Film Honors Peck, ‘Perfectly Happy’ in a Busy Retirement

“A Conversation With Gregory Peck,� premiering tonight on Turner Classic Movies, is a revealing look at the day-to-day life of one of cinema’s most beloved actors, probably best known for the 1962 classic “To Kill a Mockingbird.� The two-hour documentary, produced by Oscar winner Barbara Kopple, Peck’s daughter Cecilia Peck and Linda Saffire, follows the 83-year-old as he performs his one-man show--an evening of clips and storytelling--around the country.

There are emotional and telling behind-the-scenes glimpses of Peck the family man as well. In one, Peck and his wife of 44 years, Veronique, welcome the birth of Cecilia’s first child, a son named Harper, after “Mockingbird� author Harper Lee.

TCM also will show 21 of Peck’s classic movies during the week, including “Mockingbird,� “Roman Holiday,� “Cape Fear� and “How the West Was Won.�

Though he won a Golden Globe earlier this year for his supporting role as a fire-and-brimstone preacher in the USA miniseries “Moby Dick,� Peck’s acting appearances have become rare in the last decade. Much of his time is devoted to running the popular Gregory Peck Reading Series at the Los Angeles Public Library.

Over a glass of ice tea at his Bel-Air home, Peck begins reminiscing:

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Question: Radio in the ‘40s, how did you get involved?

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Answer: Before I came out to Hollywood, I supplemented my stage earnings, which were meager at best, doing radio work. I did the “Armstrong Linoleum Theater.� Did you ever hear of it? It was an anthology. It was fun.

Q: Well, there were no TV talk shows then, so did you do a lot of personal appearances?

A: We would go to Chicago for a world premiere or to Radio City Music Hall.

Once in a while somebody will send me a full color page ad from the back of Life magazine with me advertising Chesterfields with a plug for “Duel in the Sun.� That was part of the deal. You got out and hustled the movie in various ways.

I remember kind of an adventurous trip to Abilene for a world premiere of “Duel.� [Producer] David O. Selznick chose to have it in Abilene, I guess, because it represented the Texas background of the story. He sent Joe Cotten and Shirley Temple. She had nothing to do with the movie, but she was under contract to Selznick. We flew at night, I guess, thinking we might be able to sleep. We were met at the airport, very far out of town, by Texas Rangers on their motorcycles and limos and we roared into Abilene, where we were taken to a kind of rathskeller in the basement of a hotel for a big Texas barbecue breakfast. Guys came around the table pouring water glasses of bourbon. The Texas longhorns knocked it back like a triple jigger, so we knocked it back. Then we were off on a long, long program of appearances and press conferences and a big luncheon leading up to a world premiere that evening. Well, Joe and I were absolutely dead beat at the premiere; I think we both nodded off.

Q: How much are you on the road now with your one-man show?

A: I am tapering off. I think since we began in Miami in January 1995, I have done it about 63 times. I have a map of the U.S., I have red thumb tacks everywhere I have been. That’s a lot of places over a five-year period.

Q: Did your daughter come up with the idea of a documentary on the show?

A: She had the idea. She had seen my show once or twice and she’s with Barbara Kopple and she proposed that we should do a documentary about my travels and sidebars along the way. Barbara Kopple liked the idea, so I think Turner provided the production money and, 2 1/2 years later, we have it.

Q: In the documentary, the audiences seem to look to you as a role model. Did you have a role model as an actor?

A: Laurence Olivier. He did it all. He played all the great Shakespearean roles. He was the director of the National Theatre in Great Britain. He made a lot of movies. The first thing I remember seeing him in was “Wuthering Heights� [1939]. He was always great. He was greater on the stage. He was the lord of his domain on the stage and I used to go to London and see him perform in Shakespearean roles--Othello and Shylock in “Merchant of Venice,� “Hamlet.� He dared to do so much, to accept all challenges. There were nothing he didn’t accept.

Q: Then it must have been exciting to work with Olivier in “Boys From Brazil.�

A: Yes. After we finished “Roman Holiday,� [director] Willie Wyler [and I] went to London, and we were there for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. He took me out to the country to visit Larry and [then-wife] Vivien Leigh. I saw him off and on for the rest of his life. We were good friends by the time we worked together. He knew that I liked him and maybe he liked me a little bit. I remember one scene where I was raving as Dr. Mengle about how I had cloned Hitler. I had a kind of a tirade and then the dogs came in, jumped on me and did me in. And after I finished this tirade, Larry said, “Very well thought out.� That was a nice compliment.

Q: What inspired your acting choices early in your career?

A: You know, I came out here from the theater [in New York] having studied with Sandy Meisner. “Acting is doing� was his watchword: You must be doing something to achieve an objective, and this gives an air of detachment to the actor. I came out here with the idea of being a good actor. I never seemed to catch on to sticking in one groove. I remember, for example, I made half a dozen westerns and my agent said, “You can become a big, big star in westerns.� But I wanted to do a lot of different things. Western actors don’t talk much. I wanted to do some talking. So I set out to do a whole variety of things.

Q: You made two pictures with Alfred Hitchcock, “Spellbound� and “The Paradine Case.� This year marks the 100th anniversary of his birth. . . .

A: I must say I’m getting a little bit sick about questions about Hitchcock. Almost with every interviewer--not yet with you--comes the inevitable question about Hitchcock. What was he really like? People kind of get hung up on Hitchcock. I loved Hitch. I remember going to the old Chasens with Hitch a number of times with people like Charles Laughton. They invented the famous Hitchcock fish, a fillet of sole with a kind of bread crust over it--something from his childhood.

Q: Well, besides Hitchcock, you worked with such great directors as Henry King and Clarence Brown. . . .

A: How about some of the actors? Let’s concentrate on the actors, like Ethel Barrymore. I worked with her twice, in “The Paradine Case� and “The Great Sinner.� She was a gentle lady. She was an important figure--her command, her poise, her aura--but in life she was a rather quiet lady. I used to talk baseball scores with her. Today, the [Yankee] playoffs reminded me of Ethel. She always wanted to know how the New York Giants were doing. She also liked prize fighting and liked to talk about Joe Louie, her favorite champion.

Q: Have you closed the book on acting?

A: Well, I am not looking for it. I am perfectly happy and have a lot of interests and all of these kids and grandkids and the library reading series, which is my main interest now.

* “A Conversation With Gregory Peck� will be broadcast tonight at 5 and 9:30 p.m. on TCM. “To Kill a Mockingbird� will be broadcast at 7 p.m. and “The Yearling� at 11:30 p.m. The film tribute continues through Saturday.