Gregory Peck (1916-2003)

One of the world's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Gregory Peck continued to play major film roles until the late 1970s. He is best known for his performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Peck served as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1967, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Film Institute from 1967 to 1969, Chairman of the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund in 1971, and National Chairman of the American Cancer Society in 1966. He was a member of the National Council on the Arts from 1964 to 1966.

Early Life
ldred Gregory Peck was born in the San Diego, California neighborhood of La Jolla, the son of Missouri-born Bernice Mary "Bunny" (née Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a New York-born chemist and pharmacist. His father was of Irish (maternal) heritage and English (paternal) heritage, while his mother had Scottish and English ancestry. Peck's father was a Roman Catholic, while his mother converted to the denomination when she married his father. Through his Irish-born paternal grandmother Catherine Ashe, Peck was related to Thomas Ashe, who took part in the Easter Rising fewer than three weeks after Peck's birth and died while on hunger strike in 1917. Peck's parents divorced by the time he was six years old; his maternal grandmother raised him for the next few years.

Marriage to Greta Kukkonen
In October 1942, Peck married Finnish-born Greta Kukkonen (1911–2008), with whom he had three sons, Jonathan (1944–75), Stephen (b. 1946), and Carey Paul (b. 1949). They were divorced on December 30, 1955, but maintained a very good relationship.
 * 1) Jonathan Peck (1944-1975) -  television news reporter, committed suicide in 1975.
 * 2) Stephen Peck is active in support of American veterans from the Vietnam War; his first wife is screenwriter Kimi Peck, who co-wrote Little Darlings with Dalene Young.
 * 3) Carey Peck had political ambitions, running for Congress in California in 1978 and again in 1980 with the support of his father and family. He narrowly lost to conservative Republican Bob Dornan.

Marriage to Veronique Passani
On December 31, 1955, the day after his divorce was finalized, Peck married Veronique Passani (1932–2012), a Paris news reporter who had interviewed him in 1953 before he went to Italy to film Roman Holiday. He asked her to lunch six months later and they became inseparable. They had a son, Anthony Peck, and a daughter, Cecilia Peck. The couple remained married until Gregory Peck's death. His daughter Cecilia lives in Los Angeles.
 * 1) Anthony Peck
 * 2) Cecilia Peck