Before Peck died in 2003, Haney (Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker
) had full access to the actor, who earned his iconic status as a national father figure after portraying the noble and taciturn Atticus Finch in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird
. The ease with which Peck inhabited that role was rare for the actor: his dogged, wooden Method approach sometimes made him the bane of critics and of fellow actors and directors trying to elicit spontaneity from him. Disciplined preparation, however, was Peck's way of compensating for the emotional toll of a peripatetic childhood and absent parents. Method preparation also, Haney says, helped correct for features that seemed "large, irregular and gaunt" up-close. Haney plumbs Peck's own neglectful fathering (Peck blamed himself for his son Jonathan's suicide) and philandering with such co-stars as Ingrid Bergman, who mentored him during the filming of Hitchcock's Spellbound
(1945). Peck often projected a stentorian calm on-screen, but in private he apparently required his first wife, Greta, to cater to his "monomania"; he was also a heavy drinker. Haney writes vaguely about Peck's "being repressed," but doesn't satisfactorily investigate how an emotionally stunted actor became a cultural treasure. Haney's insider perspective on Peck—whom she refers to as "Greg" throughout—is marred by a scattershot narrative and flat, workmanlike prose. B&w photos. Agent, Jeremey
Robson. (Dec.)
