Gregory Peck

Actor Gregory Peck will be the honoree at the ACLU of Southern California Bill of Rights dinner on Jan. 16 at the Bonaventure. Peck will receive the Bill of Rights Award for contributing to the growth and understanding of civil liberties. ACLU Foundation board member Laurie Ostrow will receive the Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award, given each year to an individual who has dedicated his or her life to the cause of civil liberties. Tickets are $80 and $150 per person.

It took Cecilia Peck a long time to find her niche. Along the way she's dabbled as a writer, a story analyst, a dancer and a theater director. She even managed a New York rock band called the Groceries. And now the youngest offspring of Gregory Peck has opted to follow in the footsteps of her Oscar-winning father and older brother, Anthony.

A grim piece of San Diego history is getting a public airing in a fund-raising letter from Gregory Peck. The actor is appealing for contributions to the KLANWATCH project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is suing Fallbrook racist Tom Metzger over the beating death of an Ethiopian man in Portland.

Actor Gregory Peck will be the host of next month's American Film Institute tribute to movie director David Lean, picked to receive the prestigious Life Achievement Award for his four decades of remarkable movies. "We are delighted that Gregory Peck has agreed to host the first Life Achievement Award salute of the new decade," said George Stevens Jr., producer of the March 8 tribute at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

If you've ever yearned for the big movies of the '40s, lush and improbable, bolstered by the star turns of real movie stars, then just possibly "Old Gringo" (selected theaters) is your meat. Although its setting is the Mexican Revolution, in some ways it's like one of those swaggering pirate epics where an unpredictable, reekingly macho brigand takes possession of his chaste woman captive, changing both their lives forever.

It has become a tradition for winners of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award to polish off their evening tribute with a speech that provides a personal perspective of their careers, some highlights, anecdotes and some words of appreciation for the joy the industry has given them. Gregory Peck, who became the 17th recipient of the award Thursday at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom, did all that, and a little bit more.

Gregory Peck, who will be honored tonight as the 17th recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, got his first close-up taste of the movies as a child, watching silent comedies being filmed on the beaches of La Jolla, where he grew up. He was fascinated but not awed, and he viewed the male actors in particular with suspicion. "Lounge lizards," Peck said during a talk we had a few years ago, smiling as he remembered a wonderful period term.

Veteran screen actor Gregory Peck will receive the American Film Institute's 1989 Life Achievement Award. In making the announcement Friday at the Beverly Hilton, the new chairman of the board of AFI, Gene Jankowski, said: "As the 17th recipient of this prestigious award, Gregory Peck joins a distinguished group of individuals who have made enormous contributions to American film heritage.