Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

He's no Cinderella-boy, no overnight sensation. Greg's a man who starved to be an actor, who built his own future. BY KATHY o'SHEA bought the screen rights to Captain Horatio Hornblower, Gregory Peck was reading the book in a rooming house, wondering whom they'd pick to play that part. Not him. He had less than a nickel to his name, and his name wasn't worth much more — at least, not to the casting offices, not to the sharp-eyed talent scouts who don't pick a winner until the race is over. The year was 1939, and on that particular night Gregory Peck was sharing his dinner with a couple of runaway schoolgirls who lived upstairs, and didn't even have enough money to walk home. Pretty soon, Warners shelved Horatio for want of a star to play him, and Gregory found himself a job at the New York World's Fair. He was a barker, or a talker, or whatever you call a guy who stands up in front of the autoride and pulls the people in w?ith his magnetic charm. A few weeks of barking and he sounded like Gravel Gertie on a foggy day, so he quit: He went over to Radio City, where the guides don't speak much above a whisper. In and out of the Music Hall lobby he marched, up and down the elevators, round and about that miniature city, a flock of tourists trailing him with their heads up, looking for a movie star they could write home about. Ten years ago, it could have been a hundred. . . . He went down to the Neighborhood Playhouse and won a scholarship — tuition and two five-dollar bills a week thrown in. He gave Radio City back to the tourists, gave six dollars to the landlady every Monday night, had four dollars left to starve on, to become an actor on. He got around; he saw the Broadway plays — easy if you know how to do it. You polish your shoes, press the pleat in your trousers