Month: June 2018

In 6 Balloons (2018), Seth is writhing in pain. He has dark circles around his eyes, his cheeks are sunken, accentuating strong cheek bones, and sweat is coming out from every pore of his body. Seth is a heroin addict, and he needs to shoot up to curb the pain. He pleads with his sister, Katie, to drive him to his dealer to score some drugs. He just needs enough to sustain him until she can drop him off at the detox center for a 10-day cleanse. She agrees to get his drugs; it’s hard to argue with a screaming, vomiting heroin addict. All of this takes place in Katie’s car with Seth’s young daughter watching from the back seat. While this is a scene in a film, this scenario may hit close to home for anyone who has a family member struggling with heroin addiction. And what actor should be tasked to convey a message about the struggles of heroin addiction?

Dave Franco plays Seth in 6 Balloons, and Abbi Jacobson plays Katie. Director and writer Marja-Lewis Ryan gave Franco and Jacobson, who are both known for their comedic roles, the opportunity to test the waters with a drama film. There are moments of comedy in the film, but 6 Balloons is straight drama. The banter between Seth and Katie highlight the brother-sister dynamic, and the two actors’ experience with comedy play up the reality of the scene. The back and forth between the two characters is lighthearted, but the playfulness of it is just a thin veil over the true nature of Seth’s struggle with heroin. When Franco isn’t squirming after coming down from a high, he’s putting his daughter’s life at risk from spinning her around too hard while he is high. The actor has come a long way from the macho, frat boy roles that defined him in Hollywood.

“Even though I knew that it was gonna be hard, I figured that the movie was small enough that, if it didn’t work, then it would just disappear and no one would see it,” Franco said in an interview with Collider. “Best case scenario, people would start to see me in a different way and recognize that I can do things, outside of comedy.”

Dave Franco is the younger brother of Tom and James Franco. James, having been an established actor long before Dave made his acting debut, may have actually made it more difficult for Dave to break through in Hollywood. In an interview with GQ, the younger Franco said he had seen himself going in to teaching, specifically creative writing. James’ manager, however, had plans of his own. He took the younger Franco to a theater class and Dave stuck with it. For Dave, it was a matter of becoming his own person rather than living off of his older brother’s legacy. And Dave has been open about the opinions people may have of him because of his connection.

“From the beginning of my career, I made a conscious decision to separate myself from him work-wise because I didn’t want to be referred to as James Franco’s little brother for the rest of my life,” Franco said in an interview with Vanity Fair.

An added difficulty for Dave may be his uncanny resemblance to James. Dave made his television acting debut in 2006 as Benjamin Bainsworth in 7th Heaven. Looking at him in that role, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that someone would think they had seen his face before. Wait, is that the kid from Freaks and Geeks? He really looks like Norman Osborne from Spider-Man. James and Dave look alike, but their faces convey two drastically different personalities. With James, you get the feeling that he’s up to something. His smile is more of a smirk, and he kind of looks like the guy who would sell you marijuana in the alley behind his art school. Dave, on the other hand, looks like he gets in to a different kind of trouble. If James was the stoner in high school, then Dave was the high school jock who would shove the stoner into his own locker. And that face really translated well for his role as Cole Aaronson in season nine of the show Scrubs.

Cole is arrogant and immature, and he has an affinity for referring to people as “bro” and “dude.” He’s a medical student and acts like a brat because his dad paid for the hospital he’s working at to be built. Even with his despicable qualities, Cole quickly became a fan favorite character. His character is shown to actually care about his patients, and his relationship with an older doctor, who acts as his mentor, shows that Cole is only off-putting because of his insecurities towards showing his true feelings. Despite the show going through a complete change in its final season, Scrubs found a win in Franco’s character. It’s hard to picture any other actor saying lines such as, “Lucy, it’s not cancer-cancer. That kind of cancer is for uglies and dudes who keep laptops on their balls.” For a time, the role solidified the types of roles Franco would play in Hollywood—bros who can be sweet if you just get to know them.

