by Lynn Haney
Mellow in personal relations yet candid on issues, Greg was finally able to stop being such a pleaser. ‘I find myself getting to be a little more of a truth teller,’ he admitted. His willingness to speak out became apparent to Americans when he – along with Martin Sheen, Lloyd Bridges and Burt Lancaster – was approached by the People for the American Way to narrate a TV spot asking viewers to campaign against the nomination of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. In 1987, President Reagan nominated Bork, an outspoken conservative who was widely reviled in liberal and moderate circles for his apparent opposition to advancement in civil liberties. Even a former American Bar Association president characterized Bork as ‘a right-wing radical.’
The People for the American Way was a public-interest lobbying group launched by Hollywood producer Norman Lear. An enormously successful businessman, Lear is best known for creating such provocative sitcoms as All in the Family (1971) and Maude (1972) The group joined with a coalition of black, labor, environmental and feminist groups in serving up reams of analysis of Bork’s judicial opinions, speeches and writing. More important, it bankrolled and created a $1.2 million advertising and direct-mail campaign that helped convert an otherwise esoteric debate into a hot political topic.
The most controversial commercial showed a young white family on the steps of the Supreme Court, while Greg’s voice intoned: ‘Robert Bork wants to be a Supreme Court justice. But the record shows he has a strange idea of what justice is. He defended poll taxes and literacy tests, which kept many Americans from voting. He opposed the civil rights law that ended ‘whites only’ signs at lunch counters. He doesn’t believe the Constitution protects your privacy. Please urge your Senators to vote against the Bork nomination. Because if Robert Bork wins a seat on the Supreme Court, it will be for life. His life . . . and yours.’
Off-air Greg said: ‘I came to the conclusion that having that guy on the Supreme Court would be the beginning of turning back civil rights – and I felt it was time to step up and bat.’
Bork had the support of former Chief Justice Warren E Burger, four former attorneys general, White House counsel Lloyd N Cutler and, of course, Reagan – who was supremely peeved with Greg. Not wanting to reveal himself with a public display of anger, he said simply that Greg had been ‘miscast.’
Reagan left it to his White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater to open fire. ‘The liberal special interest groups are producing slick, shrill advertising campaigns that not only purposely distort the judge’s record, they play on people’s emotions as only propaganda campaigns can,’ Fitzwater warned the public, adding, ‘To say that Americans will lose their freedoms, as these ads claim, is patently outrageous and deliberately untrue. Gregory Peck ought to be ashamed.’
In screaming foul about the commercial, Bork supporters maintained it was a distortion of Bork’s position. Many stations initially refused to run the anti-Bork blurb, but when Reagan reacted to it through Fitzwater, a host of news programs gave it unexpected – and free – airing. Bork’s name became a household word.
After lengthy and acrimonious confirmation hearings, Bork was ultimately voted down by the Senate, 58-42. For Greg and other liberals, the defeat of Robert Bork was a major victory. At the time, Bork denied charges made by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that he opposed the very concept of a Bill of Rights that limits legislative authority and is enforced by independent federal courts. However, in his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Bork admits to the charge by actually proposing a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress, by a simple majority vote, to override any Supreme Court decision it didn’t like.
‘This is an extraordinary proposal,’ said Ira Glasser, ACLU executive director. ‘If such an amendment were to pass, every one of our basic individual rights would be in mortal danger. A woman’s right to reproductive freedom, an author’s right to free expression, a family’s right to freedom of religion, a racial minority’s right to be free of discrimination – all of these rights would be subject to Congressional vote; all could be taken away.’ So Peck had been right in his initial concerns and brave in his stand.
No matter which side of the political fence an American was on, the fact remained the media war waged against Judge Bork was ugly and insulting. Reporters attempted to get a list of movies he rented from his local video store in the hope they would find some smutty titles. The store owner, quite rightly, respected Bork’s privacy. So Americans will never know whether Bork rented any Gregory Peck movies – and which were his picks and pans.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Magnificent Survivor
‘I realize very well now how short life is, because I’ve got to be considered to be in the home stretch. But I won’t waste time on recriminations and regrets. And the same goes for my shortcomings and my own failures.’
