50 Fun Facts About Gregory Peck

In which Californian neighbourhood was Gregory Peck born in 1916?

His father was a pharmacist; he later co-founded the La Jolla Playhouse in his birthplace.

What was Gregory Peck's real first name, which he dropped before heading to New York?

He had planned to be a doctor and studied English and pre-med at Berkeley.

What sport did the 6-foot-3 Peck take up at the University of California, Berkeley?

In 1996 he gave 25,000 dollars to the Berkeley crew in honour of his coach Ky Ebright.

Peck was exempt from WWII service due to a back injury he actually suffered doing what?

The studio preferred to say he hurt it rowing, since a dance class 'wasn't macho enough'.

Under which legendary teacher did Peck study at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse?

He went on to appear in some 50 plays and three Broadway productions.

Peck earned his first Oscar nomination for playing an 80-year-old missionary priest in which 1944 film?

His character looks back on more than half a century of missionary work in China.

In which 1945 Hitchcock film did Peck play an amnesiac who may be a murderer?

Hitchcock had hoped for Cary Grant; Peck and Bergman were romantically linked at the time.

In which 1946 Western, nicknamed 'Lust in the Dust', was Peck cast as a cruel cowboy?

Its saturation release made it the second-highest-grossing film of the entire 1940s.

In The Yearling (1946), Peck plays a Florida father whose son insists on raising what?

Jane Wyman played his wife; the film earned Peck his second Oscar nomination.

In which 1947 Elia Kazan film does Gregory Peck play a journalist pretending to be Jewish?

It won Best Picture and Best Director; Peck was nominated for Best Actor.

With which two actors did Peck co-found the La Jolla Playhouse in 1947?

The summer stock company performed in a high school auditorium until 1964 and reopened at UC San Diego in 1983.

In Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Peck plays the new commander of what?

Brigadier General Frank Savage earned him his fourth Oscar nomination.

Studio boss Darryl Zanuck blamed the weak box office of The Gunfighter (1950) on what?

Peck had grown it after research showed most real cowboys had facial hair; the film is now considered a classic.

Which classic Western role did Peck turn down after The Gunfighter, fearing typecasting?

Gary Cooper took the part and won an Oscar.

Peck played which fictional Napoleonic-era Royal Navy captain in a 1951 Raoul Walsh film?

He and co-star Virginia Mayo made it a top-ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Roman Holiday (1953), Peck insisted that his co-star's name be raised above the title. Who was she?

He predicted she would win the Oscar for her first big role, and she did.

Which actor turned down Peck's role in Roman Holiday as too much of a supporting part?

Director William Wyler persuaded Peck by promising the experience of filming on location in Rome.

The blacklisted screenwriter of Roman Holiday, credited only decades later, was who?

Ian McLellan Hunter fronted for him; full credit was restored in 2011.

The Million Pound Note (1954), with Peck as a penniless sailor handed a giant banknote, is based on a story by whom?

He made it in London during an 18-month tax exile from the US.

Peck played Captain Ahab in the 1956 film of Moby Dick. Who directed it?

Ray Bradbury co-wrote the script and Orson Welles played Father Mapple, the part Peck himself took in a 1998 miniseries.

Which actress with a gravely ill husband did Peck pick as his leading lady for Designing Woman (1957)?

Humphrey Bogart died that year; the film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Peck co-produced The Big Country (1958) with which director, then fell out with him?

Peck stormed off set when Wyler refused to reshoot a close-up; Burl Ives won an Oscar for the film.

In The Guns of Navarone (1961), what is the specialty of Gregory Peck's Captain Mallory?

The team must destroy two German guns so British ships can rescue 2,000 soldiers trapped in the Aegean.

Peck persuaded Robert Mitchum to play Max Cady in Cape Fear (1962) by sending him what?

Peck plays lawyer Sam Bowden, whose testimony sent Cady to prison for eight years.

Peck, Mitchum and Balsam all reappeared in different roles in the 1991 Cape Fear remake directed by whom?

Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte took over the leads.

For which role did Peck finally win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

It was his fifth and last nomination; he called To Kill a Mockingbird 'my favourite film, without any question'.

In 2003 the American Film Institute gave Peck's Mockingbird lawyer what accolade?

Peck had read Harper Lee's novel overnight and phoned the producers at 8 am asking 'When do I start?'

Which actor made his big-screen debut as the reclusive Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Mary Badham played Scout and Robert Mulligan directed.

Who read the eulogy at Peck's funeral in 2003?

Peters had played Tom Robinson, the man Atticus defends; he quoted Lee's line that Atticus 'gave him an opportunity to play himself'.

In The Omen (1976), where is Peck's diplomat Robert Thorn serving?

William Holden had turned the role down, not wanting to make a film about the devil.

In The Boys from Brazil (1978), Peck took the villainous role of which real Nazi doctor?

Laurence Olivier played the Nazi hunter on his trail; the plot involves 94 clones of Hitler.

Peck played which American president in the 1982 miniseries The Blue and the Gray?

He had earlier played General Douglas MacArthur on film despite reservations about the man.

In the 1983 TV film The Scarlet and the Black, Peck played Hugh O'Flaherty, a priest who did what?

Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud co-starred.

Which president awarded Peck the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969?

Johnson had also planned to make him ambassador to Ireland had he run again in 1968.

Which president put the liberal Peck on his 'enemies list'?

In 1947 he had signed a letter deploring the House Un-American Activities Committee's Hollywood investigation.

In 1970 Democrats floated Peck as a possible candidate for which office?

He would have run against Ronald Reagan; he later admitted he had no interest in office himself.

Which 1972 film about the prosecution of a group of Vietnam War protesters did Peck produce?

It was adapted from Daniel Berrigan's play; Peck was also a lifelong advocate of gun control and a nuclear ban.

Peck's first wife, Greta Kukkonen, was of which heritage?

They married in 1942 and had three sons; he later married French journalist Veronique Passani.

In the 1998 Moby Dick miniseries, Peck played Father Mapple opposite which actor as Ahab?

Orson Welles had played Mapple in the 1956 film in which Peck was Ahab.

Which role in a 2005 film had Peck been offered but died before he could accept?

Irish actor David Kelly took the part after Peck's death in June 2003.

Where did the AFI rank Peck on its 1999 list of the greatest classic Hollywood male stars?

He died in his sleep of bronchopneumonia at 87 and is entombed in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.

Which Irish revolutionary, who died on hunger strike in 1917, was a relative of Gregory Peck?

Ashe took part in the Easter Rising less than three weeks after Peck was born.

Peck's first film, Days of Glory (1944), was directed by which filmmaker?

RKO cast him opposite top-billed Russian ballerina Tamara Toumanova in the war-romance.

Which Biblical epic starring Peck was the top-grossing film of 1951?

It was his third film under director Henry King, with Susan Hayward as Bathsheba.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) adapted a short story by which author?

It reunited Peck with Henry King, Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner and ranked fourth at the 1952 box office.

Which 1951 Western did Peck later call the low point of his career?

He disliked the low-budget film's script from the start.

Peck's second wife, Véronique Passani, had first met him in what capacity?

She interviewed him in 1952 before he left for Italy to film Roman Holiday; they married on New Year's Eve 1955.

In which year did Peck serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

That same year he received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and began chairing the AFI's board.

In The Purple Plain (1954), Peck plays a troubled bomber pilot of which nationality?

Filmed in Sri Lanka, it flopped in the US but ranked tenth at the UK box office in 1954.

What was the cause of Gregory Peck's death in June 2003?

He died in his sleep at home in Los Angeles at 87, with his wife Véronique at his side.