Scrubs was a hit for Franco, and Franco had the chance to hone his comedic chops while on the show. Scrubs, however, wasn’t the biggest comedy show of its time and didn’t have as wide an audience as other shows may have. Since Scrubs was drastically different in its final season due to its casting changes, the show had its lowest viewership ever. Franco had minor roles in films such as Charlie St. Cloud (2010) with Zac Efron and Fright Night (2011) with Colin Farrell. In 2012, Franco hit a big break with the film 21 Jump Street, a remake of the 1987 television show of the same name, starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill.

21 Jump Street takes the typical high school movie tropes and updates it for the 21st century. Smart kids aren’t necessarily nerds and they aren’t bullied. 21 Jump Street is a film where someone who looks like Channing Tatum has trouble assimilating in a high school setting and where someone who looks like Jonah Hill can excel. It’s interesting, then, how Dave Franco, who’s more Tatum than Hill, fits into this scenario. Franco plays Eric, an attractive, intelligent high school student who also happens to be selling drugs. The film couldn’t make Franco ugly, so they made him smart instead.

The film makes Franco’s character likable by having him be friendly with Hill’s character. But Franco’s character also reveals distasteful actions through his interactions with Tatum’s character whom he looks down on for being more brawn than brains. As the film progresses, the audience learns that Eric is loyal and caring, even if he is a condescending drug dealer. When the film finds Eric confronting a gang of angry bikers, he is revealed to be insecure despite his status in high school. His insecurity is a characteristic that the audience can connect with and relate to thereby making Eric’s character even more likable despite some more unsavory traits. In terms of comedy, Eric has memorable lines such as, “organized sports are so fascist it makes me sick” and “you know what happens to a guy like me in jail? It rhymes with grape! It rhymes with grape.” It’s Franco’s delivery and timing that makes his character so amusing. There is also a sort of irony that arises from watching a handsome guy talk about saving the environment and having his friends think he’s cool and sexy for doing so.

In Franco’s next hit, Neighbors starring Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, his character is a college fraternity brother whose shenanigans with Efron’s character terrorizes a young couple living next to their fraternity house. Franco’s character, Pete, is an antagonist, but only because he is loyal to his best friend, Efron’s character Teddy. Pete participates in a prank war because he feels like Teddy was betrayed by the neighbors for calling the police on the fraternity to shut down its party. In subsequent scenes, Pete tries to help Teddy find a job for after graduation because unlike Teddy, Pete knows that there is a life to live after graduation. These acts of kindness, however, do not overshadow the fact that Pete acts like a stereotypical fraternity brother who parties a little too hard and acts inappropriately around women. He may not be as loud and devious as Teddy, but he still has the same Greek life mindset of what Teddy calls “bros before hoes.”

Franco reprises his roles in his biggest hits’ sequels, 22 Jump Street (2014) and Neighbors 2 (2016), with cameos. In 22 Jump Street, Franco’s character Eric is in prison following his arrest for selling drugs. It’s shown that his cellmate, who was the main antagonist of the first film, is taking advantage of him. Eric pleads for the help of Tatum and Hill’s characters, but in keeping with his character’s persona, also comedically insults the two for putting him in jail in the first place. The biggest character development for a Franco character comes in Neighbors 2, where Franco’s Eric is revealed to be gay and engaged. In the first Neighbors, Franco’s Pete is depicted as a heterosexual male and there are no inklings that he may be gay. Furthermore, he’s left all the debauchery from his fraternity days in the past and is assimilating into the working man’s world. Eric still provides humor in the film, but his jokes and gags aren’t as immature as they were in the first film, and they are even more family friendly than his roles in other films. Is Dave Franco growing up, not only in real life, but in his film roles too?