Gregory Peck
Old is a dirty word in Hollywood. Not many meaty roles pop up for a man of 72, but Jane Fonda tossed Greg a good one. She asked him to play the satiric essayist Ambrose Bierce in a movie version of a Carlos Fuentes’ novel, Old Gringo (1989).
The title of the film came from the identity of Bierce, the aged gringo in the film who journeys to Mexico in search of death. ‘Bitter’ Bierce was a brilliant, burnt-out Hearst newspaperman and author of The Devil’s Dictionary, a writer of supernatural stories that have secured his place both in the weird tradition and in American literature at large. He was a celebrity when, in 1913, at the age of 71, he crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico to join Pancho Villa’s revolutionaries in what some Bierce scholars speculate was an act of suicide. Bierce himself, in a letter to his niece Lora, wrote: ‘Goodbye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a gringo in Mexico – ah, that is euthanasia.’
Greg wasn’t Fonda’s first choice for Bierce. Burt Lancaster was hired for the role, then fired because he was deemed uninsurable because of his weak heart. ‘A lot of the film was shot on location in the Mexican desert, 6,000 feet up,’ explained Greg, ‘and there was quite a bit of scrambling around, crawling and horseback riding involved.’ Fonda didn’t want to let Lancaster go, but her back was against the wall. ‘It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through,’ the actress recalled. ‘I love him very much.’ Rumor had it that Paul Newman then declined the part. So Greg assumed it. Lancaster subsequently filed a lawsuit in which he claimed, ‘Colombia negotiated with Greg even before I was fired.’ (The case was settled out of court on 15 September 1989.)
In the film, the weathered American (Greg looking lean, tanned, contours intact) walks fearlessly in the midst of battle. Harriet Winslow, the Fonda character, is an American schoolteacher, and a virgin (a challenge for 51-year-old Fonda). She encounters Bierce soon after she arrives in Mexico, and gradually comes to love his stoic acceptance and sardonic wit. She also gets involved with Villa’s general, Thomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits), and her whole life comes tumbling down.
Fonda and Greg shared the platform sometimes at liberal events, and ‘Hanoi Jane,’ the anti-war crusader who found salvation through exercise, had her reservations about him: ‘I thought maybe he’d gotten soft. He’s part Irish, and that means ups and downs. I thought, maybe the edge is gone, maybe he phones it in.’
As it turned out, Greg – after ten years away from this kind of big budget production – was at the top of his game. His acting skills had steadily improved and he was finally breaking the stranglehold of his inhibitions. Fonda, on the other hand, was reeling from the professional and personal complications in her life. Determined to make this film perfect, yet beset by a disintegrating marriage to Tom Hayden, Fonda, the ‘benevolent fanatic’ as Greg called her during the shooting, finally suffered a nervous breakdown. ‘The marriage was over for a long time, but Jane didn’t want to admit it,’ said Fonda’s first husband Roger Vadim.
On screen, Fonda rallied. She
made her neurosis work in service to the character. She projected the raw emotional intensity that Greg required in an acting partner to do his best work. As Pauline Kael said of her: ‘Jane Fonda’s motor runs a little fast. As an actor she is a special kind of smart as it takes the form of speed; she’s always a little ahead of everybody, and hers is a quicker beat . . . makes her more exciting to watch.’
As death-driven Ambrose Bierce, Greg romances Jane Fonda with a gleam in his eye that says, ‘I’m not dead yet.’ His image as the romantic still resonates. As Bierce, he says, ‘once the women sighed, I thought they’d always be there, sighing into my mustache.’ When Fonda’s character asks how he made them sigh, Bierce goes into a lush, seductive speech. ‘I think Bierce was trying to find something that would give his life meaning,’ reflected Greg, ‘a moment of true passion.’
Fonda came away from the experience with an abiding respect for Greg. ‘There’s something about him that walks this thin line between safe and familiar and warm and welcoming, and that which is dangerous and sexual and mysterious. He has not lost the hunger to take big risks.’
