Customer Reviews

Gregory Peck : A Biography

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gary Fishgall's GREGORY PECK is an admiring and uncritical look at the actor. Perhaps the only balance is provided by Peck's own words:

"I've had my ups and downs. There have been times when I wanted to quit. Times when I hit the bottle. Girls. Marital problems. I've touched most of the bases."

About those bases, Fishgall is protectively reticent.

However, as a Gregory Peck fan all of my adult life, this bio, while not leading me to more than a superficial understanding of the man, is a comprehensive examination of his life as an actor, first in live theater and then in front of the motion picture cameras. The author's progression through the decades of Gregory's career is methodical almost to a fault. A useful section at the end is a filmography of fifty-three feature films and four television appearances, with the availability of each in either videotape and/or DVD format noted. (The list is perhaps somewhat out of date. For example, MACARTHUR's availability is listed as video only, but a DVD edition now exists.)

Perhaps the highlights of the book were, for me, the trivia revealed. Did you know that Robert Mitchum (co-starring in CAPE FEAR) has a photographic memory and can learn his lines by reading the script just before a scene is shot? Or that while shooting GUNS OF NAVARONE on Rhodes, where, as one journalist put it, "The food is awful, everything shuts up early, and unlike most Greeks, the islanders tether their daughters and let the goats wander free", co-star Anthony Quinn kept the stars from dying of boredom with several portable chess sets brought from home? And best of all, the child star (Harvey Stephens) that played Damien in OMEN literally got the part after demonstrating to director Richard Donner a certain demonic streak - he punched Donner in the gonads.

Fishgall obviously did a lot of research. On page 260, however, he flatly states that California's incumbent Democratic governor, Edmund Brown, won re-election in 1966. Since actor Ronald Reagan was, in fact, the winner - a victory which catapulted him into national political prominence, and eventually led to his election as President - I found the author's factual failure on this small point to be appalling, and perhaps called into question the accuracy of other material in the book. I mean, I wouldn't expect a recent Golden State high school graduate to even know who either Brown or Reagan was, the quality of general education these days being what it is. But should the author of a major, fact-based text make such a gaffe?

Despite its shortcomings, GREGORY PECK satisfied my curiosity about the legendary actor, and then some; I don't think I need to read further. On that basis, 4 stars is appropriate.

Peck's acting life earns a thorough description, movie by movie, director by director. His early life receives a bit less. Born in 1916 in La Jolla, he had a lonely, almost dysfunctional childhood, including boarding schools, distant parents, a favored grandmother, a short-lived dog for a pet, and a University of California education. He quickly moves from college in California, to a scholarship to acting school in New York, to three short, failed Broadway plays, to almost overnight success in Hollywood, kicked off by his role as a priest in "Keys to the Kingdom".

But the story is more of a diary or summary of events, including things like profits from his La Jolla Playhouse venture, calculated to the penny. Casts of summer stock plays and Hollywood movies are cataloged. Every radio broadcast seems to merit a mention.

But the story is often a bore. Peck, who apparently had some form of editorial input to the book, chimes in at times with one-sentence descriptions of people, events, and movies, but it reads more like a scribbled note he added to the Fishgall's draft text. His life, including children, affairs and failed marriages, are sidelights.

If you would like a life catalog, read this book. For entertainment and a more human portrait, watch "Twelve O'Clock High".

A nice overview of a popular public figure who is a little more complex than you might expect and not quite the lofty figure of his managed public image, but nevertheless a decent human being, like most of us. The narrative moves nicely including interesting details about the films Peck made and his relations with directors, writers, and fellow actors and the women in his life. An easy read.

This biography is very thorough, especially on Peck's acting career. As for the personal life, Fishgall gives the facts but doesn't delve into any sticky, emotional relationships if, indeed, there were any.

The acting career, however, is covered in great detail from the very beginning, so if you're more interested in the actor and the public man than in the inner man, you'll enjoy this book. I did.

I have to admit upfront that I'm a Gregory Peck fan. So my bias is clearly towards any author who does a good a job as Fishgall did.

The book covers Peck from ancestral antecedents, through childhood and adolescence, and into adulthood and a long career. As the previous reviewers mentioned, the book is a detailed and meticulous review of Peck's career, step by step, play by play, and film by film (and all the other things he accomplished). The book contains all sorts of information about the whys, wherefores, and reasons thereof that drove Peck to make the career moves that he did. And there is much information regarding how Peck prepared for roles, what movitated his performances, and how his relationships with co-stars/colleagues affected him and them.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I learned a great deal about Gregory Peck and, unbelievably since I was already a fan, appreciate the actor even more.

