Gregory Peck: One of the Greatest Male Stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema

Born 1916 in San Diego, California, American actor Gregory Peck began appearing in stage productions, acting in over fifty plays and three Broadway productions. He first gained critical success in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He starred in a series of successful films, including romantic-drama The Valley of Decision (1944), Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), and family film The Yearling (1946).

Peck reached global recognition in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing back-to-back in the book-to-film 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 him a Golden Globe award.

Other notable films in which he appeared include Moby Dick (1956, and its 1998 mini-series), 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. 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.

Peck was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among 25 Greatest Male Stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema, ranking him at No. 12. He was also active in politics, challenging the House Un-American 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 in 2003 at the age of 87. Take a look at these vintage photos to see portrait of a young and handsome Gregory Peck in the 1940s and 1950s.