Actor Gregory Peck dead at 87

LOS ANGELES - Gregory Peck, one of the last great stars from Hollywood's golden era and a man who embodied on-screen heroism and dignity, died peacefully during the night at his home, his spokesman said today.

He was 87 and his films included some of Hollywood's most memorable: "To Kill a Mockingbird", in which he played a white lawyer defending a black man, "Roman Holiday", the film that made Audrey Hepburn a star, "Gentleman's Agreement", one of the first movies to confront the taboo subject of anti-Semitism, and Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound".

Spokesman Monroe Friedman said Peck's French-born wife of 48 years, Veronique Passani Peck, was at his side when he died. "She told me he just died peacefully. She said she was holding his hand and he just closed his eyes and went to sleep and he was gone," Friedman told Reuters.

His death came just days after the American Film Institute named his role as the idealistic Southern lawyer Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" as the greatest movie hero of all time. The role earned Peck an Oscar for best actor in 1963.

The tall, lean, square-jawed Peck began his film career in the 1940s and became Hollywood's symbol of moral strength and sincerity both on screen and off. At one point, Democrats tried to persuade him to run for governor of California -- a role that Republicans later succeeded in casting Ronald Reagan for.

The California-born Peck, who once thought of becoming a priest, attended a military academy as a boy and his soldier-like bearing served him well in such roles as Captain Ahab of "Moby Dick", King David ("David and Bathsheba"), Gen. Douglas MacArthur ("MacArthur") and even Abraham Lincoln (television's "The Blue and the Gray").

Rarely in his 52 films did he play anything but a "good guy", a notable exception being the Nazi villain in the popular "The Boys From Brazil" (1978).

He earned a total of five Oscar nominations even though critics could be unkind. The New Yorker's Pauline Kael once labeled Peck "competent but always a little boring".

But John Huston, who directed Peck in "Moby Dick", echoed the comments of many in Hollywood when he praised the "superb dignity" of the actor's performances. It took years before critics realiszed how good his performance as the mad sea captain was.

"Greg is one of the nicest, straightest guys I ever knew, and there's a size to him," Huston wrote in his autobiography.

CNN's Larry King said, "Certain people come into the room and change the room, Gregory Peck was one of those people. He was just very special. You not going to replace Gregory Peck."

- REUTERS