Interestingly, Franco looks not much older today than he did in Scrubs in 2006. While the characters he plays are progressively getting older, Franco looks exactly the same. Same bushy eyebrows, same boyish smile, same strong bone structure. So when he showed up in the Netflix anthology series Easy (2016) playing a full-fledged adult with a job and long-term girlfriend, viewers weren’t sure what to make of the actor who could still pull off looking like a high school student. But it’s the three episodes of Easy that Franco stars in that websites like Decider are calling the best ones of the series. Franco plays Jeff who works at a coffee roastery with a passion for brewing beer. Over the course of three episodes, Jeff and his brother turn their underground beer company into a full-fledged brewery with a cult following. The series shows Jeff as an average guy with large aspirations—it’s not easy brewing beer from your garage, but he makes it work and makes a decent amount of money off of it. Jeff is smart and caring, but still slightly immature. His brother is an office worker with a pregnant wife living in a typical middle-class home, and Jeff, who still enjoys smoking marijuana, lives in a rundown home with his girlfriend whom he accidentally impregnates. The show, however, doesn’t disregard Jeff as some loser with unattainable dreams; instead, Jeff is shown to be dedicated to the craft of beer and the scenes he shares with his girlfriend, played by Zazie Beetz, show a lovingness that makes it impossible not to root for the guy. Even when he has a tiff with his brother regarding the future of the brewery and steals a relic from their place of work, the audience has enough empathy for Jeff that his actions may seem justified. As this is a Dave Franco piece of work, Jeff has the tendency to refer to everyone as “dude” or “man.”

In 2017, Franco’s personal and professional careers both reached maturity. He married his long-time girlfriend, and fellow actor, Alison Brie, whom he started dating in 2012. And the day before their wedding, The Disaster Artist premiered at South by Southwest film festival. Directed and starring James Franco, The Disaster Artist (2016) was met with critical acclaim with early buzz about an Academy Award nomination for the older Franco. Ironically, the film is based on the “best worst film” ever made called The Room (2003). In the film, the older Franco plays Tommy Wiseau, an eccentric filmmaker with the desire to make the best film possible regardless of cost. The younger Franco plays Greg Sesteros, an aspiring actor uncomfortable with himself, who gets swept up in Wiseau’s incredibly absurd scheme. The film, while a true story, parallels the life of the Franco brothers. James’s Wiseau is comfortable with himself and his methods even when others question his sanity, and Dave’s Sesteros is still struggling in acting classes and needs to discover who he is as an actor and where he fits into the world that Wiseau seems to have a foot in already. The younger Franco admitted to wanting to distance himself from James, but when he figured out the underlying message of the film—working hard to produce something you’re proud of regardless of other people’s opinions—he was onboard. Sesteros isn’t unlike the characters Franco had played in the past: naïve, but loyal. If Franco has found his niche in Hollywood and plays it with such authenticity, then is it safe to assume that his roles blur the line between real life and art?

In interviews, Franco is noticeably softer spoken than any of the characters he’s played in the past. During interviews with his brother on the press tour for The Disaster Artist, it’s quite obvious how his brother dominates conversations leaving the younger Franco with few lines and mostly head nods. He manages to keep his personal life personal. Media outlets didn’t know he had married Brie until much later, and more shockingly, some people didn’t even know that the two were dating, especially not for six years. In contrast, Franco’s brother has always seemed to find himself in the spotlight. The younger Franco rarely appears in tabloids, and the star does not have a social media presence. He remains lowkey in his endeavors and usually only appears in the spotlight when he has to promote his work. This may explain his recent undertaking with his older brother.

In 2017, the Franco brothers founded the production company Ramona Films. As a production company, the brothers can create the films they want and not have to star in it. This stays in line with the way that the younger Franco operates—keeping his personal presence to a minimum while making films he enjoys. If it’s any indication of how Franco is evolving, then his turn as a heroin addict in 6 Balloons shows that Franco is ready to tackle films that may fulfill him as an actor. And by the way critics have been praising Franco’s transition to drama, it appears that he may be on the right career path. In his 6 Balloons review for The Hollywood Reporter, John Frosch writes, “And though drugged-out desperation is a familiar beat to play, Franco brings his own boyishly needy edge to the role. We get why Katie has such a hard time practicing the ‘tough’ half of ‘tough love’ with him.” Franco was born with boyish good looks, and he uses this feature to give his characters a dimension they may not have had with another actor.

