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Peck was born Eldred Gregory Peck in San Diego, California's seaside community of La Jolla, the son of Bernice Ayres (a Missouri-born convert to Catholicism) and Gregory Peck, a chemist/pharmacist of Irish-Catholic maternal descent and English paternal ancestry. Gregory's paternal grandmother, Catherine Ashe, was related to the Irish patriot Thomas Ashe, who took part in the Easter Rising less than three weeks after Peck's birth and died while on a hunger strike in 1917. Despite their strict Catholicism, Peck's parents divorced when he was five and he was raised by his grandmother.
Peck was sent to a Roman Catholic military school in Los Angeles at the age of 10 and then attended San Diego High School. When he graduated, he enrolled at San Diego State University to improve his grades so that he could earn admission to his first-choice college, the University of California, Berkeley. For a short time, he took a job driving a truck for an oil company. In 1936, he enrolled as a pre-med student at UC Berkeley, majoring in English.
Since he was 6'3" and very strong, he also decided to row on the university crew. Because of his great stature, the Berkeley acting coach spotted him and decided he would be perfect for his play. He developed an interest in acting and was recruited by Edwin Duerr, director of the school's Little Theater. He went on to appear in five plays during his senior year. Although his tuition fee was only $26 a year, Peck still struggled to pay, and had to work as a "hasher" (kitchen helper) for the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority in exchange for meals. Peck would later say about Berkeley that, "it was a very special experience for me and three of the greatest years of my life. It woke me up and made me a human being." In 1997 he donated $25,000 to the Berkeley crew team in honor of his coach, Ky Ebright.
 After graduating from Berkeley with a BA degree in English, Peck dropped the name "Eldred" and headed to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He was often broke and sometimes slept in Central Park. He worked at the 1939 World's Fair and as a tour guide for NBC's television broadcasting.
He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Emlyn Williams' The Morning Star in 1942. His second Broadway performance that year was in The Willow and I with Edward Pawley. Peck's acting abilities were in high demand during World War II, since he was exempt from military service owing to a back injury suffered while receiving dance and movement lessons from Martha Graham as part of his acting training. Twentieth Century Fox claimed he had injured his back while rowing at university, but in Peck's words, "In Hollywood, they didn't think a dance class was macho enough, I guess. I've been trying to straighten out that story for years."
Peck's first film was Days of Glory, released in 1944. Though many critics initially dismissed Peck's acting as wooden, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor five times, four of which came in his first five years of film acting: for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and Twelve O'Clock High (1949 - img right).
Each of these early films introduced an aspect of Peck's persona. The Keys of the Kingdom emphasized his stately presence. As the farmer Penny Barker in The Yearling his good-humored warmth and affection toward the characters playing his son and wife confounded critics who had been insisting he was a lifeless performer. Duel in the Sun (1946) showed his range as an actor in his first "against type" role as a cruel, libidinous gunslinger. Gentleman's Agreement established his power in the "social conscience" genre in a film that took on the deep-seated but subtle anti-Semitism of mid-century corporate America.Twelve O'Clock High was the first of many successful war films in which Peck embodied the brave, effective, yet human fighting man.
 Among his other popular films were Moby Dick (1956), On the Beach (1959), which brought to life the terrors of global nuclear war, The Guns of Navarone (1961 - img right), and Roman Holiday (1953), with Audrey Hepburn in her Oscar-winning film debut (img left). Peck and Hepburn were close friends until her death; Peck even introduced her to her first husband, Mel Ferrer.
Peck won the Academy award for his fifth nomination, playing Atticus Finch, a Depression-era lawyer and widowed father, in a film adaptation of the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird (img lower right). Released in 1962 during the height of the US civil rights movement in the South, this movie and his role were Peck's favorites. In 2003, Atticus Finch was named the top film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute.
In 1949, Peck founded The La Jolla Playhouse, at his birthplace, along with his friends Jose Ferrer and Dorothy McGuire. This local community theater and landmark (now in a new home at the University of California, San Diego) still thrives today. It has attracted Hollywood film stars on hiatus both as performers and enthusiastic supporters since its inception.
He served as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1967, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Film Institute from 1967 to 1969, Chairman of the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund in 1971, and National Chairman of the American Cancer Society in 1966. He was a member of the National Council on the Arts from 1964 to 1966.