Reviewers rhapsodized over Greg’s performance. The New York Times declared his portrayal of Ambrose Bierce may have been his ‘best performance.’ Unfortunately, the movie died a quick death. It lacked a clear narrative line from beginning to end – and that flaw proved to be its downfall. ‘There is a potentially wonderful story at the heart of Old Gringo,’ wrote critic Roger Ebert. ‘But the movie never finds it – the screenplay blasts away in every direction except the bulls-eye.’
Rolling Stone showed limited enthusiasm: ‘As usual, Peck radiates dignity, intelligence and quiet strength. But he can’t or won’t connect with the despair that would make the character memorable. It’s a star turn from an old smoothie.’
Knowing the trials and tribulations of being a producer first hand, Greg felt anguish for his colleague. ‘After the many years Jane Fonda put in to get Old Gringo made, it’s a pity to see it destroyed in 48 hours. Old Gringo made less than $2 million at the box office, a disastrous return for the $25 million romantic extravaganza. People didn’t go right away. And by the time they wanted to go, the picture wasn’t playing anymore.’
At this point in time, Greg had many blessings. Tucked away in the opulent Holmby Hills, he lived in great style in a grand but delightfully cozy Norman-style mansion. Golden retrievers romped among blazing masses of rhododendron and bougainvillea, and the house itself was a casual gallery of paintings, drawings and prints by the likes of Renoir, Matisse and Picasso. When the gardener’s son admired one of the paintings, Greg lifted it off the wall and gave it to him. (One assumes it wasn’t one of the masters.)
Thanks to his percentages in films such as The Guns of Navarone and The Omen, he was a wealthy man with no need to continue working.
He never stopped referring to Veronique as his soul mate. She looked after him in his dotage, serving as his life raft when the ups and downs of life became too great. ‘It was very lucky for us that we met,’ said Greg. ‘And that after all these years of marriage we still love to be together, often for 24 hours a day. Although we do get out a bit on the social scene, we both feel happiest when we know we are going to have an evening alone together. A bottle of champagne and dinner in front of the fireplace, a stack of records on the stereo, and we are perfectly happy. We never run out of conversation, and we get along just fine.’
Often they invited close friends to an elegant, small dinner party. And when the mood struck, they traveled: Cuba for a film festival, Paris for the museums and restaurants, and Louisville for the Kentucky Derby. ‘We do whatever we want whenever we want to do it. I suppose that’s the ultimate freedom.’
‘We still have a lot of friends here,’ Greg said, referring to Los Angeles. ‘But we’re not in the vortex anymore. But that’s the natural order of things. We travel a lot. I don’t read the trade papers anymore, the little world of who’s doing what and what’s doing at the box-office and what pictures are moving up to the front burner.’
At the same time, he was quick to add: ‘I enjoy acting. When driving to the studio, I sing in the car. I love my work and my wife and my kids and my friends. And I think, “You’re a lucky man, Gregory Peck, a damn lucky man.”’
‘Lucky’ was his mantra. For the most part, it worked. Tell yourself everything’s coming up roses. Broadcast it to the world. In private, the sorrow of Jonathan’s death still lingered. And, within the bosom of his family, another heartbreaking tragedy was in the making. ‘I like a boy who raises a little hell,’ Greg said years before. ‘If a boy isn’t adventurous, it isn’t right.’ Those words may well have haunted him. He was soon to face the prospect of another son bent on self-destruction.
Although he tried to appear sanguine about it, the fact that his career was winding down bugged the hell out of him. He loved to work. The thought of spending his golden years simply puttering around the house rankled with him. The fact remained; the parts were growing thinner and less interesting. Perhaps no one wanted to tangle with the legend of Atticus. Or perhaps no one remembered how much fun he could be.
He was a serious actor adept at career plotting and carefully choosing his roles, often opting for relevant themes over the purely commercial lot. He sought out roles that offered him an artistic challenge. ‘I had a stubborn streak, the Irish in me I guess.’
‘I don’t want to jump out there and work just to be seen,’ lamented Greg. ‘And I don’t want to be the darling old-granddaddy or an old Western sourdough.’ And he was determined to avoid mediocre films. He reasoned, ‘It’s kind of unseemly at my age to come out in a turkey.’
