Word: star
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...parents were divorced when he was a small child, and he was split up and parceled out among relatives, as he was later to be divided among the studios. He felt something like security only with his father, a charming, easygoing ex-basketball star who had failed in business as a druggist and hoped his son might become a doctor. Although Gregory was a handsome boy, he tended to stand back and watch while the cheerleaders and backfield men made off with the only girls who interested him. When at last he got a girl of his own, he fell...
After a dreary series of revivals, summer stock and out-of-town closings, McClintic gave him a role in a 1942 Broadway show, Emlyn Williams' The Morning Star. The show soon folded, but the critics had some nice things to say about a new juvenile named Gregory Peck...
...Early American." In spite of Hollywood's bad reputation for misusing talent, studios normally try hard with anyone they regard as promising. With Peck, the moviemakers were inclined to outdo themselves. Each studio needed a major male star, and Peck looked like a good risk. Moreover, since no studio had been able to snare him outright, each was determined to sweat the best possible use out of him. Peck was inadvertently handed some bum pictures; but each one was a major production. And during his first years, he had the run of a virtually clear field. Since...
...idealized, legendary quality. But his fine-featured face gives him enormous range as a movie hero: while remaining a virile 6 ft. 3 in., he can suggest, if the plot demands it, a man who is delicate, ill, or even morally weak. Peck appeals, as a very popular male star must, to both bobby-soxers and their mothers. He manages this feat without presenting himself as a big brother, as a cute, asexual nephew, or as a sophisticated porch climber. Men also immediately like him and wish him well; they feel that he is, in fact, an average human being...
...sure-about out-heeling Satan and out-Laurencing Olivier. Now he says of Duel: "I didn't do much acting. I rode horses, necked with Jennifer, and shot poor old Charley Bickford." Of Valley of Decision: "My agent wanted me to be seen with a big female star. Greer's audience, he said, will be a good thing for you. It was a very good maneuver. The movie? I didn't like it." Of Spellbound: "I was lousy." Of The Yearling: "I would have liked the picture better with its Walt Disney aspects pushed into the background...