George Peppard

George Peppard (; October 1, 1928 – May 8, 1994) was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as struggling writer Paul Varjak in the 1961 film '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'', and for playing commando leader Col. John "Hannibal" Smith in the 1980s television series ''The A-Team''.

Peppard secured a major role when he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'' (1961), and later portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes in ''The Carpetbaggers'' (1964). On television, he played the title role of millionaire insurance investigator and sleuth Thomas Banacek in the early-1970s mystery series '' Banacek''. He played Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, the cigar-smoking leader of a renegade commando squad in the hit 1980s action show ''The A-Team''.

Early life

George Peppard, Jr. was born October 1, 1928, in Detroit, the son of building contractor George Peppard, Sr. and opera singer and voice teacher Vernelle Rohrer. His mother had five miscarriages before George. His family lost all their money in the Depression, and his father had to leave George and his mother in Detroit while he went looking for work. He graduated from Dearborn High School in Dearborn, Michigan in 1946.

Peppard enlisted in the United States Marine Corps July 8, 1946, and rose to the rank of corporal, leaving the Corps at the end of his enlistment in January 1948.

During 1948 and 1949, he studied civil engineering at Purdue University where he was a member of the Purdue Playmakers theatre troupe and Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He became interested in acting, being an admirer of Walter Huston in particular. "I just decided I didn't want to be an engineer," he said later. "It was the best decision I ever made."

Peppard then transferred to Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1955. (It took longer than normal because he dropped out for a year when his father died in 1951 and he had to finish his father's jobs.) He also trained at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. While living in Pittsburgh, Peppard worked as a radio DJ at WLOA in Braddock, Pennsylvania. While giving a weather update, he infamously called incoming snow flurries "flow snurries". This was an anecdote he repeated in several later interviews, including one with former NFL player Rocky Bleier for WPXI.

In addition to acting, Peppard was a pilot. He spent a portion of his 1966 honeymoon training to fly his Learjet in Wichita, Kansas.

Acting

Theatre

Peppard made his stage debut in 1949 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. After moving to New York City, Peppard enrolled in the Actors Studio, where he studied the Method with Lee Strasberg. He did a variety of jobs to pay his way during this time, such as working as a disc jockey, being a radio station engineer, teaching fencing, driving a taxi and being a mechanic in a motorcycle repair shop.

He worked in summer stock in New England and appeared at the open air Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon for two seasons.

Television

He worked as a cab driver until getting his first part in "Lamp Unto My Feet".

He appeared with Paul Newman, in ''The United States Steel Hour'' (1956), as the singing, guitar-playing baseball player Piney Woods in ''Bang the Drum Slowly'', directed by Daniel Petrie.

He appeared in an episode of ''Kraft Theatre'', "Flying Object at Three O'Clock High" (1956).

In April 1956, he appeared in a segment of an episode of "Cameras Three" performing from '' The Shoemaker's Holiday''; ''The New York Times'' called his performance "beguiling".

In July 1956, he signed to make his film debut in ''The Strange One'' directed by Jack Garfein, based on the play ''End as a Man''. It was the first film from Garfein as director and Calder Willingham as producer, plus for Peppard, Ben Gazzara, Geoffrey Horne, Pat Hingle, Arthur Storch and Clifton James. Filming took place in Florida. "I wouldn't say I was nervous," said Peppard, "just excited."

On his return to New York he performed in "Out to Kill" on TV for ''Kraft''. In September he joined the cast of ''Girls of Summer'' directed by Jack Garfein with Shelley Winters, Storch and Hingle, plus a title song by Stephen Sondheim. This reached Broadway in November. Brooks Atkinson said Peppard "expertly plays a sly, malicious dance teacher." It had only a short run.

The bulk of his work around this time was for television: ''The Kaiser Aluminum Hour'' ("A Real Fine Cutting Edge", directed by George Roy Hill), ''Studio One in Hollywood'' ("A Walk in the Forest"), ''The Alcoa Hour'' ("The Big Build-Up" with E.G. Marshall), ''Matinee Theatre'' ("End of the Rope" with John Drew Barrymore, "Thread That Runs So True", "Aftermath"), ''Kraft Theatre'' ("The Long Flight"), '' Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' ("The Diplomatic Corpse", with Peter Lorre directed by Paul Henreid), and ''Suspicion'' ("The Eye of Truth" with Joseph Cotten based on a script by Eric Ambler). ''The Strange One'' came out in April 1957 but despite some strong reviews - ''The New York Times'' called Peppard "resolute". - it was not a financial success.

In September 1957, he appeared in a trial run of a play by Robert Thom, ''The Minotaur'', directed by Sidney Lumet.

