(CNN) - Actor Gregory Peck, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of upstanding Southern lawyer Atticus Finch in 1962's "To Kill a Mockingbird," has died. He was 87. Peck died Wednesday night, (June 11th, 2003) spokesman Monroe Friedman told The Associated Press. His wife of 48 years, Veronique, was at his side. "She told me very briefly that he died peacefully. She was with him, holding his hand, and he just went to sleep," Friedman said. "He had just been getting older and more fragile. He wasn't really ill. He just sort of ran his course and died of old age." The character of Finch was recently named the No. 1 hero in movie history in an American Film Institute survey.

Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in San Diego, California. When he was six years of age, his parents divorced. His mother took him to be raised by his grandmother. His mother visited him occasionally. At ten years of age, he was sent to Saint John’s Military Academy in Los Angeles. His studies excelled and his personality developed. He liked going to school at Saint John’s.

When he was fourteen years of age, he went to live with his father in San Diego where he attended San Diego High School. After he graduated, he attended college at Berkeley University where he majored in English. It was after he was asked to act in the play “Moby Dick” by one of his college instructors did he fall in love with acting.

Upon graduating from college, he missed graduation services. In the spring of 1939, Eldred Peck skipped graduation at UC Berkeley and, with $160 and a letter of introduction in his pocket, took a chair car to New York. Three days later, he stepped off the train in Manhattan as Gregory Peck, the actor.

For five years, he worked on stage, after which he went back to California to work in the movies. In between roles, Peck worked as a model and waited on tables.

In 1944, he made his film debut in the movie “Days of Glory.” He also made “The Keys of the Kingdom” in the same year. He became one of America?s most distinguished actors and made over fifty movies with outstanding performances in each one. His most memorable film was “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

The theater gripped Gregory Peck so firmly in his pre-movie days that he sought it out again after his film career was established. In 1947, with fellow rising stars Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, he founded the La Jolla Playhouse.

By 1943, he was in Hollywood where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (1944). Stardom came with his next film, Keys of the Kingdom, (1944) for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.

Peck’s screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged, and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles. He appeared in Hitchcock?s Spellbound (1945) as the amnesia victim accused of murder.

In Yearling, The (1946), Peck was again nominated for the Academy Award and won the Golden Globe. Peck appeared in Westerns such as Duel in the Sun (1946), Yellow Sky (1948) and Gunfighter, The (1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award with his roles in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), a story of discrimination and Twelve O?Clock High (1949), a story of high-level stress at bomber command.

With a string of hits behind him, Peck soon took the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic figures in larger than life films such as Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and Moby Dick (1956). He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film Roman Holiday (1953).

After four nominations, Peck finally won the Oscar for his performance as Lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the early 60s he appeared in two dark films Cape Fear (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), which dealt with the way people live. After that, he appear in only a handful of average movies for the rest of the decade.

In 1967, Peck received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He has also been awarded the Medal of Freedom. Always politically liberal, Peck has been active in causes dealing with charities, politics or the film industry.

In the early 70s, he produced two movies Trial of the Catonsville Nine, The (1972) and Dove, The (1974), while his film career waned. He made a comeback playing the wooden Robert Thorn in the horror film Omen, The (1976). After that, he returned to the bigger than life roles as MacArthur (1977) and the evil Doctor Mengele in Boys from Brazil, The (1978).

In the 80s, Peck moved into Television with the mini series “Blue and the Gray, The” (1982) (mini) and the movie Scarlet and the Black, The (1983) (TV). In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different part, in Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the liberal owner of a wire and cable business in Other People?s Money (1991).

Throughout his career, Gregory Peck has raised funds for cancer research, gun control and other causes that get his attention.

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