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.