Gregory Peck: The American As Noble Man

Later in the film, Peck embodies a kind of pacifist resistance. The white woman's racist father sees Peck with some blacks and spits in his face. Peck, with ferocious dignity, takes out a handkerchief, wipes off the insult and walks away--the victor by not fighting back. Good man to lead; tough act to follow.

It's dangerous to confuse an actor with his movie roles. But by all accounts the reel and the real Gregory Peck were close kin. He was a model of probity, a loyal friend to colleagues in distress, a father confessor to the Hollywood community. He chaired the National Society of This, the American Academy of That. He was laden with official honors: Lyndon Johnson gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom; Richard Nixon put him on his Enemies List. Peck received perhaps his sweetest laurel last week when the reclusive Lee, on hearing of his death, said, "Gregory Peck was a beautiful man. Atticus Finch gave him the opportunity to play himself."

But who will play the Gregory Peck hero now that noble is for wimps and the best place to find integrity is in Webster's? The masculine delicacy that Peck represented is gone from films; no star has filled his mold. Movie actors don't have the voice or posture or temperament for it. Maybe America can't believe in it.

To cherish Peck is to admit nostalgia for an era when popular and political culture could champion humanist ideals without smirking. If our time were not so facetious, so often corrupt, that time--and this man--would not seem so precious.

America, stand up. Gregory Peck has passed on.