Gregory Peck Tribute 1989--Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Quinn, Jennifer Jones, Liza Minnelli, Jane Fonda

[Music] the recipient of the 17th annual life achievement award mr gregory beck [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] from the beverly hilton hotel the 17th annual american film institute life achievement award a salute to gregory peck [Applause] [Music] ladies and gentlemen miss audrey hepburn [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you thank you so much one autumn afternoon in 1937 a young pre-med student was strolling across the berkeley campus when he felt a tap on his shoulder he turned and found himself facing the head of the university's drama department who wanted to know if the young man would possibly consider trying out for that semester's campus production the student thanked him but explained he wasn't really an actor the professor simply looked at him and said oh that's all right i just need someone tall he was very tall and most extraordinary looking and possessed what would later be described as a rich deep brown voice and in that very first performance in his very first production that aspiring medical student walked out on stage and displayed all the grace and talent and presence of a born doctor so he worked and studied and went to new york where he got himself an agent and survived by working as a tour guide for radio city music hall a model for the montgomery ward catalogue and a barker at the world's fair he also managed to appear in a number of broadway productions along the way and it was the morning following the opening night of one of these productions that his agent received a phone call from an eager film producer who wanted to know what it would take to get this young man to come to hollywood it was only then that the agent decided to satisfy his curiosity buzzed his secretary and asked so who is this gregory peck guy anyway who he was within 10 short years was one of the top box office stars in the world every woman's dream and a remarkably versatile and accomplished actor who i was at the time was a totally unknown dancer in london where was one of hundreds to be tested by william wyler for roman holiday not only did greg agree to have me as his leading lady but then guided me for months with kindness and patience and humor through one of the loveliest experiences of my life i have waited 37 years not only to honor him but to finally be able to say with all my heart and all my love thank you dear greg after all this time you might think we would finally be able to answer that question who is this gregory peck guy anyway the best he's ever been willing to say about himself is i have no alibi i come of sane parents and a fair education ate my spinach and as far as i know i was never dropped on my head so if we want any type of answer at all we'll just have to turn to his friends and his films ladies and gentlemen miss lauren the call thank you when i was told about tonight's tribute to greg i realized that one of his fatal attractions for me would finally become public his ear i had the pleasure of gently biting it often and designing a woman both of them as a matter of fact actually i met greg several years before we made that movie i was 17 and had been taken to the home of catherine cornell and guthrie mcclitic i don't remember what i was doing there but i do remember seeing this young actor sitting there who is possibly no definitely the most beautiful creature i had ever seen and when we finally got to work together in designing woman it was 15 years later and during a very tough period of my life bogey was ill and being around greg every day being able to go to the studio and play those funny scenes with him just having him there gave me added strength a few days after bogey passed away i remember looking out the window and seeing greg's car driver by the time i got downstairs he had gone but he left me a letter about bogey and me and our children about courage and the future so once again he had touched my life not just for that moment but for all the years since speaking about her movie going teenaged years a writer once pointed out how it was gregory peck who led us to believe it might not be so bad to grow up after all that perhaps the boys who were ahead shorter than us in the eighth grade might indeed grow tall as oak trees that men could be both extraordinarily good looking and sweet and considerate and normal all at the same time that they could be paternal and fraternal and sexy or failing that at least we could go to the movies and spend a few hours in the dark with gregory peck [Applause] there are several other ladies in the room tonight who have happened to fall under greg's spell over the years first is his co-star from duel in the sun and the man in the gray flannel suit miss jennifer jones greg i have a confession to make i love you too and playing those scenes with you those love scenes and duel in the sun well that wasn't exactly the hardest job i've ever had to do in fact it made me one of the most enviable women in the world thank you dear heart thank you and the co-star of greg's upcoming film old gringo jane fonda well i'm i'm obviously not his first leading lady and i may not be his last but i think i got him at his ripest and another thing for me working with someone who has achieved as much as he has in his lifetime you go into it thinking well you know maybe he's gotten soft maybe the edge is gone maybe he'll phone it in well his first day of shooting was a very very difficult scene there was a speech three pages long that ran the gamut of emotions and this is what he opened with in a sort of claustrophobic set with lots of people in period costumes a lot of smoke in the air the ceiling caught fire and over and over and over he did this three-page scene and as i watched him i came to love him for me he was the best that we can possibly be and at the end of it he pulled it off and i ran to him and threw my arms around him and i said why do we put ourselves through this and he said why not he's a brave man and i'm grateful to have worked with him thank you from newman md angie dickinson thank you when i was offered the role of fran in captain newman md uh universal said that i would have to agree to a long-term contract to do this picture and i thought well what possibly could be worth giving up that chunk of time of my life and then they told me who my co-star would be so i said oh hell what's seven years anyway thank you greg miss liza minnelli i first met greg when i was eight and a half and he was filming designing woman with betty and i met him at the beverly hills hotel and i can remember i was rushing around the set and being a real pain because my father was wonderful and never told me i did anything wrong and a very tall wonderful looking man came up and said how do you do my name is greg and he affected me so massively i remember at that point that my behavior changed i didn't realize at that point that he affected everybody in the world like that since then he's continued to affect me and through all of the years of our friendship and thank god it's been so close i find it extraordinary that a lifelong friend of my parents would turn out to be a treasured lifelong friend of my own thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] when asked to talk about gregory peck as an actor his great friend and co-star anthony quinn once said he's the kind of guy who makes it hard on the rest of us we all wish we looked like him we all wish we sounded like him and we all know that if we did we'd probably sit back and take it a lot easier than he ever has greg has never chosen the easy way instead he took risks and made choices that would constantly challenge both himself and our very idea of who he might be i suppose we can only say that there is no typical gregory peck role there is gregory peck the actor [Applause] ladies and gentlemen mr anthony quinn [Applause] one day i was called to universal studios by one of the most colorful directors in the history of motion pictures his name was raul walsh he wore a patch over one eye and he never seemed to look at the actors that he was directing he called every actor no matter what his age kid and every actress no matter who she was sweetheart he said it saved him wear and tear in his memory anyway i entered his office and he greeted me with his usual charm and he said hi kid i got a great part for you you wear curly hair a portuguese mustache and a diamond ring in your ear great picks the star to wardrobe i'll see you on the set wednesday so i got up and started for the door and hesitated i said uh excuse me mr walsh could you tell me a little bit about my character he said i told you you wear a curly hair a portuguese mustache and a diamond ring in your ear what the hell more do you want so i got my wardrobe and i got my script and i memorized it and showed up on wednesday and i must have looked pretty confused because a wonderful young man named greg came over and very graciously introduced himself and asked me if i wanted to rehearse i was so grateful i started to say yes and ral walked up and he said tony doesn't need any rehearsal okay action and just as i started to enter waltz gave me the best piece of direction i've ever had he said all right tony get him the garlic right in the face psyche walked in gave greg the garlic right in the face and the son of a gun didn't flinch we've been friends ever since [Applause] and there are other friends of greg's who are here to salute him tonight an actor who made his screen debut with greg at the age of seven one of this year's academy award nominees mr dean stockwell [Applause] i made two films with gregory peck i was about this high and i remember the father fellow playing my father was about 12 feet high and that's when he was sitting down we made a movie called gentlemen's agreement which dealt with anti-semitism in this country at a time when this kind of thing wasn't really talked about when he first decided to do this picture they warned him he might be hurting his career he better think it over but he wouldn't he liked what it said and he wanted to be the one saying it it's one of the two pictures i'm most proud of in my career i look back over these 40 or some years i've been working and i know he's still looking 12 feet tall thank you gregory from the big country big charlton heston there are a lot of good actors in this town there is none more gifted than he his status as a private and public citizen is admirable the causes he has spoken for uh on some of which we have disagreed but he has spoken with eloquence passion and integrity that is undeniable and i honor him for that the unforgettable mr sydney poitier greg your company is a treasure your friendship is a gift i am honored that you have encouraged me to lay claim to both i love you for all that you are to all of your fellow human beings from old gringo jimmy smith well a couple of years ago i found myself working on a television show about lawyers and to do my prep work of course i went to watch real lawyers but i rented every single movie i could about lawyers and when i popped in to kill a mockingbird and i said to myself how do you do that how do you do that last year i i found out that i was going to have the privilege to work with mr peck on old gringo and i said to myself i'm going to figure it out i'm going to watch him can't do it because greg nobody can do it like you what i learned from you in those four months that we worked in mexico was about friendship and generosity and professionalism and about what it really takes to expand 40 years in this business to get to a night like this i love you and i'll treasure the education greg i want to tell you i was very nervous about talking here tonight and i was right i'm very proud to see you sitting here among all these wonderful people holding the world in your arms ladies and gentlemen the founding director and current co-chairman of the american film institute george stevens jr [Applause] [Music] gregory peck has been described tonight as a as a dedicated actor the measure of his dedication was once demonstrated in the irish sea when he was starring as captain ahab and moby dick he was strapped to a huge white rubber whale and the tow rope broke casting the whale and the actor into the churning sea they say that as he went down for what he thought was the third and last time it was ahab's life that flashed before his eyes we honor him for a career that now spans nearly five decades for performances marked by his particular sensibility his dignity and intelligence and by the grace he brings to the screen on the cover of the american film institute's first annual report with the words of d w griffith the father of american film he said the motion picture is a child that has been given life in our generation we poor souls can scarcely visualize or dream of its possibilities let us be kind with it in its youth so in its maturity it may look back on its childhood without regrets gregory peck dreamed of those possibilities and he has given us a legacy of screen memories that we may look back upon with pride hope and wonder [Music] do so [Music] ladies and gentlemen mr gregory [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] i had a a good friend uh sensitive and a precise actor james mason and james didn't have a whole lot of jokes but he had he had one that he liked to tell and uh it had to do with his filming uh in dublin and going out for a breath of air and window shopping one evening along the streets of dublin after a while he noticed that a little lady seemed to be trailing him and uh after quite a time she mustered up the courage to come and tap him on the shoulder and and what she said was begging your pardon sir but wouldn't you be james and mason in his later years well it's it's a nice irish phrase later years it's candid it's accurate it's dispassionate but it's comfortable allowing for the possibility of more to come i cannot tell you how honored and pleased i am that you all came and and how proud i am that my name will go alongside those previous winners of this award people whom i've admired and respected and learned from i'm still trying to figure out how i got here probably it began with my first job on broadway i've been training for two years at the neighborhood playhouse with the teaching of stanford meisner and we ended our two years with what's called a demonstration play uh and directors and producers and people of the theater were invited to come and watch us do our stuff and the next morning it was the custom for the students to go back to the playhouse to see if anyone would call well the phone rang and the receptionist picked it up and she listened and she covered the speaker and she looked at me and she said it's for you he said guthrie mcclinic is casting a small role in g.b shaw's the doctor's dilemma with the great katherine cornell and he's looking at young fellows well by that time i was halfway down the stairs i knew where the office was i'd left my eight by tens there i ran down the stairs i ran half a block west to sixth avenue i sprinted four blocks up to 50th street i slid into the lobby of the rko building into an open elevator up to the eighth floor ran down the hall saturday morning the door was open no receptions there was mcclintic still talking on the phone to the [Applause] reception and he saw me and he started to laugh and he said you've got the job along the way the associations have been so rewarding working with lionel and ethel barrymore charles lawton edward g robinson and walter houston was exciting and tony quinn is a formidable actor and you have to step lively to stay on the screen with tony dear audrey betty jennifer jane fonda angie dickinson dorothy mcguire i thank you all the directors henry king raul walsh willie weiler bill wellman king vidor vincenti minelli and all the others i owe them so much not everything but a lot there's been a lot of glamorous uh financial news in the papers lately [Music] conglomerates billions of dollars in assets and much more such merges are to comes or so we are told well i would like to hear some glamorous talk about elevating the quality of films and television entertainment that in the words of t.s eliot enlarges the sympathies that stimulates the mind and the spirit that warms the heart punctures the balloons of hypocrisy greed and sham tickles the funny bone and leaves us with the glow that comes when we have been well entertained making millions is not the whole ballgame fellas pride of workmanship is worth more artistry is worth more the human imagination is a priceless resource the public is ready for the best you can give them it just may be that you can't make a buck and at the same time encourage foster and commission work of quality and originality and finally i come to the most important thing without my wife veronique and my family i wouldn't be here and if i were without them it wouldn't have any meaning veronique you're the one girl for me [Applause] i'm not going to embarrass you by choking and telling you on national tv how much i love you at least i think i'm not but i'll see you later heartfelt thanks to the afi and all of my dear friends and colleagues who spoke for me tonight i'm deeply grateful special thanks to audrey and thank you all [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] from all of us who have known you worked with you and watched you from the audience from all of us who love you thank you dear greg for showing us the best in our world and the best in ourselves good night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] next week in this time period midnight caller the show everyone's talking about returns and late night action gets into high gear later tonight with a life filled best of carson as johnny welcomes comedian rich eidner and funny lady rita rubner then dave is mr charming as he welcomes supermodel paulina poroshkova and scottish music duo the proclaimers to late night with david letterman

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Length: 33min 57sec (2037 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 09 2021