• 
• CLASS
• JOBS
• AUTO
• HOMES

Meet Gregory Peck

There will again be a pause in my blog as I go on another unpaid furlough next week. In the meantime, I thought I'd offer you a little bit of light reading.

I go by "Greg," but my birth name is Gregory--as in Gregory Peck.

You remember him, don't you? He's the acting star of such movies as "Moby Dick," "The Omen," and, perhaps his most famous role, Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (he won an Oscar for that film).

So did my parents name me Gregory with the movie star in mind? Here's what Mom says:

"I thought it would be neat naming you for a famous actor. I really wanted Michael Gregory Peck, but there were already two Michael Pecks in the family, Uncle Mike and Michael Jr., so when I was talking about it to the priest he mentioned changing the names around so there wasn't another Michael Peck in town. No one paid any attention to the name until you went to college in Oshkosh, when some gals had to come and see who 'Gregory Peck' was. Kinda funny. Otherwise, no one made any comment about your name."

I don't recall the Oshkosh gals. But others have made comments about my name. I go by "Greg" to avoid the obvious and usually inane comments my name often generates.

I thought about whether to use "Gregory" when my book ("Death Beyond the Willows") was published because it might generate more sales, but my wife, Cheryl, and I agreed we didn't really want to go in that direction.

Cheryl and I still remember a funny incident at a hotel in North Carolina, where we stopped one evening on the way to Charleston, S.C.

Said the clerk: "Last name?"

"Peck."

"I suppose you're gonna tell me your first name is Gregory."

"Yes."

"Yah, right."

"Really; here, check out my driver's license."

Unfortunately, some people don't remember the actor. A few years ago, I called Marquette University and was talking to what sounded like a student intern at some office. I was leaving a message for someone, and she asked me to spell my name.

"Greg Peck, like Gregory Peck, the movie star."

Silence.

"You don't know who I'm talking about, do you?" I finally asked.

"No."

"Oh my," I told her. "We have a generation gap developing here."

For more on my famous namesake, click here.

I remember a feature story the Gazette did probably more than a decade ago in which we interviewed local people with famous names.

Check your local phone book. You'll find several people named Kirk Douglas. You'll find a couple of Michael Jordans. You'll even see a Jacqueline Kennedy.

I wonder what kind of interesting stories such people could share...

Greg Peck