Gregory Peck- A Charmed Life

by Lynn Haney

  Huston was one of the last of the Renaissance men. A voracious and wide-ranging reader, writer, and painter, he was a true raconteur as well as conversant on such subjects as neo-realism and Sartrian existentialism. He explained: ‘I tried to direct as little as possible.’

  The final sea sequences of Moby Dick were scheduled to be shot in the Canary Islands. Greg, accompanied by Veronique, joined the crew of a hundred with fingers crossed that no catastrophe would sabotage the project any further. Huston was in a state of high anxiety. He had to supervise the building of another great white because of the two lost in the Irish Sea. The picture had already cost half as much again as it was budgeted for. If they lost this whale, it could mean the end of the picture.

  Greg approached his last critical scene with much apprehension. The shot was to be of Ahab lashed to the back of Moby Dick with harpoon lines. It was dangerous but a stunt man could not fill in because of the close-ups.

  John Huston recalled: ‘The model – which was a section of the head and body of the white whale – was actually a big hole for Greg to put his leg through, and then he had to be quite securely fastened as the model was slowly revolved in the sea at the end of a long pier. All this time the wind machines were roaring and there were torrents of water as Greg was submerged time and again so that the “harpoon lines” would appear to be wrapping around his body, lashing him forever to his mortal enemy. The model was 20 feet in diameter, so Greg was underwater for a good long time each rotation. The danger, of course, was that the contraption might get stuck while he was underwater.’ Fortunately, everything went as planned. It was a perfect take. Huston said, ‘That’s it!’

  Greg shook his head. ‘Let’s do it again, John, and make sure.’ Huston was certain they had it, but Greg insisted.

  ‘We can never come back for it, John. Let’s do it again.’ So they did it again and the second time also everything went perfectly.

  In December 1954 Greta filed for divorce in Los Angeles. Smartly dressed in a conservative dark suit and white hat, she remained composed before the Superior Court as photographers trained their cameras on her. Still, the images published for the world to see revealed the face of a woman who had suffered profound anguish. There was no doubt she’d been through the wringer. She had lost the love of her life.

  In her complaint, Greta said Greg was guilty of mysterious absences from home, refusing to explain where he’d been. She stated he was a source of ‘anguish, embarrassment and humiliation.’ Their parting, nearly two years before, was the result of Greg’s ‘cruel and inhuman manner.’ The statement went on to say: ‘He has pursued a course of conduct toward his wife of such character as to constitute extreme cruelty . . . he has caused her to endure grievous mental suffering, extreme nervousness, and she can no longer live with him as his wife.’

  The next day Greg issued categorical denials of the charges of cruelty launched against him. Still, he did not contest the divorce. Subsequently, Greta informed the court that she and Greg had agreed on a settlement in which she was to get custody of Jonathan, ten; Stephen, eight; and Carey, five as well as providing for division of community property and for support for herself as well as the boys. The court approved the agreement and ordered Greg to comply with its terms.

  Greta was awarded one of the largest settlements in Hollywood history. She received half of the couple’s community property including the house Greg loved on San Remo Drive in the Pacific Palisades and substantial interests in three motion pictures, The World in His Arms, Roman Holiday, and Moby Dick. She was awarded 20 per cent of the first $100,000 Peck earned annually for the next ten years, 12.5 per cent of the second $100,000, 10 per cent of the third $100,000, 7.5 per cent of the fourth $100,000 and 5 per cent of his earnings until she remarried (she remained single). In addition, she won $250 a month for each of their three children.

  With the money issue resolved, Greta let bygones be bygones. When reporters asked her opinion of Veronique Passani, she said simply: ‘I saw her half a dozen times, but I really don’t know her very well. I hope they’ll be happy.’ Then she volunteered that she was allowing Greg to stay in the family home at 1700 San Remo Drive with their sons while she traveled east to visit relatives. Greta explained she wanted to make it ‘as easy as I can’ on Greg because ‘I want to protect my sons from any scandal.’

  Greg called it an ‘amiable divorce.’ Although in a moment of candor, he told Michael Freedland: ‘You get a divorce because you can no longer stand each other.’

