Italian postcard by Rotalcolor / Rotalfoto, no. N 228.
Chinese postcard. George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen. Photo: Stephen J. Cannell Productions, 1984. Dirk Benedict as Templeton 'Faceman' Peck, George Peppard as Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith, Dwight Schultz as 'Howling Mad' Murdock, and Mr. T as Sergeant First Class Bosco Baracus in The A-Team (1983-1987).
Good looks, elegant manner and acting skills
George Peppard Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1928. He was the son of contractor George Peppard and opera singer Vernelle Rohrer. Before his acting career began, he was a newsreader for a local radio station in Pittsburgh for a short time. After radio and television experience (with guest roles in The United States Steel Hour, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alcoa Hour), Peppard made his Broadway debut in 1956, in the play 'Girls of Summer'.
He made his feature film debut in the drama The Strange One (Jack Garfein, 1957). In 1958-1959, he played Roger Henderson in the play 'The Pleasure of His Company'. In the late 1950s, Peppard continued to make guest appearances in then-famous television shows and series, like Studio One, Hallmark Hall of Fame and Matinee Theatre. He also had a role in the war film Pork Chop Hill (Lewis Milestone, 1959), starring Gregory Peck.
Peppard began to stand out after his role as Robert Mitchum's illegitimate son in Home from the Hill (Vincente Minnelli, 1960). He began to emerge more and more as the leading man, but the Beatnik film The Subterraneans (Ranald MacDougall, 1960) flopped and he returned to television. His good looks, elegant manner and acting skills landed Peppard his most famous film role as struggling writer Paul ‘Fred’ Varjak in the romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961), alongside Audrey Hepburn.
Now considered a promising young star by the studios, Peppard was cast in the epic Western How the West Was Won (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall, 1962), the British-American war film The Victors (Carl Foreman, 1963) and the Harold Robbins adaptation The Carpetbaggers (Edward Dmytryk, 1964) in which he portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes. His future second wife Helen Davies also had a role in the latter film. In the mid-1960s, Peppard starred in major productions such as the British Spy thriller Operation Crossbow (Michael Anderson, 1965) with Sophia Loren and the thriller The Third Day (Jack Smight, 1965) with Elizabeth Ashley, who had become his third wife.
He reached the peak of his popularity in the grim war film The Blue Max (John Guillermin, 1966) with Peppard as an obsessively competitive German pilot during World War I. In the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s, Peppard seemed to lower the bar and appeared in films of a more average level, except for the war film Tobruk (Arthur Hiller, 1967) in which he co-starred with Rock Hudson. He also appeared in the Westerns Rough Night in Jericho (Arnold Laven, 1967) with Dean Martin and One More Train To Rob (Andrew McLaglen, 1971). Peppard co-starred with Joan Collins in the British Cold War thriller The Executioner (Sam Wanamaker, 1970).
West German Kolibri postcard by Friedrich W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 2329. Photo: Paramount. George Peppard in The Carpetbaggers (Edward Dmytryk, 1964).
Vintage postcard. Photo: M.G.M.
Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers / News Productions, no. 57244. Photo: Collection Cinemathèque Suisse Lausanne. Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
The number-one-rated television show of 1983
In the 1970s, the film roles George Peppard took on became increasingly uninteresting and he played almost exclusively in television films. Between 1972 and 1974, Peppard starred in the seventeen-episode television series Banacek. He played a wealthy Boston playboy who solves thefts for insurance companies for a finder's fee in 90-minute whodunits. The series briefly revived Peppard's waning popularity. In 1975-1976, he starred in the television series Doctor's Hospital, but towards the end of the season, Peppard indicated he wanted to quit his role in the series.
In 1977, Peppard appeared in the post-apocalypse film Damnation Alley (Jack Smight, 1977) with Jan-Michael Vincent and Dominique Sanda. Poorly received by critics and audiences, it has since achieved a cult following. With fewer interesting roles coming his way, he acted in, directed and produced the drama Five Days from Home (1979). The film, about a father escaping from prison to visit his sick son, did not become a success.
He plunged back into television films like Torn Between Two Lovers (Delbert Mann, 1979) with Lee Remick and Crisis in Mid-Air (Walter Grauman, 1979). The Euro War film Contro 4 Bandiere/From Hell to Victory (Umberto Lenzi, 1979) and the Space Opera Battle Beyond the Stars (Jimmy T. Murakami, 1980), produced by Roger Corman, also did not become box office hits. He landed the role of Blake Carrington in the TV soap Dynasty but was fired after a week of filming due to creative differences with the producers.
He managed to get the role of Hannibal Smith in The A-Team, alongside Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz. In the series, the A-Team was a team of renegade commandos on the run from the military for "a crime they did not commit" while serving in the Vietnam War. The A-Team members made their collective living as soldiers of fortune, but they helped only people who came to them with justified grievances. The A-Team became the number-one-rated television show in its first season. 98 episodes of the series were made and aired between 1983 and 1987. Peppard was back in the saddle, but after the series ended, he reportedly was glad it was over.
He starred in a few more films and television movies, including two films in the Man Against the Mob series, for which a third was also planned. Due to Peppard's death, it remained only two parts. Furthermore, he played a role in the War film Night of the Fox (Charles Jarrott, 1990) with Michael York. Peppard's last television appearance was a guest role in the television series Matlock. The episode aired eight days before Peppard's death. It was intended as a pilot for a new series. In 1992, Peppard had a small, malignant lung tumour removed. Two years later, George Peppard was again under treatment for lung cancer. Complications from this left him with pneumonia, from which he eventually died in 1994. He was 65. His fifth wife Laura, a West Palm Beach banker, cared for him for the last 18 months of his life. He is buried alongside his parents in Northview Cemetery in Dearborn, Michigan.
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen. Photo: Stephen J. Cannell Productions, 1984. George Peppard as Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith and Mr. T as Sergeant First Class Bosco Baracus in The A-Team (1983-1987).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen. Photo: Stephen J. Cannell Productions, 1984. Dirk Benedict as Templeton 'Faceman' Peck and George Peppard as Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith in The A-Team (1983-1987).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen. Photo: Stephen J. Cannell Productions, 1984. Dwight Schulz, Mr. T and George Peppard in The A-Team (1983-1987).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen. Photo: Stephen J. Cannell Productions, 1984. Dwight Schulz, Mr. T and George Peppard in The A-Team (1983-1987).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.
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