Lynn Haney is the author of Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker and ten other books. She became friends with Gregory Peck during her employment at the National Endowment for the Arts, and she has worked at CBS Television News and the New York Times. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut.
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.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Peck is probably best known for his portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an Academy Award, but during his long career, he also started the La Jolla Playhouse and was active in liberal causes. Haney (Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker) uncovers many details about Peck's life, but her extensive breadth and depth sap the narrative. Considering that Peck had two long-term marriages and yet appeared to cheat with most of his leading ladies, one assumes the book would be a dramatic, engrossing read. Unfortunately, like Gary Fishgall's Gregory Peck, it is rather wooden, an adjective often applied to Peck's acting, and doesn't offer much insight into the man-strange, given that Haney befriended Peck while working at the National Endowment for the Arts. However, this is the first major biography of Peck since his death and a chronicle of an acting career that spanned five decades. For larger film collections.-Rosellen Brewer, formerly with Monterey Cty. Free Libs., Salinas, CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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