  The Parisian newspapers ran front-page stories claiming Greg was engaged to Veronique Passani. One reporter telephoned Veronique’s mother at the apartment on Boulevard Franklin D Roosevelt.

  ‘Madame Passani, is it true that your daughter is engaged to Gregory Peck, the American film star?’

  ‘I don’t know,’

  ‘But the newspapers are filled with stories to that effect.’

  ‘I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Are they true?’

  ‘All I can say, is that my daughter has known Mr Peck for say, three years. They have much affection for each other, but beyond that I cannot say.’

  Greg returned to the United States in 1955. The previous year he was voted the best box office draw by 7,000 exhibitors in the country and more than 11,000 all over the world. This extraordinary vote of confidence in his career did not assuage Greg’s insecurities. He was prepared to fight hard to stay on top and repair any blemishes to his reputation.

  Since the divorce wouldn’t be final for 11 more months, Greg played cagey with the press. ‘Veronique is a good friend and an intelligent, charming woman,’ and ‘I know I am exceedingly happy in her companionship,’ he would tell reporters.

  Veronique flew to the United States on 10 March 1955. At the airport in New York, Greg kept himself hidden in a luncheonette while his emissary rushed forward to greet her. She checked through customs, then entered a chauffeur-driven Cadillac with the stand-in and drove off. On the outskirts of the airport field Greg made his first appearance. He hopped in the car and it roared off.

  In New York, Greg mixed business with pleasure, taking Veronique to several shows and attending meetings in connection with The Purple Plain. When they arrived in Los Angeles he arranged for her to stay at the Bel Air Hotel. For himself, he leased a house in the Pacific Palisades. It was modest, but big enough to accommodate Jonathan, Stephen and Carey. In fact, the boys could bike from their house on San Remo Drive. Greg introduced her to his close friends but they rarely went out socially.

  One of Greg’s first orders of business was to present Veronique to ‘Auntie Lolly.’ He knew Veronique had to pass muster with Louella Parsons if she was going to win over the film colony. The gossip columnist reported to her faithful readers: ‘She is entirely unlike what I expected. She is a very pleasant girl, without any affectation and she is not a great beauty. Her eyes are violet in color, and her best feature.

  ‘For a girl who’s lived in Paris most of her life, I expected a fashion plate. But she wore a very simple dark dress and a mushroom-shaped pink hat. We talked about the newspaper business.

  ‘It is her intelligence and a certain indefinable charm that has held Greg rather than her glamour. You never could call her a glamour girl in any sense of the word.’

  Pressed by Parsons about his intentions, Greg said, ‘I have no plans to marry Miss Passani.’

  Greg played cagey right up to the last minute. When his divorce became final on 30 December 1955, he married Veronique 19 hours later. For the wedding, officiated by a Justice of the Peace, Greg chose the ranch of his friend Channing Peak in Lompac, California. Only Greg’s parents, their spouses, the Peaks’ children and a few friends attended. There was little time for a honeymoon because Greg had started filming The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). It was a modest celebration for what would become one of Hollywood’s rare, enduring love stories.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Perils of Producing

  ‘He doesn’t g
et familiar with strangers. But once you get to know him, he’s a charming bohemian character who always loses at poker.’

  John Huston on Gregory Peck

  Moby Dick landed in theaters in 1956. Impressed with the many outstanding aspects of the production, critics gave it high praise. ‘One of the great motion pictures of our time,’ rejoiced the New York Times. ‘A brilliant film,’ exclaimed Time magazine. William K Zinsser of the New York Herald Tribune went so far as to proclaim ‘Moby Dick may be the finest film this country has achieved.’ Despite being a box-office success, it failed to win a single Oscar nomination at the 1956 Academy Awards.

  The stark beauty of the movie impressed viewers no end. This consummate artistry was achieved through the creative use of color and sound. John Huston and cinematographer Oswald Morris came up with a new process by making one Technicolor negative, another one in black and white, then printing them together. It suggested old whaling engravings. Reviewers also congratulated Huston for having the guts to tackle such an unfilmable behemoth. And several of the actors were singled out for their performances: Richard Basehart as Ishmael, Leo Genn as Starbuck and Orson Welles as Father Mapple. It was a triumph for all concerned – except Gregory Peck!

