Gorgeous Gregory gets missed
Peck, known for his quiet dignity, became an icon of cinema's golden era with starring roles in more than 60 films, including "Roman Holiday," Cape Fear" and "Spellbound" and won the best actor Oscar for "Mockingbird" in 1962.
A classic star who became a respected elder statesmen of cinema, Peck died peacefully in his Los Angeles home at 4:00 am Thursday (1200 GMT) with his French-born wife of 48 years, Veronjque, holding his hand, publicist Monroe Friedman said.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. His death is a stunning loss to the movie industry and cuts one of the last remaining links to Hollywood's golden age.
"He was one of the great leading men of all time. His name became part of the English language. He was like a monument, not a man, he was one of the touchstones of cinema all over the world," Firedman said.
Peck retired from active filmmaking several years ago but was in good health, Friedman said, denying rumours that he hand been ill.
Actor Charlton Heston, who starred with Peck in 1948's "Big Country," mourned the loss of his friend.
"Gregory Peck was one of those few great actors of generosity, humor, toughness and spirit," he said adding that Peck "faced life's challenges with great vigor and courage."
Nominated for five Oscars in a career spanning nearly 60 years, the velvet voiced Peck became synonymous with morally courageous heroes such as Atticus Finch, the right-minded Southern lawyer in "To Kill a Mockingbird."
"They'11 probably even put it on my tombstone," Friedman recalled Peack once saying. And he may have been right. Last week, the American Film Institute named Peck's character in the movie as the greatest screen hero of all time.
The handsome actor, born Eldred Gregory Peck in the southern California city of La Jolla in April 1916, shot to stardom in the 1940s and remained in the spotlight for the rest of his life, never touched by scandal.
Setting out to become a doctor, student Peck soon switched majors to English literature and began a lifelong passion for acting.
After moving to New York in 1939, he badly injured his back in a fall while studying with legendary dancer Martha Graham, an accident that was to prove fateful for Hollywood.
Barred from military service by the injury, Peck made his Broadway debut in a 1942 drama which won him glowing reviews and Hollywood came a-knocking two years later.
As one of the few actors who was not in uniform, Peck won leading roles in movies including "keys of the Kingdom" (1944) which won him his first Oscar nomination.
He worked with top directors John Huston in "Moby Dick," Alfred Hitchcock in "Spellbound" in 1946, King Vidor in "Duel in the Sun" (1946) and Elia Kazan in "Gentleman" Agreement" (1947), which got him a second Oscar nod.
And he went on to win further Academy Award nominations for best actor for "12 O'Clock High" (1949) and "The Yearling" (1946) before finally winning the coveted award when he was 45.
Known for his portrayals of upright men of moral fortitude, he occassionally departed from that character slot, as in the role of Nazi war criminal, Doctor Josef Mengele, in "The Boys from Brazil" (1978).
Peck worked until 1998 -- when he made his last TV movie, a cameo role in a remake of "Moby Dick," and was famously paired with such leading ladies such as Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday" and Ingrid Bergman in "Spellbound."
In another odd flashback to his glory days, he also took a cameo part in Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake of "Cape Fear."
Peck, who worked tirelessly for charities, has been compared by those who kenw him with the heroes he played on screen, but he rejected the comparison.
"I'm not nearly as confident as those hero characters are. Sometimes I've been courageous, and sometimes less so."