At 12:12 PM 6/12/2003 -0600, Kestrel wrote:

>I can't say I knew anything about him personally, but I never heard anything
>bad, and I liked his movies.

He was well-respected because he was a class act!  He didn't fall for the
Hollywood bulls--t, he did his job and did it well and didn't worry about
the rest of it.

And what a handsome fellow, even into old age!

>I saw To Kill a Mockingbird long before I read it, and Atticus Finch/Gregory
>Peck were forever afterwards one and the same -- he himself counted it among
>his favorite parts, saying "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," he remarked in 1989. "And my feelings
about racial
>justice and inequality and opportunity."

Good for him.  I never actually saw the movie.  Read the book not long
after it came out and was blown away.  Keys and I saw a wonderful
performance of the play based on the book at the Florida State Theatre
(Hippodrome Theatre) in Gainesville, when we were down there at a B&B for
our 25th anniversary.

>and American moviegoers must have felt he did a good job -- just this week
>the American Film institute ranked that character #1 in its list of top 100
>heroes in film history. Of course, Harper Lee wrote a great character (and
>book) but Peck brought him to life.

I saw the AFI show, and they did make a good choice in naming his
performance number 1. 

>And now another good one rides off into the sunset....

Amen.  Bless him, he was one of a kind.

Veloci--we shall not look upon his kind again--raptor
 

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha