Versatile film star Gregory Peck dies

GREGORY PECK, the handsome movie star whose long career included such classics as Roman Holiday, Spellbound and his Academy Award-winner, To Kill a Mockingbird, died yesterday. He was 87.

Peck's craggy good looks, lanky grace and measured speech contributed to his screen image as the decent, courageous man of action. From his film debut in 1944 with Days of Glory, he was never less than a star. He was nominated for the Oscar five times, and his range of roles was astonishing.

He portrayed a priest in Keys of the Kingdom, combat heroes in Twelve O'Clock High and Pork Chop Hill, Westerners in Yellow Sky and The Gunfighter, a romantic in Roman Holiday. His commanding presence suited him for legendary characters: King David in David and Bathsheba, sea captains in Captain Horatio Hornblower and Moby Dick, F Scott Fitzgerald in Beloved Infidel, the war leader MacArthur, and Abraham Lincoln in the TV mini-series The Blue and the Grey.