With the charisma of one of Hollywood's greats, Gregory Peck shares his stories with a Bellingham audience

BELLINGHAM - Gregory Peck stepped onto the Mount Baker Theatre stage last night looking . . . well, just like Gregory Peck.

The esteemed 83-year-old actor walks with a cane now. And his once-jet-black hair is white, matching his full white beard. But his 6-foot-3-inch frame is still erect, his sharply planed face still square-jawed handsome. He still speaks in a deep, resonant voice that's like friendly thunder. And when he appeared last night before a capacity crowd at a beautifully restored old movie palace in Bellingham, his remarks were intelligent, alert, often humorously self-deprecating and unfailingly gracious.

It is, of course, a cliche to call Peck one of the last in a fading breed of classy Old Hollywood stars. But it is also true.

Though insisting, in a recent interview, that he's only semi-retired ("I'd be happy to do a cameo role in something, if it was a good script and a part I could really sink my teeth into"), Peck will offer the informal program of film clips and chat he brought to Bellingham (and, a few years ago, to Tacoma) only once more, in Salem, Ore.

"I've been doing it five years now," Peck noted, "and I just feel I've done it enough. It will come out to 65 performances, which means I'll have topped Cary Grant. He gave me the idea, after doing a show like this himself."

It's hard to imagine today's leading film stars - such intensely private figures as, say, Harrison Ford or Robert DeNiro - touring to throngs of admiring fans, regaling them with anecdotes about roles and colleagues, friends and relations, and (as did Peck) reciting a favorite poem by W.B. Yeats.

Part of what sets Peck and his generation of largely theater-bred actors apart is their genuine enjoyment and appreciation of the public that made them. In Bellingham, Peck shared loving stories about his Irish-American father, half-apologetically recalled life as a transcontinental "jetsetter," and fielded questions from all comers - answering both the dumb queries ("Do people ever remark on the quality of your voice?") and more off-beat ones politely and thoughtfully.

At one point, he articulated a key aspect of his enduring appeal. "I think maybe I appeared on the scene at a time when producers were making pictures about heroes," he reflected, "and I was able to get into that groove."

He certainly was. A tall, dark dreamboat, exuding a sense of deep-grained dignity and honor, Peck studied acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, did some Broadway theater, and moved into A-list films. (He won an Oscar nomination for only his second film role, in "The Keys of the Kingdom.")

Peck chooses his projects with almost unerring good taste. Though he jokes about one big regret (turning down the lead in "High Noon"), his filmography is loaded with winners, from "The Yearling" and "Duel in the Sun," to "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Cape Fear," and on.

Peck also quietly lends his support to many charities and liberal causes, and his films often address social issues. The actor's favorite among all his 74 pictures: "To Kill a Mockingbird." Peck won his first (and only) Oscar in the defining role of Atticus Finch, the impassioned defender of a black man falsely accused of rape in a racist Southern town.

"The whole thing was a labor of love, for everyone involved," he said of that career landmark, adding that Harper Lee (author of the book the film was based on) remains a close friend.

But there was also the respected flop "Behold a Pale Horse" ("It had an anti-Franco message, which I believed in"), the Elia Kazan film "Gentleman's Agreement" (Peck played a writer who poses as a Jew, to expose anti-Semitism), and the scathing anti-Vietnam War drama Peck produced, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine."

"I've never wanted to get into politics personally," he said, "but I've spoken my piece on gun control, on racial bigotry, on other matters from time to time. I've mostly done it through my work, on film."

It's easy, with a star of Peck's magnitude and charisma, to forget he's acting up there on the screen, that Atticus or Gen. MacArthur isn't simply his own persona, magnified.

And yet, Peck never seems to have forgotten who he really is: the son of an immigrant druggist, who also loved to tell stories. The husband for 44 years of ex-journalist Veronique Passini Peck and father of five children from two marriages. (One son committed suicide in 1975.)

He's also the guy who nicknamed his pal Lauren Bacall "Sport," who abhors violent movies but hates censorship more ("an alternative to censorship is available to all of us: We can just stay away"), who calls the late Sir Laurence Olivier "my acting hero."

And if Peck fondly recalls the past, he doesn't trash the present. He listed DeNiro, Ford and Tom Hanks as younger actors he admires, and rooted for "Topsy-Turvy" and "The Winslow Boy" to get best-picture Oscar nominations this year. (They didn't, but he also liked "American Beauty" and "The Green Mile," which did.)

And he has fun "inveigling" other actors for the readings he organizes to benefit Los Angeles Public Library. "They read for an hour - short stories, novels, plays, whatever they chose. We've had Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates, Jack Lemmon, Morgan Freeman. I really get a kick out of it."

One of the classiest things about Peck is that he speaks kindly of everyone, and doesn't display any of the bitterness that even the rich and famous can harbor.

"No I'm not bitter," he tells you. "Far from it. I had great opportunities. I did the best I could with what was given to me. And I look back with no regrets - except `High Noon.' "