George Peppard
George William Peppard (/pəˈpɑːrd/; October 1, 1928 – May 8, 1994) was an American actor. He secured a major role as struggling writer Paul Varjak when he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961),[1] and later portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes in The Carpetbaggers (1964). On television, he played the title role of millionaire insurance investigator and sleuth Thomas Banacek in the early-1970s mystery series Banacek. He played Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, the cigar-smoking leader of a renegade commando squad in the 1980s action television series The A-Team.[1]
George Peppard
May 8, 1994 (aged 65)
Actor
1951–1994
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Helen Davies(m. 1954; div. 1964)
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Alexis Adams(m. 1984; div. 1986)
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Laura Taylor(m. 1992)
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Early life[edit]
George William Peppard Jr. was born October 1, 1928, in Detroit, the son of building contractor George Peppard Sr. and opera singer and voice teacher Vernelle Rohrer.[1] His mother had five miscarriages before giving birth to George. His family lost all their money in the Depression, and his father had to leave George and his mother in Detroit while he went looking for work.[2] He graduated from Dearborn High School in Dearborn, Michigan in 1946.[3]
Peppard enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on July 8, 1946, and rose to the rank of corporal, leaving the Corps at the end of his enlistment in January 1948.[4]
During 1948 and 1949, he studied civil engineering at Purdue University where he was a member of the Purdue Playmakers theatre troupe and Beta Theta Pi fraternity.[1] He became interested in acting, being an admirer of Walter Huston in particular. "I just decided I didn't want to be an engineer," he said later. "It was the best decision I ever made."[5][6]
Peppard then transferred to Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1955. (It took longer than normal because he dropped out for a year when his father died in 1951 and he had to finish his father's jobs.)[7] He also trained at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.[8] While living in Pittsburgh, Peppard worked as a radio DJ at WLOA in Braddock, Pennsylvania. While giving a weather update, he famously called incoming snow flurries "flow snurries". This was an anecdote he repeated in several later interviews, including one with former NFL player Rocky Bleier for WPXI.[9]
In addition to acting, Peppard was a pilot. He spent a portion of his 1966 honeymoon training to fly his Learjet in Wichita, Kansas.[10][11]
Acting[edit]
Theatre[edit]
Peppard made his stage debut in 1949 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. After moving to New York City, Peppard enrolled in the Actors Studio, where he studied the Method with Lee Strasberg. He did a variety of jobs to pay his way during this time, such as working as a disc jockey, being a radio station engineer, teaching fencing, driving a taxi and being a mechanic in a motorcycle repair shop.[12]
He worked in summer stock in New England and appeared at the open air Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon for two seasons.
In August 1955 he appeared in the play The Sun Dial.[13]
Television[edit]
He worked as a cab driver until getting his first part in "Lamp Unto My Feet".[14]
He appeared with Paul Newman, in The United States Steel Hour (1956), as the singing, guitar-playing baseball player Piney Woods in Bang the Drum Slowly, directed by Daniel Petrie.
He appeared in an episode of Kraft Theatre, "Flying Object at Three O'Clock High" (1956).
In March 1956 Peppard was on stage off Broadway in Beautiful Changes.[15]
In April 1956, he appeared in a segment of an episode of "Cameras Three" performing from The Shoemaker's Holiday; The New York Times called his performance "beguiling".[16]
In July 1956, he signed to make his film debut in The Strange One directed by Jack Garfein, based on the play End as a Man.[17] It was the first film from Garfein as director and Calder Willingham as producer, plus for Peppard, Ben Gazzara, Geoffrey Horne, Pat Hingle, Arthur Storch and Clifton James. Filming took place in Florida. "I wouldn't say I was nervous," said Peppard, "just excited."[18]
On his return to New York he performed in "Out to Kill" on TV for Kraft.[19] In September he joined the cast of Girls of Summer directed by Jack Garfein with Shelley Winters, Storch and Hingle, plus a title song by Stephen Sondheim. This reached Broadway in November.[20] Brooks Atkinson said Peppard "expertly plays a sly, malicious dance teacher."[21] It had only a short run.[22][23]
The bulk of his work around this time was for television: The Kaiser Aluminum Hour ("A Real Fine Cutting Edge", directed by George Roy Hill), Studio One in Hollywood ("A Walk in the Forest"), The Alcoa Hour ("The Big Build-Up" with E.G. Marshall[24]), Matinee Theatre ("End of the Rope" with John Drew Barrymore, "Thread That Runs So True", "Aftermath"), Kraft Theatre ("The Long Flight"), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("The Diplomatic Corpse", with Peter Lorre directed by Paul Henreid), and Suspicion ("The Eye of Truth" with Joseph Cotten based on a script by Eric Ambler). The Strange One came out in April 1957 but despite some strong reviews - The New York Times called Peppard "resolute".[25] - it was not a financial success.
