The Actor Gregory Peck

Early Life

Gregory Pearl Peck and Bernice Mae’s son, Eldred Gregory Peck’s father was English and Irish while his mother was English and Scottish. Through his paternal grandmother who was Irish Born, Peck was relatives with Thomas Ashe who had taken part and died of a hunger strike not three weeks before Pecks’ birth at the Easter Rising.

By the time Peck was six, his parents had divorced and he spent some time living with his grandmother on his mother’s side, who raised him. Peck went to St. John’s Military Academy which was a military Roman Catholic school at ten years of age in LA. While he was enrolled, his grandmother passed away and his upbringing was taken over by his father.

Eldred Gregory Peck

For his lifetime efforts that were humanitarian, Peck was honored by President Lyndon Johnson with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in the year nineteen sixty-ninth. American Actor Eldred Gregory Peck was 1 of the film stars of the globe most popular from the forties to the sixties. Later, Being named as one of the Greatest Male Stars of All time by the American Film Institute, in nineteen eighty three Peck ranked number twelve in the Hall of Fame’s International Best Dressed List. Until the late seventies, Peck continued playing major roles in film with performances that are notable including To Kill a Mockingbird playing Atticus Finch for which an Academy Award was won by him.

Military School

At fourteen years of age, Peck lived with his father and attended SanDiego HS. He enrolled in what is now San Diego State University when he graduated high school, took his first public speaking and theater courses and joined the track team. He worked as an oil company’s truck driver for a short time and declared himself at Berkeley to be a pre-med student, majoring in English. On the university crew, he was also a part of the rowing team standing six-feet and three inches tall.

He also joined the fraternity Epsilone Eta and stayed for 1 academic year, obtaining admission to his college of first choice which was UC-Berkely.

University Theater Work

The acting coach at Berkeley made a decision that Peck would actually fit in perfectly for theater work at the university. In the year nineteen ninety-seven, Peck made a donation to the crew at Berkeley to honor Ky Ebright, his coach. He was recruited by Edwin Duerr and developed an interest in being an actor for Little Theater. During his senior year he appeared in 5 plays and even if the tuition fee was a mere twenty-six dollars to pay, Peck was still struggling to pay this and had to work as a helper in the kitchen or a “hasher” for the sorority Gamma Phi Beta in order to be able to eat. Films

Days of Glory was the first film of Peck released in the year nineteen forty-four. He got a nominations five times for BestActor at the Academy Awards for films including Twelve O’clock High, The Keys of the Kingdom, Gentleman’s Agreement and The Yearling.