Peppard played a key role in '' Little Moon of Alban'' (1958) alongside Christopher Plummer for the '' Hallmark Hall of Fame''. The ''Los Angeles Times'' called him "excellent".

In May 1958, Peppard played his second film role, a support part in the Korean War movie '' Pork Chop Hill'' (1959) directed by Lewis Milestone. He was cast in part because he was unfamiliar to moviegoers.

MGM

In October 1958 Peppard appeared on Broadway in ''The Pleasure of His Company'' (1958) starring Cyril Ritchard, who also directed. Peppard played the boyfriend who wants to marry Dolores Hart who was Ritchard's daughter; ''The New York Times'' called Peppard "admirable". The play was a hit and ran for a year.

During the show's run Peppard auditioned successfully for MGM's '' Home from the Hill'' (1960) and the studio signed him to a long-term contract - which he had not wanted to do but was a condition for the film. In February 1959, Hedda Hopper announced Peppard would leave ''Company'' to make two films for MGM. ''Home from the Hill'' and ''The Subterraneans''.

'' Home from the Hill'' was a prestigious film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Robert Mitchum, who played Peppard's father. It featured several young actors MGM were hoping to develop, including Peppard, George Hamilton and Luana Patten. During filming Peppard said "Brando is a dead talent - I saw him in ''The Young Lions''” but said Peck is "a man of integrity as a star and a person. Lee Strasberg is the only person I know who is brilliant."

"I want to be an actor and proud of my craft," said Peppard. "I would like to be an actor who is starred but being a star is something you can't count on whereas acting is something I can work on." It was a success at the box office, although the film's high cost meant that it was not profitable.

Peppard's next film for MGM was ''The Subterraneans'', an adaptation of the 1958 novel by Jack Kerouac co starring Leslie Caron. It flopped and Peppard said "I couldn't get arrested" afterwards.

He had meant to follow ''The Subterraneans'' by returning to Broadway with Julie Harris in ''The Warm Peninsular'' but this did not happen. In April 1959 Hedda Hopper said he would be in ''Chatauqua'' but that was not made until a decade later, starring Elvis Presley, as '' The Trouble with Girls'' (1969). At the end of 1959 Hopper predicted Peppard would be a big star saying "he has great emotional power, is a fine athlete, and does offbeat characters such as James Dean excelled in." Sol Siegel announced he would play the lead in ''Two Weeks in Another Town''. ( Kirk Douglas ended up playing it.) He was also announced for the role of Arthur Blake in a film about the first Olympics called ''And Seven from America'' which was never made.

Peppard returned to television to star in an episode of the anthology series '' Startime'', " Incident at a Corner" (1960) under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock alongside Vera Miles. He played Teddy Roosevelt on television in an episode of '' Our American Heritage'', "The Invincible Teddy" (1961).

Film stardom

His good looks, elegant manner and acting skills landed Peppard his most famous film role as Paul Varjak in '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'' with Audrey Hepburn, based on a story by Truman Capote. Director Blake Edwards had not wanted Peppard, but was overruled by the producers. He was cast in July 1960. During filming Peppard did not get along with Hepburn or Patricia Neal, the latter calling him "cold and conceited".

In November 1961, a newspaper article dubbed him "the next big thing". Peppard said he had turned down two TV series and was "concentrating on big screen roles." His contract with MGM was for two pictures a year, allowing for one outside film and six TV appearances a year, plus the right to star in a play every second year. "In a series you don't have time to develop a character," he said. "There's no build up; in the first segment you're already established."

He was meant to appear in ''Unarmed in Paradise'' which was not made. He bought a script by Robert Blees called ''Baby Talk'' but it was also unmade.

Instead MGM cast him in the lead of their epic western '' How the West Was Won'' in 1962 (his character spanned three sections of the episodic Cinerama extravaganza). It was a massive hit.

He followed this with a war story for Carl Foreman, ''The Victors'' (1963), made in Europe. He was offered $200,000 to appear in ''The Long Ships'' but did not want to go to Yugoslavia for six months. He was going to do ''Next Time We Love'' with Ross Hunter but it was never made.

He starred in ''The Carpetbaggers'', a 150-minute saga of a ruthless, Hughes-like aviation and film mogul based on a best-selling novel of the same name by Harold Robbins. The cast included Elizabeth Ashley, who had an affair with Peppard during filming and later married him. She described him as "some kind of Nordic god – six feet tall with beautiful blond hair, blue eyes and a body out of every high school cheerleader's teenage lust fantasy." Ashley claimed Peppard "was never late on set and he had nothing but scorn for actors who weren't professional enough to keep that together."

