Album Review: "THIS TIME IT'S LOVE" - Kurt Elling, Blue Note CDP 7243 4 93543 2 6, reviewed by Tony Magee

I first heard and saw Chicago based Kurt Elling and his band at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival in 1998. If that sounds like an unlikely place for an encounter with an international sensation, well it isn't. Wangaratta Jazz is now well established as one of (if not the) premier jazz festivals in Australia. But that's another story.

Kurt and band captivated his audiences with renditions of tunes - mostly familiar standards, but some not - that were so new, fresh, alive and vibrant that he tore the place apart and virtually caused a stampede to greet him and clamber for autographs afterwards. Women fainted in the isles. Come to think of it, a lot of guys did too.

The album I'm recommending is called This Time It's Love (a reference to the opening track, My Foolish Heart). Contained therein are eleven further tracks. Some romantic ballads, some cool swingin' numbers, some funky, a latin feel and more.

This is not yet another young cat singing the Sinatra songbook. Kurt Elling is quite simply a new breed of singer. It is classy stuff. It is intelligent. It is modern. It is exciting. It is certainly adventurous. It is infectious. It grows on you. I'll just bet that you will want more of his albums, after you get the feel of this one.

As for venues - well - no rules apply here. You could play this album in fine dining restaurants, or you could play it in smart lunchtime cafes. Even funky nightclubs could benefit from the Elling touch.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, Dec 2003

Album Review: "THE INTIMATE ELLA" - Ella Fitzgerald, Verve 839 838-2, reviewed by Tony Magee

As promised, this month I present an album which I think you will enjoy when you get home after having closed up the establishment. Let's face it, in the Restaurant, catering and entertainment industries, nobody goes straight to bed when they get home. You have to unwind.

There are two ladies whom might be described as the two greatest singers of the 20th Century (excluding opera). Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. You can't separate them. They are equals. I don't think there is anyone who can touch them, past or present.

The Intimate Ella is a collection of great ballads sung by Ella Fitzgerald with piano accompaniments by Paul Smith, who is one of the supreme accompanists for this kind of music. He creates a glorious cushion of sound over which floats Miss Fitzgerald's incredible, seamless, silken voice.

Ella's interpretations are timeless. She brings to each number the ultimate rendering and treatment. Lyrics suddenly mean a whole lot more. Each word is crystal clear. Each note a triumph of pitch, feeling, warmth and style.

The tracks are: Black Coffee, Angel Eyes, I Cried for You, I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Then You've Never Been Blue, I Hadn't Anyone Till You, Misty, My Melancholy Baby, September Song, One for My Baby, Who's Sorry Now, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You, Reach for Tomorrow.

Recording quality is excellent. The album is in stereo. It was recorded in 1960. Buy it.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, Nov 2003

Album Review: FRANGIPANI - Guy Strazzullo, ABC Jazz 980 824-7, reviewed by Tony Magee

Australian composer and nylon string guitarist Guy Strazzullo is a sublime player.

He is a genuine melody maker of the highest rank and is right up there with Jobim. Also, his beautiful guitar work is so very stylish and precise, whilst also retaining pleasing ease and flow. You can hear little influences of Louiz Bonfa, and others, but really - Guy Strazzullo is his own man and his own musician.

Well, I think you can gather that I really like this CD. Oh, yes - forgot to mention that. This month's CD is the music of the aforementioned musician and the CD is entitled Frangipani, released on ABC Jazz.

There are nine tracks of which Strazzullo has composed seven. He has also surrounded himself with the finest musicians including Slava Grigoryan (classical guitar), Matt McMahon (piano), Andrew Gander (drums), Hugh Fraser (bass), Mike Stern (electric guitar) and Geronimo da Silva (berimbau).

The album is quite eclectic, containing Brazilian influences, jazz-rock fusion, jazz, ballads and more.

Its main driving force always is beautiful melody, accompanied by understated arrangements so as not to intrude on the lyrical style of the playing - another Jobim influence.

This truly is Australian music making at its finest.

As for venues, well there is a certain element of "class" in this album, however it is perfectly assessable to a wide range of listeners. It is mellow and laid back listening, so perhaps the cocktail hour and dinner. Or, really late at night in front of an open fire with someone special. Excuse me whilst a just make a call.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, Sept 2003

Gery Scott at The Kiev Opera House, April 12, 1961 - the day Gagarin flew in space

Gery Scott acknowledges her audience at The Kiev Opera House, April 12, 1961

by Larissa MacFarquhar

In 1961, British singer Gery Scott was engaged to perform a thirteen city, seventy-five concert tour of the Soviet Union, including Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Odessa and Baku. 

Jazz, seen as an American attempt at cultural infiltration, had been repressed in the Soviet Union after the war and became the music of the underground.

Then, for a brief period after Stalin died, from the mid-fifties to the early sixties, jazz was permitted, the underground emerged, and suddenly bop, cool jazz, Dixieland and big band were everywhere.

By the time the tour started, three million of Gery’s records on the Czech based Supraphon label had been sold in the country and everybody knew who Gery Scottova was.

On the evening of April 12, Gery performed two sold out concerts at the Kiev Opera House.

But this was no ordinary night in Russia. Yuri Gagarin had shot up into space in the Vostok spaceship that day - the first manned space flight ever.

Gery, accompanied by husband Igo Fisher on piano, Kiev Opera House, April 12, 1961

Wearing an extradorinaiy dress - red sequins, strapless, low-cut and mermaid-shaped, Gery sang two two-hour concerts, back to back, with encores and at the end of each she sang “How High the Moon”. 

The audience, swelled with pride and happiness about Vostok 1 and Gagarin, went wild.

They made her sing it again and again.

An excerpt from “The Jazz Singer” by Larissa MacFarquhar, printed in The New Yorker, August 18 & 25, 2003

Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagarin, July 3 1961, during a Finnish press conference. Photo: Arto Jousi,
restored by Adam Cuerden - Finnish Museum of Photography. Public Domain.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful crewed spaceflight, became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes. By achieving this major milestone for the Soviet Union amidst the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including the nation's highest distinction: Hero of the Soviet Union.

Hailing from the village of Klushino in the Russian SFSR, Gagarin was a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy in his youth. He later joined the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was stationed at the Luostari Air Base, near the Norway-Soviet Union Border, before his selection for the Soviet space programme alongside five other cosmonauts. Following his spaceflight, Gagarin became the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre which was later named after him. He was also elected as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

The liftoff of Vostok 1. Photo: Roscosmos, courtesy The Planetary Society

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight, but he served as the backup crew to Soyuz 1, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Fearful that a high-level national hero might be killed, Soviet officials banned Gagarin from participating in further spaceflights. After completing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968, he was again allowed to fly regular aircraft. However, Gagarin died five weeks later, when the MiG-15 that he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seyrogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Text reprinted from the Wikipedia article on Yuri Gagarin

Appendix

Two more photos from Gery's time in The Soviet Union in 1961:

Gery performing in Baku, Soviet Union 1961. It's packed!

Gery Scott and Igo Fisher are married in The Moscow Palace of Weddings 1961, at the suggestion of the wife to the British Ambassador. For official purposes, she probably would have used Diana Whitburn as her maiden name, and become Diana Fisher.

Gery Scott performs in Germany, 1955

Gery with son Christopher (aged 6) and Pan American Airways executive Barry Eldridge at Frankfurt Airport, 1955. Collection Gery Scott.

For aviation enthusiasts: The Pan American Airways plane registration number can be seen - N773PA. It was a Douglas DC-7B named Clipper Endeavour. Entered service that year - 1955, and retired 1964. My thanks to John Steele and the Pan Am Historical Foundation 2015.

by Larissa MacFarquhar

In the Summer of 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Gery was invited to perform at a big music festival in East Germany: Communist officials had come around to jazz in the fifties, because they had been led, by Paul Robeson among others, to understand that real jazz (as opposed to white commercialisation) was the music of the oppressed American Negro. 

By that time, Gery was well known: she had sung with Chet Baker and the Woody Herman band and had gone solo - she was living in sin in Wiesbaden with her accompanist, a handsome German pianist named Igo Fisher, with whom she travelled to gigs all over Europe, east and west.

