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Photos: Gregory Peck’s Beloved Dogs
Whether at home, on set or in his garden, the famous actor was never far from his canine companions
In August 1947, Gregory Peck was in Hollywood playing a crusading magazine writer in Darryl F. Zanuck's production of “Gentleman's Agreement." He spent his time between scenes with his white shepherd Perry.
Associated Press
Cecilia Peck, daughter of actor Gregory Peck, is an Emmy-nominated director of documentaries including Escaping Twin Flames (currently on Netflix) and Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult. In this photo essay, Cecilia, 68, recounts her father’s love for and devotion to his dogs over the years. In the fall, she plans to release an e-book about the mystery surrounding her father’s dog Raj.
Gregory Peck, His Dog and a 45-Year Mystery
After a teenage driver found a gravely injured animal, Peck arrived to collect it. The driver waited decades to learn what happened.
People remember my father, Gregory Peck, as a movie star, the Academy Award-winning leading man of iconic films like To Kill a Mockingbird and Roman Holiday. But they may not know about his lifelong love of dogs. His dogs went to the studio with him, traveled on location, curled up under his desk at home, and accompanied him when he tended his gardens. As a boy, my dad suffered an early heartbreak when he lost the dog that had been his closest friend through a lonely childhood. After that, dogs were a constant presence in his life.
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Gregory Peck and his beloved childhood dog, Bud, in 1925.
Peck Family Photo
During a childhood marked by divorce and loneliness, my dad’s faithful companion was Bud, a black and brown former stray. In this photo, taken in his hometown of La Jolla, California, in 1925, my dad is nine years old. Bud walked his young master to school every morning and waited for him at the gate every afternoon until the bell rang.
After my dad was sent to military boarding school at 10, he found the adjustment from small-town life difficult. He could hardly wait for Christmas vacation and a reunion with Bud. But when he returned to La Jolla, Bud wasn’t there. His father told him Bud had died. My dad continued searching for Bud every time he returned to La Jolla — and in many ways for the rest of his life.
Peck gardening with Perry, his white German shepherd, in 1944.
Peck Family Photo
During my dad’s early years in Hollywood, he and his first wife, Greta, lived in Pacific Palisades with their three sons, Jonathan, Stephen, and Carey. The family shared their home with a pair of white German shepherds named Perry and Flip. Perry, shown here circa 1944, was always by my dad’s side, while Flip gave birth to several litters of their puppies over the years, many of which went to family and friends.
Peck with some of the dogs featured in the 1946 film “The Yearling.”
Everett Collection
In 1945, my dad worked with Claude Jarman Jr. and several dogs while filming The Yearling in central Florida. Based on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ popular novel, the film tells the story of a boy, Jody Baxter, who adopts an orphaned fawn, only to face the heartbreaking realities of survival and growing up. The hunting dogs in the film were central to the family’s rugged, backwoods life. My dad always enjoyed acting alongside animals on set. His performance as Penny Baxter earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor, the second of three nominations in three consecutive years.
For this 1965 family portrait, my dad posed with my mom, Veronique (left); his mother, Bernice (right); me in a plaid skirt; and our German shepherd Shawn, in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. My dad chose Shawn for his imposing appearance to help protect the family, but he turned out to be far too gentlehearted to make a good watchdog. Shawn liked to retrieve the newspaper every morning from where the paperboy tossed it over the gate and proudly deliver it to my dad. He stayed beside my dad as he learned lines and even accompanied him to the studio during the day.
Peck with dog actor Rote on the set of the 1970 film “I Walk the Line.”
Associated Press
In 1970, my dad played a small-town Southern sheriff in I Walk the Line, filmed mainly in Jackson County, Tennessee. The trained movie dog, Rote, played a key role guarding a moonshiner’s shed, and in this photo he seems to be stepping into sheriff mode himself! He is borrowing my dad’s hat as they kick back and relax together between scenes.
Peck with his dog Raj in 1986. The two would watch Dodgers games on TV.
Peck Family Photo
My dad’s beloved golden retriever Raj lost a leg in a car accident as a puppy, but he went on to enjoy a full and long life. Pictured at home in L.A.’s Holmby Hills neighborhood in 1986, three-legged Raj followed my dad everywhere, chased Frisbees, romped through the garden and even sired a daughter. My dad held season tickets to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but during away games he could usually be found in his den watching his favorite team on television, with Veronique sitting beside him and Raj curled at his feet.
Peck at home in Hollywood with his pup, Katousha, in 1987.
Patrick Bruchet/Paris Match/Getty Images/Paris Match via Getty Images
Raj’s daughter, Katousha, liked to help my dad in the vegetable garden, as she’s doing here in Holmby Hills in 1987. Gardening was one of my dad’s great passions, and he joked that he was “an avid gardener who sometimes made movies.” Larger than Raj, Katousha had a mischievous streak and surprising agility. She loved to steal food, stretching up to reach items on the kitchen counter, and she once managed to lift the entire Thanksgiving turkey from its platter while no one was looking. As she stealthily made her way out of the kitchen, she was spotted. The turkey was rescued from her jaws, tidied up and served to the waiting guests.
Lou Lou (left) and Cha Cha (right), a Maltese pair, traveled everywhere with my dad, and he liked to carry Lou Lou perched on his shoulder. Here, they’re sitting alongside Ava Gardner’s Welsh corgi, Morgan, in 1994. After Ava passed away in London in 1990, Morgan came to live with my family, along with Ava’s longtime companion and housekeeper, Carmen Vargas. Every afternoon Morgan would wander to my dad’s home office and sit patiently in the doorway until invited in. Dad called him “the perfect little English gentleman.” Carmen remains part of our family to this day.
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