  Ahab was a choice role for an actor lusting after an Oscar. In the eyes of many critics, Greg fell woefully short. Time magazine wrote: ‘The most difficult role, Ahab, is unfortunately handed to the actor probably least able to cope with it: Gregory Peck. Visually, he has an unlucky resemblance to a peg-legged Abe Lincoln, and he is not always convincing as a man at war with Heaven and arrogant enough to “strike the sun if it insulted me.” But his failure is only a measure of the high success of the rest of the cast: Peck merely lacks art, not courage or intensity of purpose.’

  Some years after the fact, New Yorker’s Pauline Kael wrote: ‘Though Huston might conceivably have made a great Ahab himself, Gregory Peck could not: that nice man did not belong in the whirling center of Melville’s vision.’ The Saturday Review lamented, ‘Peck’s make-up for his role is expert, but the force needed for conviction is seldom present.’ More biting was the implication by his peers that his range of talent was limited. Moby Dick’s screenwriter Ray Bradbury said, ‘Greg Peck is never going to be a paranoid killer or a maniac devourer of whales.’ And a director who saw the film agreed: ‘It’s a wonderful picture. But the role of Captain Ahab gave Greg one of the choicest dramatic opportunities of his life and he flubbed it.’

  Put on the defensive, Greg cast aspersions on Ray Bradbury’s script: ‘I felt it was overly reverential with those great dollops of Melville’s prose, and it basically lacked the forward drive and motives of a film.’

  What stuck in Greg’s craw was that when he first agreed to do the film, he did not realize Huston wanted him for Ahab and not for Starbuck, a role he knew and understood, having played it at Berkeley. He finally agreed to portray the lunatic sea captain even though he had trouble imagining himself in the part. Why? Because Huston cast his spell and Greg succumbed. Years later he learned Huston really wanted Orson Welles (after his first choice, Walter Huston, died). But Warner Brothers insisted he sign up a movie idol like Greg before they would finance the deal.

  Of course, Huston didn’t come out and tell Greg that. He made him think he wanted him for his own sweet self. Later, when he knew the score, Greg lamented: ‘Moby Dick was the end of my innocence.’ Orson Welles, who was cast as Father Mapple in the Moby Dick production, wasn’t so easily taken in. He called Huston ‘A Mephistopheles, an outrageously seductive, unfrocked cardinal, an amiable Count Dracula who drank only the best vintages of burgundy and never bared his teeth except to smile.’

  For Huston, the deception of Greg was just business. Nothing personal. He didn’t become the legendary director of all those classic films by playing Mr Nice Guy. Morally, he was in the same camp with David O Selznick who once said: ‘If you are primarily concerned with something called personal artistic integrity, you don’t belong in the business of making movies.’

  Greg kept quiet about his resentment toward John Huston, and the two men continued to hang out together and enjoy mutual pursuits, such as racehorses – they shared ownership of a couple of thoroughbreds – and primitive art collecting. Professionally they made plans to work together on Melville’s Typee and The Bridge in the Jungle, but the projects never got off the ground.

  Still, the fact that Huston wanted him for the lead in Moby Dick only to finance the film, continued to rankle. After several years of being boon companions, Greg cut him out of his life without explanation. It’s not clear what happened. In trying to fathom the rejection, Huston remembered an occasion where he gave Veronique a friendly kiss, but she pulled away in a ‘queer, clumsy piece of behavior . . . and from then on Greg avoided me.’

  Given Huston’s propensity to consume alcohol and the way it plays tricks on memory, there’s a good chance Huston made a crude pass at her but didn’t remember it clearly once he sobered up. Greg’s avoidance of him bothered the director past the point of forgiveness. When, some years later, Greg saw Huston on a studio lot and acted friendly, Huston turned away. ‘It was too late to start over.’

  Greg avoided speaking ill of Huston, but he conveniently forgot they had once been close buddies. He told Patricia Harty of Irish American magazine: ‘Certainly, he was a colorful character, a fine raconteur, but I didn’t get to know him on an intimate, friendly basis. I only knew him as a film director.’