Currently, Franco has two films in post-production, Zeroville and If Beale Street Could Talk. Zeroville, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, will be a comedy-drama with a cast of highly-praised comedic actors such as Will Ferrell and Danny McBride. The younger Franco plays Montgomery Clift, a Golden-Age movie star who The New York Times described as a “moody, sensitive actor who often played moody, sensitive young men on the screen.” While Franco hasn’t given any indication that he may be moody, both Franco and Clift seem to have played characters that drew on the actual person’s personalities. How Franco will fare in Zeroville is yet to be seen, but his roles in The Disaster Artist and 6 Balloons may indicate that Franco has more range than playing the cool guy in school. Franco continues his drama streak with an undisclosed role in the film adaption of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. In a film about racial tension, it’s hard to tell if Franco will portray a good guy or bad guy. Franco has yet to delve into a serious villain role, so audiences may be shocked to see what director Barry Jenkins will do with him.

Dave Franco entered the celebrity stratosphere in his 20s with the unavoidable label of “James Franco’s brother.” Through his evolution as an actor and the roles he’s taken on, it may be safe to say that the younger Franco has outgrown being the celebrity’s brother and has made his own name in Hollywood. If you get past the boyish good looks, then you can find a serious actor with a passion for film and television. He has kept his personal life private enough to let any discussion about him be mainly about his work as an actor. We may again see Franco back in high school or college, but that may be too beneath him considering where he’s accomplished so far. People will continue to refer to him as James Franco’s brother, but as Dave Franco’s filmography increases, then we may find that having two Francos in the industry may not be a bad thing.

Malcolm Young, whose electrifying guitar riffs propelled Australian rock band AC/DC into rock and roll stardom, died Saturday at 64. Young, who cofounded the band with his younger brother, and lead guitarist, Angus, had been dealing with dementia for several years.

Young was regarded as one of the best rhythm guitarists by those in the rock and roll industry.

“As far as rhythm guitarist players are concerned, there’s James [Hetfield of Metallica, there’s me, there’s Malcolm Young and there’s Rudolf Schenker [of Scorpion],” Megadeth front man Dave Mustaine once said, “There’s no one else that touches the four of us. We’re the fantastic four.”
Members of AC/DC also acknowledged Young’s contribution to the band.

“As his brother it is hard to express in words what he has meant to me during my life, the bond we had was unique and very special,” Angus said in a statement. “He leaves behind an enormous legacy that will live on forever. Malcolm, job well done.”

The Young brothers’ different guitar styles created the band’s iconic unrestrained, rowdy sound. While Angus captured most of the attention with his schoolboy uniform, exhilarating stage presence, and quick-fingered guitar playing, it was Malcolm who created the backbone of the band, both in terms of music and business. The two are credited as writers on every AC/DC song since the band’s inception in 1973, but it was Malcolm who came up with some of the band’s most iconic riffs including the opening of one of their biggest songs, “Back in Black,” which can still be heard in countless movie and television soundtracks today. Songs such as “Whole Lotta Rosie,” “If You Want Blood (You Got It),” and “Riff Raff” capture Young’s iconic playing style. In a genre where some believe more guitar distortion leads to a more rock and roll sound, Malcolm’s sound is still heavy, but clean. Each chord rings out with clarity, and it is the power of Malcolm’s right hand that adds the intensity and heft to every AC/DC song.

