Two distinct characters landed on top of the Hollywood movie heroes-and-villains list released last week by the American Film Institute.
In the villain category sat Hannibal (the Cannibal) Lecter, so memorably played three times by Anthony Hopkins. No shock there. But the number one hero was a pleasant yet deserving surprise: Atticus Finch, the crusading lawyer played with such conviction by Gregory Peck in the humanist drama To Kill A Mockingbird (1962).
That says a lot about the timeless movie, which so eloquently rails against the injustices of racial prejudice in America.
But it also says just as much about Peck, and not just because he won his only Oscar in the role. Throughout his career and particularly in Mockingbird, he embodied the finest attributes of a mature modern man.
Just by striding on screen, whether he were to be sophisticated or rough-hewn in the role, Peck most often represented decency, civility, intelligence, rock-solid values and strong emotion, almost always without cloying sentimentality. Seemingly without effort, he played men whom other men aspired to be in real life.
Even when he was cast as a cad -- and never did he play anyone more evil than Nazi psycho Josef Mengele in the ugly thriller The Boys From Brazil (1978) -- Peck's personal reputation and on-screen image remained unsullied.
He has not been active as an actor in recent years. His final TV drama was broadcast in 1998 -- he played a man of the cloth in a re-make of Moby Dick (Peck had starred as Captain Ahab in the original 1956 feature). His last feature film was Martin Scorsese's 1991 Cape Fear (another inside joke because Peck had starred in the 1962 original).
Peck's best work came in the latter half of the 1940s and through into the 1970s. But, at age 83, he still showed vigour and presence, on screen and off, when he came to the Cannes Film Festival in 1999 with his family-generated documentary, A Conversation With Gregory Peck. His star never dimmed. So he will be mourned and missed. A golden era of American cinema has lost a giant.
It is also worth saying, too, that my phrase "seemingly without effort" belies his true craft. Peck looked as if he simply played himself, because he truly was decent and civil and intelligent and emotional in person (as I discovered in several interviews, the first time for The Boys Of Brazil).
"Being" is not performing, however. It takes tremendous skill to transfer one's attributes to a fictional character with the consistency and believability that Peck did for 54 years.
Peck did so in a variety of genres. As the years in his career passed and trends and fads inevitably changed, Peck excelled in westerns, war movies, adventures, romances, romantic comedies and social dramas.
Peck often infused his genre pieces with a dynamic that elevated them beyond the cliche. His romantic interlude with Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953) is still one of the most wonderful love stories ever told. In the post-apocalyptic On The Beach (1959), Peck brought sanity to the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. In Gentleman's Agreement (1947), he fought anti-Semitism with a subtle grace that is still astonishing today. In The Omen (1976) he made the horror genre seem as enlightened as a serious drama. In Old Gringo (1989), he showed his rugged handsomeness still had sexual power at the age of 73, yet not in any creepy way.
There are other significant titles. Everything, however, still revolves around To Kill A Mockingbird. It was his own favourite. To those who love American cinema, it remains a remarkable classic. Thank you Eldred Gregory Peck.
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