Though so well known and loved, he was not above all criticism. Pauline Kael described him as "competent but always a little boring". Even those greatly admiring him would admit to a touch of stiffness in certain roles. Yet these qualities may have been a necessary trade-off for the iconic status he reached, and he may have known it.
A physically powerful man, he was known to do a majority of his own fight scenes, rarely using body or stunt doubles. In fact, Robert Mitchum, his on-screen opponent in Cape Fear, often said that Peck once accidentally punched him for real during their final fight scene in the movie. He said that he felt the impact of the punch for days afterwards and said "I don't feel sorry for anyone dumb enough who picks a fight with him."
In the 1980s, Peck moved to television, where he starred in the mini-series The Blue and the Gray, playing Abraham Lincoln. He also starred with Barbara Bouchet in the TV film The Scarlet and The Black, about a real-life Roman Catholic priest in the Vatican who smuggled Jews and other refugees away from the Nazis during World War II.
Peck retired from active film-making in 1991. Like Cary Grant before him, Peck spent the last few years of his life touring the world doing speaking engagements in which he would show clips from his movies, reminisce, and answer questions from the audience.
He came out of retirement to appear in the 1998 remake of one of his most famous films, Moby Dick, portraying "Father Mapple" (played by Orson Welles in the 1956 version), with Patrick Stewart playing Captain Ahab, the role Peck made famous in the 1956 film.
Gregory Peck was married twice and had five children. He had three sons by Greta, his first wife. She was awarded the Rose of Finland, equivalent to a Medal of Freedom. Their sons are Jonathan, Stephen and Carey Peck. His son Jonathan Peck, a television news reporter, died at 30 years of age in 1975. His son Stephen Peck is active in support of American veterans from the Vietnam war and Stephen's first wife Kimi Peck is an accomplished screenplay writer. Gregory supported Carey's political ambitions when running for a California Representative and his current wife Lita Albuquerque is an outstanding artist who just traveled to Antartica. With Gregory's second wife, Veronique Passani, he had a son and daughter.
 Gregory Peck has many grandchildren from both marriages. Stephen has a daughter named Marisa, and a younger son named Ethan. Carey has four children, three daughters Marisa, Isabelle, and Jasmine, and a son Christopher Jonathan Peck who is the star of the Malibu High School Varsity Champion Basketball Team. He cares about the environment like his good old Grandfather, because he own a Mercedes coche that runs on vegetable oil.
Peck owned the thoroughbred steeplechase racehorse Different Class which raced in England. The horse was the favourite for the 1968 Grand National but finished 3rd.
Gregory Peck was close friend with French president Chirac, who stated on his death "Depuis de nombreuses années, il était pour moi un ami très cher" ("For numerous years, he was a very dear friend of mine").
He was of English and Irish descent.
In early 2003 Gregory Peck was offered the role of Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He vsaid he'd seriously consider it. He was looking forward to playing Grandpa Joe, which he considered "the greatest swan song of them all", but he died before he could accept.
On June 12, 2003, Peck died in his sleep from cardiorespiratory arrest, and bronchial pneumonia, at the age of 87 in Los Angeles. His wife of 48 years was at his side. Peck is buried in the mausoleum of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California.
Peck was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning once. He was nominated in 1946 for The Keys of the Kingdom, in 1947 for The Yearling, in 1948 for Gentleman's Agreement, and in 1950 for Twelve O'Clock High. He won the Oscar in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1948, he was awarded with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Peck received many Golden Globe awards. He won in 1947 for The Yearling, in 1963 for To Kill a Mockingbird, and in 1999 for Moby Dick. He was nominated in 1978 for The Boys from Brazil. He received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1969, and was given the Henrietta Award in 1951 and 1955 for World Film Favorite - Male.
In 1969, Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award.
In 1971, the Screen Actors Guild presented Peck with the SAG Life Achievement Award. In 1989, the American Film Institute gave Peck the AFI Life Achievement Award. He received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema in 1996.
In 2000, Peck was made a Doctor of Letters by the National University of Ireland. He was a founding patron of the University College Dublin School of Film, where he persuaded Martin Scorsese to become an honorary patron. Peck also became chair of the American Cancer Society for a short time.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Gregory Peck has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6100 Hollywood Blvd. In November, 2005, the star was stolen, but has been replaced.
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