  After receiving such searing criticism for Moby Dick, Greg felt a new urgency to find roles in which he could grow. Though regarded as an accomplished actor in the technical sense, ‘good’ and ‘adequate’ were two adjectives people frequently employed when describing his ability. No critic had ever lauded a performance by Greg as truly great. His name was never mentioned in the same breath with Laurence Oliver, Marlon Brando or Rod Steiger.

  Though commanding $300,000 a picture, he was filled with self-doubt. Yet, damn it! He wanted an Oscar (he’d been nominated four times). To a self-torturer like Greg, the solution was to drive himself harder. Pick better scripts. ‘Of the movies I’ve done, there isn’t much I really like,’ Greg admitted. ‘The Gunfighter, Roman Holiday, Twelve O’Clock High I feel were my best.’

  The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit wouldn’t catapult Greg into Oscar territory, but he had high hopes for it anyway. Based on Sloan Wilson’s best-selling novel of the 1950s about a Madison Avenue executive trying to solve his marital problems and cope with his guilt over a wartime affair, the story fit the nation’s zeitgeist.

  Historian David Halberstam called Sloan Wilson’s book one of the most influential of the decade. It was a largely autobiographical account of Wilson’s own struggle upon returning from the Second World War to find fulfillment in a pencil-pushing job at Time-Life Inc. Set in 1953, the novel shed an unflattering light on corporate and suburban life in the ‘Fabulous Fifties.’ For Wilson, the gray flannel suit represented a material culture that rewarded conformists who put career above family. He wore those suits like a prison uniform, as does the book’s frustrated protagonist, 33-year-old Tom Rath (as in anger).

  One reason the book struck a nerve was that it dramatized the lust for affluence and status rampant in American society. Neither the Korean conflict nor McCarthyism could distract Americans from their rush to claim a place in the rapidly expanding middle class. The standard rerun of the period features sincere men in gray flannel suits and contented women in kitchen aprons smiling at the disinfectant Mr Clean. Split-levels sprouted in potato fields, Cadillacs grew fins, and families snuggled up to television sets, where they learned to love Lucy and eat prepared dinners packaged in tinfoil trays.

  The film brought Greg back to the Fox lot with Darryl Zanuck as producer, Nunnally Johnson as both screenwriter and director and Jennifer Jones, his hot tamale from Duel in the Sun, as co-star. Greg had high expectations for the film. He optimistically told Johnson: ‘I hope it turns out to be The Best Years of Our Lives [1946] t
en years later with the same man who came home.’ He was referring to a popular film directed by his friend William Wyler about the difficulties war veterans experienced adjusting to civilian life.

  Gray Flannel ’s lead character, Tom Rath, represented a pleasant bit of typecasting. ‘Gregory Peck happens to be by nature the actor in the gray flannel suit,’ wrote journalist Lloyd Schorr. ‘He’s stolid, conservative, hardworking.’

  In the film, Rath has to come to grips with the repercussions of his overseas affair while he is trying to adjust to civilian life. He takes a job as a Madison Avenue public relations man but finds himself caught in the dilemma of succeeding in his high-pressure job or maintaining his integrity.

  His wife (Jennifer Jones) is pushing him to take another offer and become the assistant to Ralph Hopkins (Fredric March), president of a major TV network. It would raise his salary, prestige, and workload. But he feels that his family, and the time he spends with them, is more important than the new opportunity. The story has lots of melodrama, guilt, and a revelation about a son he fathered in Italy.

  Such irony. Here we have Darryl Zanuck, Nunnally Johnson, Jennifer Jones – and Greg – making a movie about opting for hearth and home over the excitement of career. All had put their careers first and each paid a bitter price.

  The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was Zanuck’s ‘golden swan song.’ Bored with the Hollywood grind, worried about middle age and his virility, and besotted with his mistress Bella Darvi, Zanuck had decided to decamp for Paris.

  In many respects, Zanuck’s life paralleled that of Ralph Hopkins, the tycoon in the story, who must face a wife who barely knows him. Worse, Hopkins’ daughter sees him as a failure as a parent and hates his super-corporation values. She defies him by running around town with disreputable men. Zanuck’s marriage of 32 years was breaking in pieces and he had a severely strained relationship with his daughter Susan because of his workaholic attitude and salacity. He admitted to his biographer: ‘My mood was to escape, to get away from the scene, the social scene, the studio scene, and everything connected with it.’