My encounter with Gregory Peck

While I was based in Houston, Texas, I would often venture to other parts of the ‘Great State of Texas’.  One of my favourite places was Galveston, which is on the coast.  

It has quite a history as it is the place where The Great Storm of 1900 caused the greatest amount of damage of any natural disaster in the USA to this day.   In addition to the approximately 8,000 people killed, the storm destroyed about 7,000 buildings of all uses in Galveston, which included 3,636 demolished homes; every dwelling in the city suffered some degree of damage. The hurricane left approximately 10,000 people in the city homeless, out of a total population of fewer than 38,000.

Amazingly, one of the survivors of this event was the 1894 Galveston Opera Theatre.

It was to this delightful theatre that I ventured to attend “An Evening with Gregory Peck”.  Gregory Peck is most known for his portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee.   He so identified with this book and film, that he named his daughter, Harper.

I was reminded of this encounter the other day when SBS played as one of its World Movies, A Big Country, and there was Gregory Peck on the screen.

At this event in Galveston, he spoke generally on his career, but specifically on the impact that To Kill a Mocking Bird had on him personally and on society more generally, but not really on the racial issues, but general interest, box-office numbers, book sales, etc. 

However, at the back of my mind was the fact that I was working in Houston on a project that had a total team of approximately 300 people – and only one black.  His name was Leo and he worked in Tech Support. Leo was a stamp collector and I was pleased to provide him with a couple of sets of Australian first-day issues for his collection.

I had also just read Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz, who is the husband of the Australian writer, Geraldine Brookes.   In that book, it was contended that the Civil War had not ended, but was existing in a hidden context in various aspects of society in the USA.

At the end of his monologue, Gregory Peck invited questions.   Most of the questions coming to him were about personal issues of his life and as an actor, but everyone was staying clear of the issues that had been posed by Harper Lee in her famous book.

So, I put my hand up to ask a question.  I stood up, stated my name and that I was from Australia, and asked whether he considered anything had improved in the area of justice for the Afro-American in USA.   His response, “An Australian!  We don’t need non-Americans commenting on our country.”

So, that was that!  Pity.  I then realised – I was in a theatre, this was really just a show, and thinking that anything could be linked to reality from there was stretching things a bit.  Needless to say I left somewhat disappointed.   The only redeeming feature was that on leaving, a woman who had been sitting not far from me, put her hand on my arm and said, “Sorry” and kept walking.