Malcolm Mitchell Young was born on Jan. 6, 1953 in Glasgow before the family emigrated to Sydney, Australia. While Malcolm and Angus would go on to find musical greatness, the family’s first taste of celebrity came on behalf of their older brother George. George was a cofounder of the Easybeats, once dubbed Australia’s response to The Beatles, and a few international hits caused fans to swarm the Young household. This newfound stardom inspired Malcolm to start his own band, and he asked his brother Angus to join him.

AC/DC became the band’s name after the brothers’ sister Margaret noticed a sign on her sewing machine that said “AC/DC.” Angus adopted AC/DC as their band name because he thought its meaning, alternate and direct electrical current, accurately described the band’s sound. The band’s first album, “High Voltage,” was released in 1975 and was produced by George Young. Fronted by Bon Scott, AC/DC found success with rebellious messages about sex, drugs and alcohol.

“Bon was the biggest single influence on the band. When he came in, it pulled us all together,” Malcolm said. “He had that real stick-it-to-’em attitude. We all had it in us, but it took Bon to bring it out.”

AC/DC consistently released an album a year with Scott—”T.N.T.” (1975), “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” (1976), “Let There Be Rock” (1977), “Powerage” (1978), and “Highway to Hell” (1979)—before the front man died of alcohol poisoning in 1980. The band members considered calling it quits, but it was Malcolm who pushed everyone to get back together and pay tribute to their late friend.

“We were back in London, and me and Angus were just sitting around doing virtually nothing. I wasn’t even playing my guitar,” Malcolm said. “And, eventually, we said, ‘Let’s just get together for the sake of ourselves, it doesn’t matter but at least we can play our guitars together and try to get through it.’”

The band came up with most of the music for the album, which would become “Back in Black” (1980), before looking for a new singer. Malcolm and Angus decided on singer Brian Johnson. Reflecting on Johnson’s hiring, the brothers said they were looking for someone who could carry on Scott’s legacy without imitating him. As of 2018, “Back in Black” is the sixth best-selling album in U.S. history.

Young’s tenure with AC/DC was not always without a hitch. Before the band went on tour to promote its “Blow Up Your Video” (1988) album, Young went on hiatus to deal with his alcoholism. Angus had convinced him to take a leave of absence by referring the death of Scott. Stevie Young, Malcolm’s nephew, took over as rhythm guitarist on tour. Malcolm later became sober and was back on the next album, “The Razors Edge” (1990).

Ever since “The Razors Edge,” the Young brothers have written all of the band’s songs. Johnson later disclosed that he felt too much pressure coming up with an album’s worth of lyrics.

In 2003, AC/DC was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler called the band’s command of the power chord as the “thunder from down under that gives you the second most powerful surge that can flow through your body.”

In 2008, the band released its first album in eight years, “Black Ice.” Angus later revealed that Malcolm was having trouble with his memory and concentration during the Black Ice World Tour, which ended in 2010. Four years later, AC/DC announced that Young would be retiring from the band due to health issues, later revealed to be dementia. Stevie Young took over for his uncle on the recording of the band’s 2014 album “Rock or Bust.”
“Mal kept doing what he could until he couldn’t do it anymore, but I have all the material he was working on,” Angus said in an interview with Guitar Player. “There were a lot of riffs, ideas, and bits of choruses. The songwriting process didn’t really change, except for the fact that Mal wasn’t physically there.”

Young is survived by his wife, O’Linda, children, Cara and Ross, his brother Angus, a sister, and three grandchildren.

Eldred Gregory Peck figured he would be a doctor. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and majored in English as a pre-medical student. But Peck didn’t have any real aspirations. He dabbled here and there, but Peck couldn’t find a place to fit in at Berkeley. It’s possible that his not fitting in is what got him interested in acting.

