Brock Peters started to cry while filming his testifying scenes in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), without rehearsing it this way, and Gregory Peck said that he looked past him, instead of looking at him in the eye, to avoid choking up himself. According to Peters, the producers were reluctant to cast him, because he had been typecast as a villain.
A product of NYC’s famed Music and Arts High School, Peters (born George Fisher) initially fielded more odd jobs than acting jobs as he worked his way up from Harlem poverty. Landing a stage role in “Porgy and Bess” in 1949, he quit physical education studies at CCNY and went on tour with the acclaimed musical. His film debut came in “Carmen Jones” (1954).
Despite the novel’s winning the Pulitzer Prize, the studios were not interested in securing the film rights, since they felt that it lacked action and romance (with the absence of a love story), and that the villain does not get a big comeuppance. Producer Alan J. Pakula disagreed, however, and persuaded director Robert Mulligan, his producing partner at that time, that it would make a good film for their Pakula-Mulligan Productions. Together, they were able to convince Gregory Peck, who readily agreed to the role.
Peck journeyed to Monroeville, Alabama with Mulligan and Pakula to meet Harper Lee’s ailing father. True to the story, Amasa Lee really had been a widower who raised his children by himself, and at the same time was ready to defend a black man falsely accused of crimes he did not commit. The experience of meeting the actual man aided Peck’s performance immeasurably.
Peters delivered Peck’s eulogy on the date of his funeral and burial in 2003. (IMDb)
Brock Peters started to cry while filming his testifying scenes in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), without rehearsing it this way, and Gregory Peck said that he looked past him, instead of looking at him in the eye, to avoid choking up himself….
