Gregory Peck – The Children of Mockingbird Call Him “Atticus”
We have come far, having elected Barack Obama as our first African-American President.
Yet, still we see how racism still ravages our country. Look at how popular Donald Trump is among a certain segment of Americans who seem to suffer from a fear of people with skin a different color from their own. How can we move past such intolerance, such primitive thinking?
Rise of Atticus Finch
This quandary brings to mind the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” from the novel written by Harper Lee. And it brings to mind the great actor, Gregory Peck. He won an Oscar for his role as Atticus Finch in 1962, a time when Civil Rights was a major issue confronting the USA.
As Atticus Finch, Gregory Peck plays a widower with two children in a small Southern town during the Depression. He is an attorney who decides to defend Tom Robinson. Tom is a black man who has been accused of raping a white woman. Atticus Finch represents the highest ideals of a human being. That is, he’s someone who is not only handsome and charismatic but a decent, courageous man of action. Those are the kinds of roles that Gregory Peck primarily played throughout his acting career.
Eldred?
He was born Eldred Gregory Peck on April 5, 1916, in La Jolla, California. “My mother found ‘Eldred’ in a phone book, and I was stuck with it,” he said. He graduated from Berkeley with a B.A. in the Spring of 1939. Peck then sold his Model A. And with $160 in his pocket, he took a train to New York to seek his fortune as actor. On the three-day journey, he changed his name to Gregory Peck.
Peck missed World War II military service because he ruptured a disk in a dance class with Martha Graham, when she put her knee against his back and pulled, trying to help him bend. Because most of Hollywood’s leading men were at war, Peck became popular as a leading man. In the years to follow, he would play many roles, including that of a priest, combat heroes, westerners, King David, sea captains, F. Scott Fitzgerald (author of the short story, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) and Abraham Lincoln.
To Kill a Mockingbird
But the apex of his career came in 1962, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Peck 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.”
Here is part of his speech from “To Kill a Mockingbird”” “The defendant is not guilty. But someone in this courtroom is… Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family. In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson.”
Racial Inequity Harms All of Us
Tragically, even with all the evidence in Tom Robinson’s favor, the jury ends up convicting him. Subsequently, he is shot to death while trying to escape from prison. Gregory Peck seemed to embody those qualities that made Atticus Finch such a beloved character. A committed liberal and defender of human rights throughout his life, he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil rights. Peck almost ran for Governor of California against Ronald Reagan. I wish he had, as Reagan almost single-handedly dismantled social services for people who truly need it. And now many are homeless who should be treated in mental hospitals including combat veterans who served their country. Veterans actually comprise more than half of the homeless population.
How much has life really changed since the racial strife of the 1960’s?
Call Him Atticus
In 2003 when Peck was 87, he died in his home. Almost 3,000 people attended Peck’s funeral. Let me conclude with the eulogy which Brock Peters, who played Tom Robinson, gave at Gregory Peck’s funeral:
“In art there is compassion, in compassion there is humanity, with humanity there is generosity and love. Gregory Peck gave us these attributes in full measure. To this day the children of Mockingbird … call him Atticus.”