She added that Peppard:

Never was one of those actors who believes his job is to take the money, hit the mark and say the lines and let it go at that. He felt that as an above-the-title star he had the responsibility to use his muscle and power to try and make it better and that has never stopped in him. He was unrelenting about it, to the point where a lot of executives and directors came to feel he was a pain in the ass. But the really talented people loved working with him because of all his wonderful creative energy.

"My performances bore me", said Peppard in a 1964 interview, adding that his ambition was to deliver "one great performance. And I must say I feel a little presumptuous to shoot for that. But that's the goal, like a hockey goal. I figure I've got a choice ... not of the outcome but of the objective. And my objective is that one performance."

Peppard returned to television to do ''Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre'', "The Game with Glass Pieces".

For MGM he appeared in ''Operation Crossbow'' (1965), a war film with Sophia Loren. It was the first film he made under a new contract with MGM to do one movie a year for three years.

He was meant to follow this with an adaptation of the play '' Merrily We Roll Along'' but it was never made.

"I'm an actor not a star," he said around this time, adding that he looked for "three things" in a film, "a good director, a good part and a good script. If I get two out of three of those I'm satisfied."

Peppard starred in a thriller, ''The Third Day'' (1965) with Ashley who had become his second wife. The film was directed by Jack Smight who claimed Warner Bros only agreed to finance it because they had a deal with Peppard. Peppard said when he made the film "I wasn't just broke I was up to my ears in debt."

He was announced for ''The Last Night of Don Juan'' for Michael Gordon but it was not made. He was cast as the lead in ''Sands of the Kalahari'' (1965) at a fee of $200,000 but walked off the set after only a few days of filming in March 1965 and had to be replaced by Stuart Whitman. Paramount sued Peppard for $930,555 in damages and he countersued.

Ashley later wrote:

What tormented George so badly was that he was caught between being an actor and a movie star. He did not start off as an untalented pretty nothing who had to be grateful for any piece of meat that was thrown his way. He was intelligent and talented but because he was six foot tall with blond hair and blue eyes he had been put in the slot of being a movie star at a time when the movie studios were still very powerful and expected you to play the game by their rules... I don't think it was possible to be a male movie star who looked like he did and got hot when he did and not be trapped by it.

He had a huge hit with ''The Blue Max'' (1966), playing a German World War One ace, alongside James Mason and Ursula Andress, directed by John Guillermin. "He could carry these big films," said ''Filmink''.

Film critic David Shipman writes of this stage in his career:

Peppard played a German Jew fighting for the Allies in ''Tobruk'' (1967) alongside Rock Hudson. "It's a big mistake to think I'm making a lot of money and turning out a lot of crap," he said in a 1966 interview.

Decline

Seeking to ensure his financial security, Peppard bought a cattle ranch. The funding required by this venture prompted Peppard to sign a multi-million-dollar, five-picture contract with Universal in August 1966 – two films for the first year, then one each in the following three. Ashley claimed this ultimately hurt Peppard's career.

The first two films under the contract were '' Rough Night in Jericho'' (1967), a Western with Dean Martin, and '' What's So Bad About Feeling Good?'' (1968), a comedy directed by George Seaton with Mary Tyler Moore; these were followed by a private eye film directed by Guillermin, '' P.J.'' (1968), and ''House of Cards'' (1968), a thriller directed by Guillermin and shot in Europe. None of these films was particularly successful at the box office. Ashley says that doing these films caused Peppard to start drinking. She also claimed Peppard turned down ''The Heart is a Lonely Hunter'' because he did not want to play a weak or possibly homosexual character.

In 1967, he bought the script ''Midnight Fair'' by Sheridan Greenway, to produce. In 1968 he announced he had co-written a script ''Watch Them Die'', which he planned to direct, but not play a starring role. It was never made. Neither was a version of ''The Most Dangerous Game'' for MGM, announced in 1967.

He did a thriller, ''Pendulum'' (1969), directed by George Schaefer with Jean Seberg, and went to England to make '' The Executioner'' (1970) with Joan Collins.

In ''Cannon for Cordoba'' (1970) he played the steely Captain Rod Douglas, who has been put in charge of gathering a group of soldiers on a dangerous mission into Mexico. It was not a success. Neither was '' One More Train to Rob'' (1971), another Western. Ashley wrote "he became more and more frustrated and disillusioned from hating the kind of pictures he had to do. There were no good scripts, no good directors and at some point it became icily clear that there weren't going to be any."

In September 1970 he toured Vietnam with a USO show.

Television

In March 1971 Peppard announced his company, Tradewind Productions, had optioned a novel by Stanley Ellin, ''The Eighth Circle'', but it was not made.

Peppard starred in a Western TV movie '' The Bravos'' (1972) with Pernell Roberts. He returned to features with ''The Groundstar Conspiracy'' (1972) co starring Michael Sarrazin