In September 1957, he appeared in a trial run of a play by Robert Thom, The Minotaur, directed by Sidney Lumet.[26][27]
Peppard played a key role in Little Moon of Alban (1958) alongside Christopher Plummer for the Hallmark Hall of Fame. The Los Angeles Times called him "excellent".[28][29]
In May 1958, Peppard played his second film role, a support part in the Korean War movie Pork Chop Hill (1959) directed by Lewis Milestone.[30] He was cast in part because he was unfamiliar to moviegoers.[31]
In May 1958 he appeared in stock in A Swim in the Sea.[32]
MGM[edit]
In October 1958 Peppard appeared on Broadway in The Pleasure of His Company (1958) starring Cyril Ritchard, who also directed. Peppard played the boyfriend who wants to marry Dolores Hart who was Ritchard's daughter; The New York Times called Peppard "admirable".[33] The play was a hit and ran for a year.
During the show's run Peppard auditioned successfully for MGM's Home from the Hill (1960) and the studio signed him to a long-term contract - which he had not wanted to do but was a condition for the film.[34] In February 1959, Hedda Hopper announced Peppard would leave Company to make two films for MGM: Home from the Hill and The Subterraneans.[35]
Home from the Hill was a prestigious film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Robert Mitchum, who played Peppard's father. It featured several young actors MGM were hoping to develop, including Peppard, George Hamilton, and Luana Patten.[36] During filming Peppard said "Brando is a dead talent - I saw him in The Young Lions” but said Peck is "a man of integrity as a star and a person. Lee Strasberg is the only person I know who is brilliant."[37]
"I want to be an actor and proud of my craft," said Peppard. "I would like to be an actor who is starred but being a star is something you can't count on whereas acting is something I can work on."[37] It was a success at the box office, although the film's high cost meant that it was not profitable.
Peppard's next film for MGM was The Subterraneans, an adaptation of the 1958 novel by Jack Kerouac co starring Leslie Caron. It flopped and Peppard said "I couldn't get arrested" afterwards.[14]
He had meant to follow The Subterraneans by returning to Broadway with Julie Harris in The Warm Peninsular but this did not happen.[5] In April 1959 Hedda Hopper said he would be in Chatauqua[38] but that was not made until a decade later, starring Elvis Presley, as The Trouble with Girls (1969). At the end of 1959 Hopper predicted Peppard would be a big star saying "he has great emotional power, is a fine athlete, and does offbeat characters such as James Dean excelled in."[39] Sol Siegel announced he would play the lead in Two Weeks in Another Town.[40] (Kirk Douglas ended up playing it.) He was also announced for the role of Arthur Blake in a film about the first Olympics called And Seven from America which was never made.[41]
Peppard returned to television to star in an episode of the anthology series Startime, "Incident at a Corner" (1960) under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock alongside Vera Miles.[42]
He played Teddy Roosevelt on television in an episode of Our American Heritage, "The Invincible Teddy" (1961).[43][44]
Peppard was married five times and was the father of three children.
In 1990 he said, "Getting married and having a bad divorce is just like breaking your leg. The same leg, in the same place. I'm lucky I don't walk with a cane."[108]
Peppard resided in a Greek revival-style white cottage in Hollywood Hills, California, until the time of his death. His home featured elegant porches on three sides and a guest house in the back. Later owned by designer Brenda Antin, who spent a year renovating it, the small home was purchased by writer/actress Lena Dunham in 2015 for $2.7 million.[111][112]
Later years and death[edit]
Peppard overcame a serious alcohol problem in 1978, after which he became deeply involved in helping other alcoholics. "I knew I had to stop and I did," he said in 1983. "Looking back now I'm ashamed of some of the things I did when I was drinking."[91]
Peppard smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for most of his life. After a diagnosis of lung cancer in 1992 and an operation to remove part of one lung, he quit smoking.[113]
Despite health problems in his later years, he continued acting. In 1994, just before his death, Peppard completed a pilot with Tracy Nelson for a new series called The P.I. It aired as an episode of Matlock and was to be spun off into a new television series with Peppard playing an aging detective and Nelson his daughter/sidekick.
On May 8, 1994, while still battling lung cancer, Peppard died from pneumonia in Los Angeles.[1]
Peppard born and raised in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, and was one of Dearborn's most famous residents, after Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford and legendary long-serving Congressman John Dingell.