BACK TO 2006 HOME PAGE

2006

THE MOVIE

In addition to being voted the best novel of the 20th century by America’s librarians, Harper Lee’s masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird, was adapted into a film that ranks 34 in the American Film Institute’s list of the “100 Greatest Films.”

In 1962, this critically acclaimed cinematic gem received the following eight Oscar nominations:

• Best Picture (producer Alan J. Pakula)
• Best Actor (Gregory Peck)
• Best Supporting Actress (Mary Badham)
• Best Musical Score (Elmer Bernstein)
• Best Director (Robert Mulligan)
• Best B/W Cinematography (Russell Harlan)
• Best Adapted Screenplay (Horton Foote)
• Best Art and Set Decoration

When the Academy’s votes were counted, To Kill a Mockingbird garnered three Oscars—Gregory Peck for Best Actor, Horton Foote for Best Screenplay Adaptation, and a team for Best Art and Set Decoration. Peck’s portrayal of the Macomb, Alabama, lawyer is so brilliant and timeless that, in 2005, the American Film Institute voted Atticus Finch the number one film hero of all time.

One of the culminating events of One Book One Siouxland will be six screenings of this classic film on April 22 and 23 at the Orpheum Theatre, 528 Pierce Street, Sioux City.

 

GREGORY PECK*

In spite of his death on June 12, 2003 at 87, Gregory Peck continues to move audiences with his dignified good looks and forceful acting. His Hollywood film debut began with Days of Glory (1944). Other popular favorites followed, The Guns of Navarone, Roman Holiday, and Cape Fear, to name three.

In a career that spanned over fifty years and sixty films, Peck received five Oscar nominations for Best Actor, including:

• The Keys of the Kingdom (1945) as “Father Frances Chisholm”
• The Yearling (1946) as “Pa Baxter”
• Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) as “Phil Green”
• Twelve O’Clock High (1949) as “General Savage”
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) as “Atticus Finch”

Peck’s “Best Actor” Oscar came with his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the Southern lawyer who defends an African American wrongly accused of rape. The role allowed him to create the epitome of what an American should be in a country torn apart by social injustices. Of this Oscar-winning performance, the actor once said, “I put everything I had into it—all my feelings and everything I‘d learned in 46 years of living—about family life and fathers and children and my feelings about racial justice and inequality and opportunity.”

Off-screen, Peck was an activist in numerous social and humanitarian causes. In 1991, he was one of five recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for his “lifetime achievements in the arts.” In 1997, on the south lawn of the Old Courthouse in Monroeville, Harper Lee’s hometown, the Alabama Bar Association placed a statue of Atticus Finch. The monument was the Bar Association’s first commemorative “Legal Milestone” in the state’s judicial history. The fictional hero was chosen because “he stands as a role model for those committed to equal justice for all.” In 1999, Peck was honored in Philadelphia with the second annual “Marian Anderson Award” for his humanitarian efforts.

Upon hearing of his death, Harper Lee commented, “Gregory Peck was a beautiful man. Atticus Finch gave him the opportunity to play himself.”

On June 16, 2003, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahoney presided over Peck’s star-studded memorial service. In his tribute, Mahoney commented on the actor’s motivation to play Atticus, the crusading lawyer who accepts the case that cannot be won: “He needed to do this part because that story needed to be told. Racism and discrimination needed to be seen for what they were, and what they were were evil.”

At the same memorial service, Brock Peters, who played the doomed Tom Robinson, explained why Peck’s favorite film was To Kill a Mockingbird. Peters eulogized, “In art, there is compassion. In compassion, there is humanity. With humanity, there is generosity and love—we care not only for ourselves but also for others. Gregory Peck gave us these attributes to his full measure.”

In the final paragraph of the novel, a mature Scout Finch thinks about her childhood and observes: “He [Atticus] turned out the light and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” Gregory Peck is still with us in To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

*Some of the information about Gregory Peck on this page was based upon the following Web sites/pages:

http://www.filmbuffonline.com/InRemembrance.htm

http://mockingbird.chebucto.org

http://www.eonline.com/Facts/People/Bio/0,128,12276,00.html