The one thing the book lacks is, perhaps, more about the personal life of the actor. I'm sure this has little to do with the efforts of the author. Gregory Peck was well-known to be an extremely private person during his lifetime, and I have no problem respecting his wishes now that he is gone.

Overall, I highly recommend the book.

There is a scene in "The Old Gringo" where Gregory Peck as the title character tries to seduce spinsterish Jane Fonda with words words words. (Actually, it turned out he was only softening her up for the young Mexican general Jimmy Smits.)The Old Gringo talks about all the beautiful women he's loved over his long life and how he made them sigh into his mustache. Oh yes, we can believe it! Think of Gregory as the cynical reporter who falls in love with Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday"; or the lewd cowboy Lewt McCandles, who drives Jennifer Jones' Pearl to a "Duel in the Sun"; or the bewildered amnesia patient who makes Ingrid Bergman's cool psychologist fall madly in love in Hitchcock's "Spellbound." I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gary Fishgall's well-researched biography of this towering actor, who is just as decent and intelligent as we always imagined.

Author Gary Fishgall's well-researched, well-written biography of Gregory Peck is, in a word, great! It presents a comprehensive analysis of his many years as a fine actor, as well as many passages about his private life, his efforts on behalf of the arts, and his charitable contributions--in time, as well as monetary. Most of all, this book confirms what his fans have long believed: His personal life mirrored his screen persona--a man of dignity and sincerity. Who in today's cinema even comes close to matching the greatness of Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, et al? If asked as a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," my response would be, unequivocally, "no one... my final answer." I highly recommend this extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man!

Gregory Peck was NOT one of my favorite actors. Then I read this book. Now I can see the value in his movies and in his acting. This guy was a grad of UC Berkeley. He was an intelligent person. His movies were choses as "intelligent movies". He studied acting with some of the best "method" teachers that ever lived. I believe you'll go away after reading this book with a renewed appreciation of Gregory Peck and ditto for his movies. Recommended.

Gary Fishgall's Gregory Peck is a standard biography, written with the approval of its subject, but not necessarily beholden to his opinions. It satisfies all the usual reasons a movie star's fans read a book like this--you get a clear picture of the actor's personality, you learn not only what films he appeared in but what work he also did on the stage and TV, you discover something of what his upbringing was like, you find out things you never knew about his family, and you get an assessment of his accomplishments as both artist and human being. Perhaps because Peck was, for the most part, a very decent human being, his life was not filled with scandal; the main tragedy of his life was the suicide of one of his sons, and, based on Fishgall's account, you really can't put the blame on Peck for having been a rotten father.

The impression of Peck the book provides is of a man who was, for the most part, comfortable in his own skin (admittedly a very beautiful skin), with high artistic goals and liberal political ideals, a man of integrity and rock solid values (apart from the presumed affairs he had during his first marriage), and someone who took his responsibilities as a movie star and public figure very, very seriously. Despite the occasional villain or mean-spirited character, his roles were mainly of men like himself, which is why he was so convincing, for example, as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Like many other film stars, Peck was not truly a great actor, which notion comes across once you survey the parts he played and the critical reaction to them. When he had a role that fit him well, he could be memorable, and give award-winning caliber performances. But his range was limited, and he often dragged films down when he was miscast (fairly often) or his often stolid, emotionally constrained personality failed to ignite either his character or the story in which he was involved. When he was good, he was very, very good, but when he was bad he was horrid.

The book rolls through Peck's life chronologically, touching on almost every acting or producing job he had, and is always readable. It doesn't attempt to plumb the man's soul, or to pontificate on the social relevance of his work--at least not in detail. It is a straightforward summation of a famous actor's life, with its emphasis on the man's contributions as an iconic star. Peck's own reticence about private matters and his relative lack of inappropriate behavior force this emphasis, but that doesn't make the book or the man less interesting.

A major flaw is the rather skimpy selection of photos. A book about a celebrity who appeared in so many films, and with so many great costars, cries out for photographic documentation. Fortunately, one can find lots of pictures on the Web, but it would be nice to have them in the book as well. Since the book was published not long before Peck died (in 2003), it would be nice if it were reissued with an epilogue bringing things up to date, including more information on what happened to his wife and children after he was gone.

I generally enjoy Fishgall's work, but this one doesn't seem to cut the mustard as much as the others did. You can tell as you read along Fishgall is infatuated by his subject, and that's no way to write, unless one is writing about a family member. He obviously idolized Peck, and it shows. His research is good, but for such idolatry to swho through is unprofessional.