Madam, - Gregory Peck (Obituary, June 14th) was an unassuming and humorous man, extremely proud of his Irish roots.
When I edited RTÉ Guide in the 1980s we ran a story about the TV movie The Scarlet and the Black, in which he played Mgr O'Flaherty, a priest who saved the lives of many Jews in the second World War. Peck must have been sent a copy of the Guide, because to my considerable surprise I received a personal letter from him a few weeks later.
"Now I must ask you how it all worked out," he wrote. "Did the Irish public enjoy the film? Did my stab at an Irish accent go down well? My connections with Co Kerry are the real thing. Catherine Ashe, my grandmother, was born just outside Dingle in 1864. My Dad, although born in the US, was brought back to Kerry, and lived his early years on a farm at East Minard. There was always a bit of flavor in his speech. To the end, he would refer to me as 'My son, the fillum star.'
"Since my father and I shared the same name, he liked presenting his credit card at a petrol station, in his later years. The attendant, seeing the name, would inevitably peer into the car and say, 'You are Gregory Peck?'
"'Ah yes,' my father would say, 'but I've not been at all well lately.'" - Yours, etc.,
STEPHEN DIXON,
Clarinda Park,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.