Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Gregory Peck trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Gregory Peck trivia for classic-film lovers, To Kill a Mockingbird readers and anyone who thinks Atticus Finch is the greatest hero the movies ever produced (the American Film Institute agrees). This quiz follows Peck from La Jolla and the Berkeley rowing crew through Sanford Meisner's classes and Broadway to a run of Oscar nominations in the 1940s: The Keys of the Kingdom, The Yearling, Gentleman's Agreement and Twelve O'Clock High, plus Hitchcock's Spellbound and the 'Lust in the Dust' western Duel in the Sun. It covers the peak years and the late surprises: Roman Holiday and the billing he insisted on for Audrey Hepburn, Captain Ahab, The Big Country, The Guns of Navarone, both versions of Cape Fear, the Oscar for Atticus Finch, The Omen, Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil and MacArthur. It also looks at the man off screen: the La Jolla Playhouse he co-founded, his stand against HUAC, a place on Nixon's enemies list, the Medal of Freedom from LBJ and the eulogy read by Brock Peters. Questions range from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. If you enjoy this quiz, try our classic Hollywood, Audrey Hepburn and To Kill a Mockingbird quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Californian neighbourhood was Gregory Peck born in 1916?
La Jolla
His father was a pharmacist; he later co-founded the La Jolla Playhouse in his birthplace.
Q 02What was Gregory Peck's real first name, which he dropped before heading to New York?
Eldred
He had planned to be a doctor and studied English and pre-med at Berkeley.
Q 03What sport did the 6-foot-3 Peck take up at the University of California, Berkeley?
Rowing
In 1996 he gave 25,000 dollars to the Berkeley crew in honour of his coach Ky Ebright.
Q 04Peck was exempt from WWII service due to a back injury he actually suffered doing what?
Taking dance lessons from Martha Graham
The studio preferred to say he hurt it rowing, since a dance class 'wasn't macho enough'.
Q 05Under which legendary teacher did Peck study at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse?
Sanford Meisner
He went on to appear in some 50 plays and three Broadway productions.
Q 06Peck earned his first Oscar nomination for playing an 80-year-old missionary priest in which 1944 film?
The Keys of the Kingdom
His character looks back on more than half a century of missionary work in China.
Q 07In which 1945 Hitchcock film did Peck play an amnesiac who may be a murderer?
Spellbound
Hitchcock had hoped for Cary Grant; Peck and Bergman were romantically linked at the time.
Q 08In which 1946 Western, nicknamed 'Lust in the Dust', was Peck cast as a cruel cowboy?
Duel in the Sun
Its saturation release made it the second-highest-grossing film of the entire 1940s.
Q 09In The Yearling (1946), Peck plays a Florida father whose son insists on raising what?
A fawn
Jane Wyman played his wife; the film earned Peck his second Oscar nomination.
Q 10In which 1947 Elia Kazan film does Gregory Peck play a journalist pretending to be Jewish?
Gentleman's Agreement
It won Best Picture and Best Director; Peck was nominated for Best Actor.
Q 11With which two actors did Peck co-found the La Jolla Playhouse in 1947?
Mel Ferrer and Dorothy McGuire
The summer stock company performed in a high school auditorium until 1964 and reopened at UC San Diego in 1983.
Q 12In Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Peck plays the new commander of what?
A hard-luck US bomber group
Brigadier General Frank Savage earned him his fourth Oscar nomination.
Q 13Studio boss Darryl Zanuck blamed the weak box office of The Gunfighter (1950) on what?
Peck's moustache
Q 21Which actress with a gravely ill husband did Peck pick as his leading lady for Designing Woman (1957)?
Lauren Bacall
Humphrey Bogart died that year; the film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Q 22Peck co-produced The Big Country (1958) with which director, then fell out with him?
William Wyler
Peck stormed off set when Wyler refused to reshoot a close-up; Burl Ives won an Oscar for the film.
Q 23In The Guns of Navarone (1961), what is the specialty of Gregory Peck's Captain Mallory?
Mountain climbing
The team must destroy two German guns so British ships can rescue 2,000 soldiers trapped in the Aegean.
Peck had grown it after research showed most real cowboys had facial hair; the film is now considered a classic.
Q 14Which classic Western role did Peck turn down after The Gunfighter, fearing typecasting?
Will Kane in High Noon
Gary Cooper took the part and won an Oscar.
Q 15Peck played which fictional Napoleonic-era Royal Navy captain in a 1951 Raoul Walsh film?
Horatio Hornblower
He and co-star Virginia Mayo made it a top-ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
Q 16In Roman Holiday (1953), Peck insisted that his co-star's name be raised above the title. Who was she?
Audrey Hepburn
He predicted she would win the Oscar for her first big role, and she did.
Q 17Which actor turned down Peck's role in Roman Holiday as too much of a supporting part?
Cary Grant
Director William Wyler persuaded Peck by promising the experience of filming on location in Rome.
Q 18The blacklisted screenwriter of Roman Holiday, credited only decades later, was who?
Dalton Trumbo
Ian McLellan Hunter fronted for him; full credit was restored in 2011.
Q 19The Million Pound Note (1954), with Peck as a penniless sailor handed a giant banknote, is based on a story by whom?
Mark Twain
He made it in London during an 18-month tax exile from the US.
Q 20Peck played Captain Ahab in the 1956 film of Moby Dick. Who directed it?
John Huston
Ray Bradbury co-wrote the script and Orson Welles played Father Mapple, the part Peck himself took in a 1998 miniseries.
Q 24Peck persuaded Robert Mitchum to play Max Cady in Cape Fear (1962) by sending him what?
A case of bourbon
Peck plays lawyer Sam Bowden, whose testimony sent Cady to prison for eight years.
Q 25Peck, Mitchum and Balsam all reappeared in different roles in the 1991 Cape Fear remake directed by whom?
Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte took over the leads.
Q 26For which role did Peck finally win the Academy Award for Best Actor?
Atticus Finch
It was his fifth and last nomination; he called To Kill a Mockingbird 'my favourite film, without any question'.
Q 27In 2003 the American Film Institute gave Peck's Mockingbird lawyer what accolade?
Greatest movie hero of the past 100 years
Peck had read Harper Lee's novel overnight and phoned the producers at 8 am asking 'When do I start?'
Q 28Which actor made his big-screen debut as the reclusive Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird?
Robert Duvall
Mary Badham played Scout and Robert Mulligan directed.
Q 29Who read the eulogy at Peck's funeral in 2003?
Brock Peters
Peters had played Tom Robinson, the man Atticus defends; he quoted Lee's line that Atticus 'gave him an opportunity to play himself'.
Q 30In The Omen (1976), where is Peck's diplomat Robert Thorn serving?
London
William Holden had turned the role down, not wanting to make a film about the devil.