She had a recording contract with Supraphon in Prague, and her recording of “When the Saints Go Marching In” was No. 1 on the Czechoslovakian hit parade for more than a year.

The music festival was to take place on an open-air stage in a park and officials expected an audience of more than 70,000. They were quite nervous about it and they were adamant that Gery sing only pretty songs - nichts zu heiss, nothing too “hot” - but at the same time they were very keen that she sing her signature hit, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” because it was Dixieland and most definitely the music of the oppressed American Negro. 

Gery explained that it was a fast song and could get quite heiss, but the officials insisted that she go ahead and sing it none-the-less.

The park was teaming. There was an East German Dixieland band, a jazz singer from Romania, a jazz singer from Hungary, singers and bands from all over the place, but they were all warm-up acts for Gery, who would close the show.

By the end of her set, everybody was yelling for more and when at last she sang “When the Saints Go Marching In,” the crowd went wild, clapping and screaming and singing along. 

As she was taking her bows and saying thank you, a little boy about ten years old slipped onto the stage, through a two-man-deep cordon of policemen, thrust a copy of one of her records at her and begged her to sign it. Gery was so high and boy was so small that she did.

Gery singing at Landsthul Air Base, Germany, 1955. Collection Gery Scott

At that moment, the crowd broke through the cordon and rushed the stage. Gery, terrified, ran backwards and fell down the stage steps and a thick piece of wood sliced into her calf. She screamed in pain, Igo screamed in fear, seventy-thousand people screamed in excitement and police whistles and sirens were going off everywhere.

But before a doctor could remove the wood from her leg, the police rushed into the Red Cross tent and demanded that she and Igo get in their car and drive straight to the border without stopping.

They were accompanied on the journey by the East German police and then drove eleven hours to Prague, where they were due to record the next day.

By the time they arrived, Gery’s leg was so swollen that she was worried about gangrene.

A week later, Neues Deutschland, the East German equivalent of Pravda, carried an article stating that Western entertainers were not allowed to come to East Germany to try to coerce the young people into revolution. Gery was declared persona-non-grata and was never invited to perform there again.

Reprinted from “The Jazz Singer” by Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, August 18, 2003

Album review: DOUG WILLIAMS - Check It

The Basement (Warner) BASE005

Review copy supplied by Abels Music, Canberra: (02) 6295 1466

Reviewed by Tony Magee

Here is a great album for funky bars and nightclubs.

Sydney based singer and songwriter Doug Williams is absolutely groovin' in this excellent CD of funk, funk -rock, soul and groove.

If you like performers like Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Les McCann - those kinds of soulful Afro American singers  - you will like Doug Williams.

Here, he presents a selection of mostly his own compositions, tightly arranged and performed with himself on lead vocals and a fabulous funky band with brass, congas and other cool instruments. Also present are the soul sisters providing great backing harmonies.

This album was actually recorded live at the basement. The sound is excellent. Punchy, dynamic and powerful. Not to heavy on the applause - just enough to remind you that a whole room full of people were grooving and moving to this excellent artist on the night.

Williams sings with conviction and ease. His voice can be tight and gripping, or sometimes so relaxed, soulful and mellifluous.

Many tracks are dance tracks, including Keep On Dancing, Loveland, Too Hot, Dance and Love Me Like You. Then there are some quieter mood tracks such as Love Is, Too Hot, As Long As I Know and Love. Yes - he seems to have a "thang" about love. 

If you want to get your guests tapping and grooving, then I would highly recommend this one.

First published in Restaurant and Catering magazine, August 2003

Bob Hope

Bob Hope lived in the town as a child before moving to America aged four. Photo courtesy BBC

Bob Hope (entertainer, born May 29, 1903, Eltham, England; died July 27, 2003)

The man, who it is calculated has been seen by more people than any other entertainer on earth during his more than seven decades in show business, has been declared a "a part of American folklore" by a Senate resolution. In just about every country people know the performer, whose rapid-fire comedy technique, flawless sense of timing and impeccable delivery have invaded their lands and touched a common chord in their humanity. His motion pictures exceed 50. His radio and television show are literally countless.

