Edition: U.S. / Global

At Home With: GREGORY PECK; A Glamorous Movie Idol's Gracious Semi-Retirement

Published: May 4, 1998

On an El Nino-soaked afternoon, Gregory Peck, white haired, bearded, still matinee-idol handsome, was strolling around his Bel-Air home, showing a reporter some of the art that he and his wife, Veronique, have collected during their 41 years of marriage.

On one wall was a David Hockney pastel. On another, a Fernand Leger oil. On one side of the room was a large Milton Avery painting. Most of the dozen works in the room were representational; many of the pictures were of couples.

''We used to have abstract paintings,'' Mr. Peck explained while giving the tour, ''but we realized that had become wallpaper to us, and we weren't looking at them anymore. One day, we shipped them off to the Los Angeles County Museum. Now, we only have things here that speak to us, that have some kind of emotional content.''

He seems to have whittled down his life like the paintings on his wall, so that very little in it does not have ''emotional content.'' At 82, he is living a gracious, self-designed semi-retirement, which means that he keeps busy only at tasks that have meaning to him; only at pursuits he enjoys.

Mr. Peck devotes time to raising money for several projects, including La Jolla Playhouse, which he and a group of friends founded more than 50 years ago, and the film department of University College, Dublin. He also produces six readings a year for the Central Los Angeles Library, conscripting friends like Richard Dreyfuss, Morgan Freeman and Lynn Redgrave to read aloud from their favorite books.

''I get the guests,'' he says. ''They pick the material. Louis Jourdan picked one of the most cynical essays I've ever heard by Mark Twain. But he's like that. He thinks life is ridiculous. Tim Curry read something pretty scatological, a poem about life from the point of view of a dog. The audience was taken aback.''

Mr. Peck also mounts a one-man show of anecdotes and film clips from his own career, ''An Evening With Gregory Peck,'' that he takes to lecture halls around the country. Tonight at 7, he will be taking his show to the Boston University Theater.

The one thing he does not do often is the thing he loves best: perform in films. Mr. Peck has not starred in a major feature film since 1989, when he played a sexy, beery, death-haunted Ambrose Bierce in ''The Old Gringo.''

''I get sent scripts,'' Mr. Peck explains, now taking tea, with two small fluff balls of dogs, Maltese, huddled in his lap. ''But, on the whole, the kinds of roles that are written for someone my age are mostly character roles, and they are not very interesting. You know, grandfathers, old uncles. I don't want to bow out doing that kind of thing. It's a shame. Because as an actor, I think I'm better now than I ever was.''

Why better? ''Because I've lived a lot, experienced a lot, and also I don't give a damn what anybody thinks anymore,'' answers the star of ''Roman Holiday,'' ''Gentleman's Agreement'' and ''To Kill a Mockingbird.'' ''That sort of loosens you up. Maybe it wasn't conscious, but in my heyday, I wanted to make a good impression. Now, that last vestige of self-consciousness, which is amateur stuff, is gone.''

Mr. Peck says he enjoys his semi-retirement. ''You don't want to be working all the time at this age,'' he says, smiling. ''I'm at the stage when I know three or four doctors by their first names. It goes without saying that it takes real doctoring to keep you together at this stage. But the life that Veronique and I lead is very interesting. We're going to France for three months this summer, probably Provence. I may try my hand at some writing there.''

He wants to compile a book of amusing anecdotes, something like ''The Moon's a Balloon,'' by David Niven.

''This wouldn't be an autobiography,'' he insists. ''I don't like actors' autobiographies, in general. A lot of them, I think they're just trying to present an image to the public. I'm not taking an advance for it. If it isn't any good, I want to be able to just toss it out. My goal would be to simply tell a few entertaining stories.''

In person, Mr. Peck is a mass of stories, all of them told in that famously sonorous voice. His old friend Grace Kelly, for instance, is recalled as a sad woman, ''who got taken in by those slickers in Monaco and used.''

''It's not really nice to say something like this,'' he says, ''in view of the fact that she had three children, all very much alive, but there's not very much question, she was used for public relations.''

Ava Gardner, Mr. Peck's favorite leading lady, is remembered as ''a woman so beautiful'' that when the two of them would leave the MGM sound stage for lunch, crew members would stop ''dead in their tracks to stare as she walked by.''

''I didn't have that slant on her,'' he said. ''I certainly knew she was good looking. But I was young, too, and in youth, you sort of accept that everyone is good looking.''

During the 1940's and 50's, Mr. Peck was considered the handsomest man on earth by many, a notion he shrugs off with a quick ''I was never impressed by my looks; I was ambitious to be a good actor.''

Does Mr. Peck agree with the famous assertion of Charles de Gaulle that old age is ''a shipwreck''?

The actor stops for a moment and then blurts: ''The thing I don't enjoy is self-awareness at this stage, because you start thinking about death. I'll tell you something else: In the morning, one often has such thoughts. I make a beeline for my newspapers, and they take up two hours, and then I can roll right through the day. I try to keep things spinning. I have plans. I have correspondence. I have this one-man show to do. It's not a career anymore. But it is a challenge. Let's say, 'I've got an act.' ''

And then there are always interesting little tasks relating to the extensive body of his past work, some 57 movies over 53 years. In February, for instance, Universal Studios Home Video released a digitally remastered version of his favorite film, ''To Kill a Mockingbird.'' There was a premiere to attend, a reunion with the original cast at the Indochine restaurant in Beverly Hills. Suddenly, Mr. Peck was back with old friends, like Robert Duvall and Brock Peters, and he had a chance to once again say how his portrayal of Atticus Finch was one of ''the most meaningful roles'' of his career.

And he recently appeared as the preacher in USA Network's remake of ''Moby Dick'' for cable. In 1956, when Mr. Peck was 35, he was Captain Ahab in John Huston's version of the Herman Melville classic.

Given the benefit of time, how would Mr. Peck play Captain Ahab now? ''Better,'' he said. ''I think I should have been more ferocious in pursuit of the whale, more cruel to the crew, and I think I'd have a better grasp now of what Melville was talking about. He was trying to find an answer to the eternal mysteries. Ahab focused all his energies on avenging himself against the whale, but he was trying to penetrate the mystery of why we are here at all, why there is anything. I wasn't mad enough, not crazy enough, not obsessive enough. I should have done more.''

Mr. Peck takes a long breath: ''At the time, I didn't have more in me.''

Photo: Gregory Peck will perform his one-man show this evening at the Boston University Theater. (Reuters)