His spirits were lifted when he was offered a part in Other People’s Money (1991). It starred his Holmby Hills neighbor Danny DeVito. The film was based on a successful stage play, although most critics found the film version lacking in the play’s bite and complexity and slipping into a Capraesque pitting of ordinary folks against the corporate big shots.
‘. . . it was just the greatest thrill of my life to work with Gregory Peck,’ marveled Danny DeVito. ‘I was just, like, you know, overwhelmed, blown away, flabbergasted, going to work with a legend.’
A ruthless Wall Street predator known as Larry the Liquidator (DeVito) sets his sights on acquiring – and destroying – the New England wire and cable company run in traditional and familial style by Greg.
Although his role was supportive rather than strong, Greg especially liked his speech to the stockholders. ‘Every good part should have a tirade, even if the person who delivers it loses the battle.’ In Other People’s Money, Greg has an uncommonly eloquent speech, trying to persuade the stockholders to vote for his slate of directors instead of DeVito’s. Greg found in DeVito, ‘a wonderful fellow, a masterful actor and comedian. He puts his heart into everything.’
With a few days off during the shooting of Other People’s Money, Greg flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to do a one-day cameo appearance in Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 1962 thriller Cape Fear (1991).
‘I didn’t want to do the cameo,’ Greg said. ‘I don’t want to play little supporting parts. You can’t get your teeth into it. You’ve got to have some horses to ride, some meat on the bones, to make it fun to do. But Scorsese and De Niro were persistent.’
In fact the two men tracked Greg to the Ritz in Paris, talked him into it and offered him a choice of cameos. ‘I took the one I thought was an amusing twist – the lawyer who defends De Niro instead of prosecuting him,’ Greg said. Then he added: ‘I was delighted to play the southern slicker, a little pompous southern lawyer.’
Cape Fear is undeniably gripping and it certainly looks great. Shot by Freddie Francis, the imaginative use of photography is a reminder of Scorsese’s encyclopedic film education that started when he was a sickly kid, besieged by asthma, pleurisy, and other physical handicaps which excluded him from sports. In the darkened theater of the local cinema house, Scorsese escaped into fantasy and thereby laid the fo
undation for his future career. He never forgot watching devilishly charming Greg as Lewt McCanles slink about in David O Selznick’s Duel in the Sun. This brawling, engrossing Western had a profound effect on him, not only because his local priest warned he’d fry in hell for watching it, but also because the photography was magnificent. Now Scorsese was one of the hottest directors in Hollywood.
Because of the continuing interest in both the book and the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, Greg had a part-time job answering his correspondence and going out and speaking about his role in the film. Of all his movies, it was the one with which he was most associated in the public mind. Harper Lee’s novel has sold 15 million copies since it was published in 1960 and it continues to sell strongly. In 1991 the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club asked people to name the books that had had the greatest impact on their lives. The number one book was the Bible. Number two was To Kill a Mockingbird. Since the movie was such a faithful adaptation of the book, the video also continues to sell briskly. And the ranks of the devoted continue to grow. Noted John Patterson in the Guardian ‘. . . I can vouch that the fastest way to outrage a table of drunk Americans is to tell them you can’t abide this movie.’
Keenly aware of donning the mantle of Atticus Finch, Greg remarked: ‘I can hardly walk down the street anymore, or meet up with strangers in the parking lot or a restaurant or an elevator, but what they will say: “I’ve never forgotten To Kill a Mockingbird,” or, “I became a lawyer because of you.” Middle-aged men are constantly telling me that they became lawyers because they saw To Kill a Mockingbird when they were young.’
He was not exaggerating. Atticus Finch’s professional and moral integrity, as well as Greg’s extraordinary performance, has launched thousands of legal careers. One of them was Morris Dees, the eminent director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He recalled: ‘On a warm night in 1966, I saw To Kill a Mockingbird. When Atticus Finch walked from the courtroom and the gallery rose in his honor, tears were streaming down my face. I wanted to be that lawyer.’