The great entertainer was born Leslie Townes Hope, the fifth of six sons of a stone mason in London. His father brought the family to Cleveland, Ohio, when Bob was 3. and the youngster received his education there at the Fairmont Grammar School and High School. He was given singing lessons by his mother, Agnes, who had been a Welsh concert singer. It has been said that he discovered the delight in making people laugh when his voice cracked one day while he was singing "The End of a Perfect Day" at a family gathering. During his schooldays, young Hope earned money working in a shoe store, a pharmacy, in his older brother's meat market, and as a paperboy and golf caddy. He learned tap-dancing in high school and, when the instructor left for Hollywood, he took the classes for a time.

At the age of 10, he had won a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest but did not return to comedy until, after striking out a boxing career, under the name Packy East, he learned that several acts were needed to fill out the bill of a Cleveland theater. He acquired a partner named George Byrne, and together they worked out a dance routine, calling themselves "Two Diamonds in the Rough." A vaudeville tour followed. It was in Newcastle, Indiana, after appearances on Broadway in The Sidewalks of New York and Smiles, that Hope emerged as a monologist. In announcing a coming performance at the theater, he burlesqued the announcement and told Scotch jokes with such success that he decided to be a solo performer. His business card red "Bob Hope: Monology and Eccentric Dancing," and he played vaudeville theaters, including the Stratford Theatre in Chicago, and then formed his own company, which included Edgaremembergen and Charlie McCarthy.

Hope made it back to Broadway, first with Ballyhoo, a 1932 musical, followed the next year by his starring role as Huckleberry Haines in Roberta with Fay Templeton and Sydney Greenstreet plus a young singer named Dolores Reade, whom he married at that time and with whom he has shared his life since.

In 1935, the year he appeared in Ziegfeld Follies with Fanny Brice and the year before his appearance with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante in Red, Hot and Blue, Hope did his first radio show, "Atlantic Family." His own radio show was introduced in the fall of 1938. As a result of it, he was asked by Paramount Studios to appear with other radio performers in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938. Instead of utilizing his comedic talents, the producers assigned him to sing (with Shirley Ross) the song "Thanks for the memory," which was to become his theme. Among a handful of films in which he subsequently appeared were College Swing, Thanks for the Memory, and, most importantly, The Cat and the Canary with Paulette Goddard in 1939.

A new phase of his career began in 1940 when he set out on the Road to Singapore, the first of the film "Roads" he was to travel with Bing Crosby, whom he had first met at New York's Capitol Theater eight years before, when Crosby was the featured singer and Hope was the emcee. The seven blockbuster "Road" pictures, starting with Singapore and including Zanzibar, Morocco, Utopia, Rio, Bali and sometime later, Hong Kong.

At the time of Crosby's death in 1977, the two were plotting an eight "Road"-- To the Fountain of Youth. "There was a chemistry between us," says Hope. "I could feed Bing a great line and he could feed me a great line, then half the time we were robbing each other, trying to steal each other's lines, so it made for a great circus of gags."

Between "Road" trips, there were many other hit comedy films for Hope including Monsieur Beaucaire, My Favorite Blonde, My Favorite Brunette, My Favorite Spy, Casanova's Big Night, The Paleface, Sorrowful Jones, Fancy Pants, The Lemon Drop Kid, Seven Little Foys (in which he played his most dramatic role as Eddie Foy and for which he received critical praise) Beau James, The Facts of Life and Cancel My Reservation.

The television show "Star Spangled Revue," presented on Easter Sunday, 1950, marked the first of his myriad appearances on the then new medium. Among his innumerable awards are five special Oscars for humanitarian work. He has also created the USO international headquarters named after him.

First published at 8th Kennedy Centre honors

Article: Sondheim stars shine brightly in Sydney - Sydney Cabaret Convention 2003

by Tony Magee

Sydney Town Hall

MYSELF, Gery Scott and Scott Dodd - all Philo Sondheimettes - recently travelled to Sydney to perform at the 2003 Sydney Cabaret Convention, at Sydney Town Hall.  Gery was engaged as a headline artist for the final evening of the Convention, called the Gala, and she knocked the socks off everyone receiving two standing ovations during the course of her 20 minute show.

