition as this was, Peck had the talent of being such a fine actor, that in the post-war era where adult dramas (which well suited his established personae of maturity and grace) were becoming increasing popular, he established himself as one of the first successful stars to work around the studio system.

Indeed, few actors from that era can boast such a fine track record of films at the start of their career: a mentally disturbed patient accused of murder in Hitchcock's Spellbound(1945) opposite Ingrid Bergman; the firm, but caring father in The Yearling (1946, Oscar nomination, Golden Globe winner); Elia Kazan's powerful social dramaGentleman's Agreement (1947, another Oscar nomination) in which he played a magazine writer, who poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism, a daring expose in its time; and a colonel on the verge of a breakdown in Henry King's Twelve O'Clock High (1949, earning yet another Oscar nod for a fine film).

As much as he was a star and respected as one of the industry's best trained actors, it was not until the early '50s did Peck latch on to some of his finest roles: a tired, disillusioned hired gun, who knows his days are numbered in Henry King's moody, brilliant psychological western The Gunfighter (1950); the title role in Raoul Walsh's exciting adventure Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951); and surprising critics with his light comic touch as a reporter who romances Audrey Hepburn in William Wyler's charming Roman Holiday (1953).

More hit roles followed: his electrifying, maddening performance as the tormented Captain Ahab in John Huston's Moby Dick(1956); as a survivor in Stanley Kramer's post-apocalyptic fantasy On the Beach (1959) with Ava Gardner; the leading military officer in J. Lee Thompson's exciting World War II adventure yarn The Guns of Navarone(1961, the highest grossing film of that year), and again with director Thompson as the District Attorney whose family is stalked by ex-convict Robert Mitchum in the still eerily creepy Cape Fear(1962), in which Peck also produced.

His role after that, of Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends a black man against a rape charge in the deep South in Robert Mulligan's superb adaptation of Harper Lee's best-selling novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), is Peck's personal favorite film. It's easy to understand why. No other role in his career captured his virtues of integrity, strength, dignity and intelligence better than the role of Atticus. He justly earned an Academy Award for Best Actor for his work, and his embodiment of Atticus Finch recently ranked (number one on the) The American Film Institute's listing of the top heroes in film history.

Unfortunately, the next roles Peck would accept over the remainder of the decade were something of a disappointment: as an amnesiac victim in Edward Dmytryk's fair Hitchcockian thriller Mirage (1965); Stanley Donen's muddled spy caper Arabesque (1966), opposite Sophia Loren; J. Lee Thompson's overblown Western saga Mackenna's Gold (1968); the dull, stodgy science drama Marooned (1969).

Peck kept a low profile for awhile, but he made a startling comeback playing the father of the satanic Damien in Richard Donner's hit horror film, The Omen (1976). After that, he returned to big, exuberant roles such as the title character of Joseph Sargent's MacArthur (1977); and the evil Doctor Josef Mengele for Franklin Schaffner's The Boys from Brazil (1978), the most villainous role of his career.

His last lead roles for theatrical movies were thoughtful affairs: he replaced an ailing Burt Lancaster in the role of the adorable curmudgeon, Ambrose Bierce, in Luiz Puenzo's Old Gringo (1989); and Norman Jewison cast him in the part of a principled owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (1991). He also earned a Golden Globe at age 82 for his work in the television miniseries version Moby Dick (1998) in the small role of the preacher Father Mapple.

For the last decade or so, Peck has focused much of his energy on spending time with his wife, children, and grandchildren; and he traveled across the country visiting small playhouses and colleges, speaking about his life experiences as both a celebrity and an actor. He served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1967 to 1970. In 1989 he received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. He is survived by his wife of 47 years Veronique Passani; sons Stephen; Carey, Tony; daughter Cecilia; and several grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole