Gregory Peck: His Own Man | Hollywood Idols Episode 3

[Music] one of gregory peck's earliest memories was the arrival of a silent film crew shooting a film in his boyhood town of la jolla california [Music] well if somebody at that moment had come along and said look you're going to grow and be just like that and you're going to have that orange stuff on your face and you're going to play make-believe in front of a camera and i thought they were totally out of their minds [Music] but this is what i've been doing for about 40 years now on a lot of locations in a lot of different parts of the world and i love it often playing larger than life roles gregory peck never let himself get tied down by one studio always selected his own scripts gregory peck was forever his own man [Music] he's to me the ultimate movie star you know it there's nobody more handsome or more gentle or romantic on the screen i don't think for all ages he represented i guess everything kind of uh strong and reliable and and solid i guess we all resented the fact that we all didn't look like gregory peck or had that wonderful voice he is he's a beautiful survivor anybody that's been a star that long made that many good films has got to be very special he's a tall wonderful looking man but also his he has a big soul he can give a performance that will make an audience think he can touch them his ideals have somehow remained strong in him and he's never let the career completely overtake that eldrid gregory peck was born april 5th 1916 in la jolla california a suburb of san diego [Music] i was a small town kid from la jolla there was only one of everything in the hoya there was one doctor one grocery store one hardware store my father he had the drugstore and he was a good-looking young fellow and he was a catch and my mother came along beautiful young lady from st louis and they hit it off [Music] but it didn't last very long and my mother she and i went back to st louis and we lived in a very curious slightly run-down boarding house and i can hardly believe now that i was actually at the age of six selling newspapers down on the street corner where the trolley car went by we came back to la jolla my mother went to work in los angeles and i lived with this wonderful grandmother i got a dog whose name was bud and for a couple of years i was totally happy but we didn't have the habit of conversation at home i never remember once ever sitting around a dinner table with my family and and and having uh ordinary kind of family conversation so i think that i uh i reached out to that audience to try to make contact with them to try to make friends with them and to tell them a story that i wanted to tell graduating from berkeley with a degree in english and dropping his first name eldrid young gregory peck headed to new york city to study with the legendary acting teacher sanford meisner [Music] that was a great discovery to study acting with sandy meisner one of the things that was good about it was that you learned that you have to take a chance on making a total jackass out of yourself and overcome that inhibition i didn't have fantasies about being up on the silver screen i had stage ambitions in 1942 at the age of 26 peck made his broadway debut the same year he married greta coconin the finnish american real estate broker they would have three sons two years later his first film days of glory was released it was a disappointment and i made the movie which was a clinker and i didn't want to go back to new york leaving a bad picture on my record and i'd sort of begun to like movie work so i decided to accept another offer the movie was the 1944 the keys of the kingdom for which peck would garner his first academy award nomination if i ever run across it now i see a very skinny very sincere young man who is absolutely putting his heart and soul into every scene dear lord let me have patience and forbearance where now i have anger give me humility lord after all it was only thy merciful goodness and thy divine providence that saved the boy but they are ungrateful and you know it but i'm here to tell you that sincerity is not enough you have to have salt and pepper you have to bring experience from life you have to have ideas of your own you have to have humor suddenly peck was a hollywood movie star about to be playing opposite ingrid bergman and directed by alfred hitchcock in his 1945 film [Music] spellbound i think you know everyone here dr edwards no not yet oh it's dr peterson how do you do dr edwards hitchcock was a master of film technique and i was quite green at that time fresh from studies with sanford meisner and the method so i had to do it from inside it's just all terribly simple it isn't gussied up with 15 shadings and sly little looks and uh and all of that it's very pure it's like a light that's on and that was not hitchcock's way he he wanted the right turn the right reaction as he had visualized it sitting in the office i was an amnesiac crazy in the head something's happening what is it i wouldn't have come back as dr edwards if i hadn't known that he was dead most memorable about that picture was ingrid who was a fantastic swedish beauty and had just come into her own what it's worth i [Music] in 1946 peck claimed his second academy award nomination for the western the yearling you vomit basically it's play acting when you do a western that isn't too far from the playing you did out in the backyard when you were a kid playing the good guys and the bad guys why don't you leave this one alone wasn't that a judge you got her earmarked for yourself aside from the fact that i was playing a rascal i worked on horsemanship and i had a wonderful teacher ralph mccutcheon and he taught me a lot of trick mounts and dismounts and i was pretty nimble on those days [Music] jennifer jones had just played saint bernadette and i had just played a saintly young priest selznick had a lot of mischief in him and i think he he got a kick out of putting these two in roles that were a little bit raunchy for that time [Music] i never thought of mayor's evil although he did uh shoot his own brother forged checks gamble and didn't really treat jennifer as a gentleman should i think the audience rather likes bad guys because they come up with surprises [Music] and in a way they're easier to play peck's next academy award nomination came in 1947 for his role in gentlemen's agreement it was a socially charged role directed by ilya kazan founder of the methods school of acting i never said that if you don't accept jews say so don't raise your voice to me mr green otherwise what the gentleman's agreement dealt with the subject of anti-semitism in america everything was not so perfect when people because they happened to be of one religion were shunned or had to suffer from prejudice these things are not characteristic of the best of america and we went out at hammer and tong dealing with an area where we could stand some improvement you really do think i'm an anti-semite no i don't you do you've thought it secretly for a long time no it's just that i've come to see that lots of nice people who aren't people who despise it and detest it and deplore it and protest their own innocence help it along and i wonder why it grows elia kazan is a feisty brilliant director and i think there are times when he would like to have seen me punch a hole in the wall well i showed my feelings in a different way two years later gregory peck found himself once again nominated for an academy award for best actor [Music] this time for an american military man in 12 o'clock high i think i was about 34. i went and had a talk with henry king and daryl zaneck and i said i think i'm a bit young to be a general henry said now i know what you can do and you trust me now i don't have a lot of patience with this what are we fighting for stuff we're in a war a shooting war we've got to fight and some of us have got to die i'm not trying to tell you not to be afraid fear is normal but stop worrying about it and about yourselves stop making plans forget about going home consider yourselves already dead [Music] this was a fellow who would stretch himself to the limit and then beyond what's the matter sir [Music] although nominated four times for best actor in the unheard-of span of five years gregory peck never received the ultimate prize the academy award undaunted his career flourished making mustaches acceptable for heroes he played the western gunslinger jimmy ringo in the 1950 film the gunfighter and a year later played a british naval hero in captain horatio hornblower rn [Music] then peck took on the role of harry street in the 1952 adaptation of ernest hemingway's the snows of kilimanjaro [Music] a year later he would find himself paired with the actress who would become hollywood's greatest leading lady audrey hepburn i owe greg a great deal if not everything because stars had approval of script and also approval of co co-stars or co-actors and greg could very well have said at the time well you know just a little dance and perhaps you'd better get somebody more established willie weiler told me that the princess was going to be played by an unknown name audrey hepburn so i thought well he must have found a marvelous girl willie he found one of the great film stars of all time [Music] yes what is it it's rare a romantic light comedy that also has a genuine love story that made people want for this unlikely pair to have a happy ending well it was impossible i don't know how to say goodbye [Music] make many words [Music] don't try still you go out with a feeling that we're both better off for having had this brief romance in an odd twist of fate audrey hepburn won the academy award for best actress in her first major role while peck was not even nominated [Music] two years after roman holiday at the age of 39 on december 31 1955 the day after his divorce from his first wife was finalized peck married the love of his life veronique passani the most wonderful thing that has happened to me is meeting veronique and being married to her for 32 years we're very much of a team [Music] i consult with her she's very imaginative wise and witty sometimes we're together uh 24 hours a day for weeks on end and uh it may sound odd but we like it that way the gods were smiling on us we were meant to be together [Music] i enjoyed almost more than anything i've done being on the jack benny show doing an old-fashioned song and dance number with jack and george burns that to me was uh the most fun i ever had performing peck continued to star in films of his choosing such as the guns of navarone get on the phone tell them that you're not to be disturbed until you give further orders remember i speak german perfect eighteen years after his first academy award nomination he got to bring to life atticus finch the person the american film institute selected as the greatest movie hero of the 20th century almost in the first moment i met greg and we talked about atticus you could feel him putting on the clothes yeah and the skin of atticus finished out because jim says this watch is coming to him someday that's right why well customary for the boy to hit his father's watch what are you gonna give me there's a pearl necklace there's a ring that belonged to your mother and i put them away and they're to be yours my role just seemed to connect with my experiences in my early life in some ways i connected with my dad the first day of the film i saw out of the corner of my eye harper lee the author and i noticed a definite uh glisten on her cheeks and a thought went through my head even in the middle of the scene we must we must be absolutely great we're tearing her heart out i walked over expecting her to tell us how marvelous we were and she said oh gregory you've got a little potbelly just like my daddy and so that was her idea of the highest compliment she could give me and he was so wonderful and he was everybody's father he was the father you wanted to have the one who listened to you you know the one who would get you out of the woods when it got dark and you got in trouble [Music] you [ __ ] lover it's a very special story about a very special man dealing with the black white issue the sense of racism of injustice that went on in the south now gentlemen in this country our courts are the great levelers and in our courts all men are created equal i'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system that's no ideal to me that is a living working reality i am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that you have heard come to a decision and restore this man to his family in the name of god do your duty a royal affair in london for the english premiere of the universal hit to kill a mockingbird and on hand is a movie star gregory pegg he accompanies mrs peck left and actress ava gardner to kill a mockingbird of all the pictures that i've made have had the most kudos plaques certificates and statues from that one awards and movie circles are the golden globes the most glamorous affair in glamorous hollywood draws a glittering crowd i was up for days of wine and roses greg was sitting smack behind me and they announced he stood up and he started down the aisle he stopped and he looked down and he put his hand on my shoulder and he squeezed it and he looked at me and i knew what he was saying mr peck wins his first oscar for his outstanding portrayal of the lawyer in universals to kill a mockingbird the ability to think of somebody else speaks a lot of the man it was a moment i will never forget thank you fellow academy members thank you he cares and his status and his stardom if you will sit on him very easily he hasn't ever i imagine ever really changed from who he was as a young man before this amazing success took over after his academy award for best actor in to kill a mockingbird peck continued to star in movies such as 1968's the stalking moon and the 1976 horror film the omen during this time peck took a courageous stance against america's involvement in the vietnam war with the war ending peck took on a role that only the 60 year old actor could have played that of general douglas macarthur in the 1977 movie macarthur sir that is a direct order from the president and that is part of a dangerous concept that men of the armed forces owe their primary allegiance to these temporary occupants of the white house instead of to the country and the constitution we're sworn to defend i have a feeling he would prefer to act a character that's very different than him because it would offer him him an opportunity to understand a very different kind of person today marks my final roll call with you i want you to know that when i cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of the core and the core gregory peck continued to act for the next 10 years choosing roles in films that were socially important and challenging for him as an actor [Music] he could now look back on a life well lived i'm sure everyone watching has had moments in their lives of of being down and feeling despair and wondering whether you could get through that tough period and that happened to me there were three wonderful sons born from my first marriage one of them took his own life i probably not only think of them every day but every hour but one learns to go on living as i look back i've gone to all those premieres and i've met everybody the glitz and the glamour never made much of an impression on me the important thing was always the work and the people that became my friends were all people to whom the work was the thing gregory peck is perhaps more than anybody i know totally genuine and i think everything comes from the inside whatever part he does and i think he'll always be remembered for being so real as a human being and as an actor [Music] he's a man of extraordinary dimension i think that i reached out to that audience to try to make contact with them to try to make friends with them and to tell them a story that i wanted to tell having done it his way gregory peck passed away on june 12 2003 from pneumonia at the age of 87. his wife and soulmate veronique was by his side [Music] you

Channel: The Hollywood Collection

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Keywords: hollywood idols, hollywood, full episodes hollywood idols, hollywood idols full episodes, hollywood collection, hollywood collection full episodes, best hollywood actors, steve mcqueen, michael caine, classic movies, classic actors, old actors, notorious movie, audrey hepburn, liza minelli, jane fonda, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Keys of the Kingdom, atticus finch, atticus finch actor, western movies, gregory peck movies, mockinbird, gregory peck biography, i walk the line

Id: z6rf8baf5EM

Length: 28min 6sec (1686 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020