Sydney percussionist Nick McBride (a graduate of the Canberra School of Music Jazz Dept), joined us for the performance making the backing up to a trio. Also present was Daniel Mitchell, as personal assistant to all and unofficial ASM at the event. Daniel Edmonds and Fiona Sullivan also came as guests to enjoy the evening.

The day wasn't without its hiccups. At the sound check, Gery was sitting waiting for her turn. One artist to go - Dale Burridge - then Gery's soundcheck would commence. Everyone relaxed. No tension anywhere. Then Dale starts to sing: "Once in a Lifetime, A Man and His Moment…". Looks of horror all round. That was our second number. Gery bowed out gracefully and said "No matter. We’ll just completely re-structure our act". So we sat down and had a bit of a think.

Gery Scott

We re-positioned the final number (Don't Cry Out Loud), placing it second (replacing Lifetime). Now we needed a new closing number - something that we could perform with no rehearsal and that Gery would be comfortable with. So we sent for the clowns.

The newly restructured act ran thus: I Get A Kick Out of You, Don't Cry Out Loud, When in Rome, Something Cool, Uncle Harry, Send in the Clowns.

Closing with Clowns had the audience on their feet once again, having previously stood up for Gery's incredible rendition of the cabaret ballad, Something Cool. The story of this song is actually about the life of Blanche from Streetcar, but Gery says that it's about her life too.

David Schwartz, the Australian Correspondent for the New York based Cabaret Hotline Online wrote the most stunning review of our act. You can read it here.

We trundled home in triumph the next day. I had a smile like a Cheshire cat for about a week. I still can't help feeling a little smug about the whole thing. We showed 'em!

First published in the Canberra Philharmonic Newsletter, July 2003.

Gregory Peck Dead At 87

Gregory Peck PHOTOFEST

Gregory Peck, the lanky, handsome movie star whose long career included such classics as "Roman Holiday," "Spellbound" and his Academy Award winner, "To Kill a Mockingbird," has died, a spokesman said Thursday. He was 87.

Peck died at his Los Angeles home overnight, with his wife, Veronique, at his side, spokesman Monroe Friedman said.

"She told me very briefly that he died peacefully. She was with him, holding his hand, and he just went to sleep," Friedman said. "He had just been getting older and more fragile. He wasn't really ill. He just sort of ran his course and died of old age."

Peck played many screen characters in his long career, from the romantic lead in "Roman Holiday" to the evil Nazi in "The Boys From Brazil."

But he is probably best be remembered for his portrayals of honorable men. Whether it was the idealistic lawyer in "To Kill A Mockingbird" or the or the reporter exposing prejudice in "Gentleman's Agreement," Peck was the epitome of quiet courage and moral strength.

During his first five years in films, Peck scored four Academy Award nominations as best actor: "Keys of the Kingdom" (1944), "The Yearling" (1946), "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949).

"Gentleman's Agreement," in which he played a magazine writer who poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism, was considered a daring film in its time. Peck commented in 1971 that his agent cautioned him: "You're just establishing yourself, and a lot of people will resent the picture. Anti-Semitism runs very deep in this country."

Peck ignored his advice. "Gentleman's Agreement" proved a moneymaker and won the Oscar as best picture.

CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen reports Peck was loved and respected for his ability to inhabit any character, no matter what role he played.

Years after playing the part of Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird," Peck said playing the role brought him closest to being the kind of man he aspired to be.

Peck was revered both within and outside the Hollywood community for his choice of challenging roles in films like "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "Gentleman's Agreement."

In 1991 Peck was honored by the Kennedy Center and in 1992 received the Lincoln Center Lifetime Achievement Award.

"If maybe five, six, or seven times in my very long career the pictures had something to say and people could carry home with them, and added to the point of view that's woven into a dramatic story, something they can chew on a bit and maybe change their attitude toward a social issue ... well I like that," he once said.

The actor listed "Gentleman's Agreement" among his favorites of his movies. The others: the sea adventure "Captain Horatio Hornblower"; "Roman Holiday" in which he played a reporter to Audrey Hepburn's princess; "The Guns of Navarone" ("good, all-out entertainment, though it's really a comedy"); and "To Kill a Mockingbird" — for which he won the 1962 Oscar as best actor. He played Atticus Finch, a small-town Southern lawyer who defies public sentiment to defend a black man accused of rape.

"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."

In 2003, an American Film Institute listing of the top heroes in film history ranked Peck's Finch as No. 1.

In his 60s and 70s, movie roles grew sparse. He appeared as a U.S. president in "Amazing Grace and Chuck" (1987), maverick author Ambrose Bierce in "Old Gringo" (1989) and as a humane company owner victimized by a hostile takeover in "Other People's Money" (1991).

In 1993 he starred in a made-for-TV movie, "The Portrait," with Lauren Bacall, his co-star of "Designing Woman" (1957), and his daughter Cecilia.

A 1998 TV miniseries version of "Moby Dick" cast Peck in the small role of the preacher Father Mapple. He had played the protagonist, Ahab, in the 1956 film version.

"I'm working as much as I like," he commented in 1989. "I don't want to do, if I can avoid it, anything mediocre. It's kind of unseemly at my age to come out in a turkey."

Peck's lonely, disjointed childhood was the kind that often contributes to the making of actors. He was born Eldred Gregory Peck on April 5, 1916, in La Jolla, Calif. "My mother had found `Eldred' in a phone book, and I was stuck with it," he said.

The mother was a lively Missourian, the father was a quiet druggist, son of an Irish immigrant mother. His parents divorced when their son was 6. His next two years were divided between them, then he spent two years with his maternal grandmother in La Jolla. At 10 he was shipped off to a Roman Catholic military academy in Los Angeles where he was indoctrinated by "tough Irish nuns and square-jawed ROTC officers."

Peck majored in English at the University of California at Berkeley and rowed on the crew. One day he was accosted by the director of the campus little theater who said he was looking for a tall actor for an adaptation of "Moby Dick."

"I don't know why I said yes," he recalled in a 1989 interview. "I guess I was fearless, and it seemed like it might be fun. I wasn't any good, but I ended up doing five plays my last year in college."

Dropping the name of Eldred, he headed for New York after graduation with $195 in his pocket. He studied with Sanford Meisner and Martha Graham, worked as a barker at the 1939 World's Fair and as a tour guide at NBC. After summer stock and a tour with Katherine Cornell in "The Doctor's Dilemma," he made his Broadway debut is the lead in Emlyn Williams' "Morning Star."

A half-century later he remembered opening night:

"In the dressing room I gave myself a kick and said, `Get out there!' I was jittery for the first five minutes, and then I wasn't jittery anymore. You can die up there and say, `Call it off, give 'em their money back and let 'em go home.' Or you can collect yourself and do it."

The play flopped, but Peck's performance brought interest from Hollywood. He accepted a modest film, "Days of Glory," a story of Russian peasants during the Nazi invasion, mostly to use the $10,000 salary to pay off his dentist and other creditors. Then Darryl Zanuck offered him "Keys of the Kingdom."

Soon Peck was under non-exclusive contracts to four studios; he refused an exclusive pact with MGM despite Louis B. Mayer's tearful pleading. With most of the male stars absent in the war, the studios desperately needed strong leading men. Peck was exempt from service because of an old back injury.

A Roosevelt New Dealer, Peck campaigned for Harry Truman in 1948 "at a time when nobody thought he had a chance to win." He continued championing liberal causes, producing an anti-Vietnam War film in 1972, "The Trial of the Cantonsville Nine" and helping the campaign against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987.

Rumors arose periodically that Peck planned to run for office. They started when Ronald Reagan defeated Edmund G. "Pat" Brown for governor of California in 1966. Brown cracked: "If they're going to run actors for governor, maybe the Democrats should have run Greg Peck."

"I never gave a thought to running," Peck always replied. "Not even in my heart of hearts do I have an ambition to do that."

Peck married his first wife, Greta, in 1942 and they had three sons, Jonathan, Stephen and Carey. Jonathan, a TV reporter, committed suicide at the age of 30. 

After their divorce in 1954, he married Veronique Passani, a Paris reporter. They had two children, Anthony and Cecilia, both actors.

First published at CBS News, June 12, 2003