On a stroll through campus, Peck was approached by James Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was directing a production of Moby Dick and asked Peck to audition for the role of Starbuck. Fitzgerald’s interest in Peck was his stature. Peck, standing at over 6 feet, would accentuate the physical difference between Ahab, who was short and stout, and Starbuck, the captain’s first mate. The casting led to Peck’s involvement with Little Theater, an extracurricular group that staged theater productions at Berkeley. Peck’s acting was weak at first, but his passion for the art developed and so did his talent. He graduated from university and traveled to New York to make a career out of acting. Eldred Gregory Peck would become Gregory Peck.

There’s something about Gregory Peck. He had chiseled features and a stern face. But when he cracked a smile, he had the face of a loving father. His baritone voice added to his maturity. It was deep and commanding, yet warm and humane. The man made a presence on Broadway. Despite being in three unsuccessful Broadway shows, Peck’s performances stood out enough for him to be cast in films. And of course he stood out amongst his peers. Gregory Peck looked like leading man material.

Peck’s first film was Days of Glory (1944), in which he plays a brave Russian guerilla fighting Nazis to defend his homeland. Casey Robinson, the film’s writer and producer, had decided to hire relatively unknown actors for the film to add an illusion of authenticity, similar to Christopher Nolan’s decision to cast new faces for Dunkirk (2017). But as demonstrated by both films, new faces can lead to lucky breaks. Despite the New York Times writing, “Gregory Peck comes recommended with a Gary Cooper angularity and a face somewhat like that modest gentleman’s, but his acting is equally stiff,” he was immediately seen as a star.

Peck was disappointed by his own performance in Days of Glory. But in the same year that Days of Glory was released, Peck proved he was more than a pretty face. In The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), Peck played a good-hearted priest who sticks to his principles even in times of adversity. As a missionary in China, Peck’s character, Father Chisholm, sees people as they are. Peck played Chisholm as a man with a deep understanding of his own spirituality, so much so that he can even accept those who choose not to convert to his faith. In one scene, Father Chisholm is by the death bed of his non-believer friend Willie. Chisholm does not pressure the dying man to convert and lets his friend die on his own terms. As he lay dying, Willie thanks the father for not trying to “bully me in to heaven.” This line exemplifies Chisholm’s character whose nobility had put him at odds with his church. He converts men only if they are true believers. His conversion rate, which is one of the lowest in the world, does not influence Chisholm to convert those who would only do it for their own greedy benefit. Peck projected his soul in to his character, and the inability to distinguish where Peck’s character traits end and where Chisholm’s begin led to Peck’s first Academy Award nomination.

Peck was a good man. In reality and in film, the actor had a heart, and his characters’ goodness was often put to the test under extreme pressure. Peck did not want to be typecast, and his desire to stay independent led him to refuse lucrative long-term contracts with major studios. Enter Duel in the Sun. From the moment Peck’s character Lewt was introduced, the audience knew they were seeing a new side of Gregory Peck. The audience had already been introduced to Lewt’s brother who was cordial and gentle. Lewt, on the other hand, is crass and vulgar. The camera lingers on Lewt’s face as he meets the film’s protagonist Pearl. In this scene, Pearl, acting as the stand-in for the audience, reacts with mouth agape in the presence of a Peck that none have seen before. Lewt’s lustful eyes size Pearl up, and he speaks with a perverted confidence that later manifests into wanton sexual advances.

Lewt is bad; he has no redeemable qualities. For once, the audience saw a disheveled and dirty Peck. Even as a soldier in Days of Glory, Peck’s appearance rarely looked unkempt. At times his hair was a little out of place and his face was dirtied and bruised, but in Duel in the Sun, Peck is filthy. He looks like the man your mother warned you about but has a look that only makes women want him more. The audience desires Peck’s character but feels shameful for wanting him. Peck’s role let the audience know that he was more than the characters he had played in the past.

He did return to the good-guy character in The Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947) playing a journalist, Phil, battling antisemitism through his work. Peck once said in an interview, “I don’t think I could stay interested for a couple of months in a character of mean motivation.” Phil, although reluctant at first to write an article on antisemitism, learns how drastic the problem of bigotry is when he pretends to be Jewish. Like Father Chisholm in The Keys of the Kingdom, Phil puts the greater good before his own wishes. His disgust of bigotry outweighs his love for a woman who herself has displayed bigoted actions. The good Gregory Peck has returned.

