Saturdays with the Stars: Gregory Peck

Each month of 2023 we are taking a look at a star who made their name in westerns, rustling cattle & riding horses during the brief time when cowboys ruled Hollywood.  Last month, we focused on Jimmy Stewart, who despite a long career in westerns almost made them a side hustle given how in-depth his long time in movies was.  This month, we're going to talk about an actor with a similar modus operandi, one who would definitely have westerns as a cornerstone of his career, propelling him into new levels of stardom and, most crucially, box office success.  But like Stewart, it's not necessarily what audiences know him for today.  Instead, similar to Stewart, he is most renowned for a character that has served as a modicum of goodness, a character would become the de facto "honest lawyer" for the cinematic legal profession.  This month's star is Gregory Peck.

Born the son of a Catholic pharmacist, Peck endured a complicated childhood.  His parents' divorce at a young age meant that he was raised for much of his early years by his grandmother, with whom he'd regular go to the movies.  He attended a preparatory school, during which time his grandmother passed away, and while he had aspirations at UC-Berkeley to become a doctor, his handsome looks, tall stature, and deep voice made him a natural actor, and so he dropped out, starting work on the stage before signing a star contract with Fox.  He didn't have to serve in WWII due to a back injury (which the studio lied about its origins-it had actually been from taking a dance class with Martha Graham, but they decided that would reflect badly on the actor and so they said it was from a rowing accident), and during that time he started to get larger success in movies like The Keys of the Kingdom and The Yearling, both of which won him Best Actor nominations.

Gregory Peck's star journey is a bit unusual.  Unlike a lot of actors where it's clear when his stardom peaked and valleyed, he became a big deal very early in his career (Keys of the Kingdom was only his second movie), but was more of a critical darling or overshadowed by his female costars in movies like Spellbound with Ingrid Bergman until the early-1950s, when films like Captan Horatio Hornblower, Snows of Kilimanjaro, and Roman Holiday were smash hits for the actor and he proved he had true box office potential.  Much of what we'd consider to be his best work of the era was either not as successful or would completely get overshadowed by his work as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, the role that won him his Oscar and is pretty much the one film everyone name-checks when referencing the actor.  This month, we're going to try and track this unusual star's career path, including looking at several of the westerns that would be critically-celebrated, though that Peck wasn't always as appreciative of at the time, afraid of being typecast.