The good Gregory Peck could still step in to roles that audiences were not expecting. This happened in Roman Holiday (1953) where Peck plays a journalist who goes on a whirlwind adventure with a princess played by Audrey Hepburn. Roman Holiday played out like a classic romantic comedy that still had a Gregory Peck character who had to choose between his own desires and what is right. Should his character betray Hepburn’s character and write an exclusive about her, or should he let her have her peace? Being a Gregory Peck film, the choice is obviously the latter. Peck’s character is charming, and at times it is difficult to differentiate the actor from the character. At the start of his career, Peck was seen as the new Cary Grant, and with Roman Holiday, Peck had found himself in a role that would have gone to Grant if he were 10 years younger. Behind the scenes, Peck was just as admirable. Hepburn was a new face in Hollywood, so she was given lower billing. After being impressed by her performance, Peck demanded she receive equal billing.

In 1962, Peck took on the role of Sam Bowden, a lawyer responsible for the imprisonment of rapist Max Cady in Cape Fear (1962). After Cady’s release, he makes it his mission to terrorize Bowden and his family. The thriller finds Peck taking on the role of a character who has to turn to drastic measures to protect his family. As Cady becomes increasingly menacing, Bowden forgoes morality and sets out to eliminate his terrorizer for good. It is an interesting turn for Peck who had mostly stuck to staying within the lines of human decency. Now his character was hiring goons to take out his enemy and plotting murder schemes. Interestingly, in Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear (1991), Peck makes a cameo as a lawyer who sets out to sabotage the Bowden character who is played by Nick Nolte.

Peck had another movie coming out the year Cape Fear was released. It was the film that would define his career. As Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Peck became the hero that the audience had always seen him as. Peck played a white lawyer tasked with defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. “What kind of many are you?” Bob Ewell, the victim’s father, asks Finch. He doesn’t answer him. But the audience learns what kind of man he is; he is a man who believes that all men are created equal. In his riveting closing statement, Peck delivers a powerful declaration that has influenced generations of people to rise above the injustices of society. The bass of his voice echoes through the courtroom and is delivered in a manner that makes one question whether this is Finch speaking or Peck. He stands erect, and there is frustration and anger in his voice. In this moment, he is the pinnacle of justice. And when he mentions the integrity of the courts and jury, Finch is slightly slumped as if he is carrying the burden of the justice system on his back. A man became a legend.

In a 1974 interview with the LA Times, Peck said the satisfaction of acting comes “when I have a part where I can communicate with people, touching their emotions and giving them something to walk away from the theater with, something to remember in the way of human experience. The parts that came off best for me were those where the action became secondary or even unimportant, but where I could identify with the character I was portraying.” Peck and the characters he played were usually very similar. There was almost always a clear distinction between right and wrong in a Gregory Peck film and leave it to Peck’s character to choose the ride side. Peck did deviate from the good guy persona in some of the roles he picked, and Peck’s own vices came to light eventually; he had an affair with Ingrid Bergman, his costar in Spellbound (1945). Nonetheless, Peck led a fairly honorable life. He was a staunch Democrat and humanitarian. He was one of many Hollywood liberals who opposed President Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork, a conservative, to the Supreme Court. Peck also supported the arts as a member of the National Council of the Arts.

Behind the bespectacled face of Atticus Finch, was a man who knew right from wrong. Peck brought humanity to the characters he portrayed. The 1960s were a time of racial injustice and prejudice, and Peck’s acting showed audiences that compassion could overcome hardship. He was a beacon of hope for a generation plagued by hate. After years of being uncertain with what he wanted to do in life, Peck found something that fulfilled him and audiences. Most importantly, Peck wanted to entertain. And entertain he did.