Lincoln Center Film Society Pays Tribute to Gregory Peck : Movies: The actor, who has made 52 feature films, is called a ‘true screen immortal.’

Whether he was playing a demented Captain Ahab or a saintly Atticus Finch, careening through a Dali nightmare or being stalked by a psychopath, Gregory Peck has always made moviegoers feel good--vaguely inferior, perhaps, but always good.

A standing ovation greeted Peck Monday night as he entered a spot-lit box near the stage at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan, accompanied by his wife, Veronique, Jane Fonda, Harry Belafonte, Audrey Hepburn, Liza Minnelli, Roger Moore, Jimmy Smits, Kitty Carlisle Hart and Isaac Stern. The Film Society of Lincoln Center was honoring the 76-year-old Peck for almost five decades of stellar work, and for that undefinable quality he’s been bringing to the screen since “Days of Glory,” his film debut in 1944.

The president of the Film Society, Roy Furman, introduced Peck as a “true screen immortal.” He then introduced Minnelli, who said that while she’d never appeared in a film with Peck, she had loved him “literally my whole life,” having met him as a child of Hollywood.

“Every time I think about Gregory Peck, I know certain things do last, love does not go away, friendship remains,” she said. “I adore this man--I always did, and I always will.”

Minnelli was followed by the first segment of the film tribute to Peck, which wove 75 minutes of clips from his 52 feature films. Included in the compilation were scenes from Peck’s early work--”Spellbound,” “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” “Captain Horatio Hornblower”--to his latest, last year’s “Other People’s Money.”

Stern, like many of the guest speakers, took note of Peck’s political courage, particularly in his involvement with the National Endowment for the Arts. “All this,” Stern said of the tribute, “is deserved, because of the qualities he’s exhibited in both his public and private life.”

In an evening full of emotional moments, one of the more moving was the appearance of Mary Badham, who played Scout, the daughter of Atticus Finch, in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Peck won an Oscar for that role; Badham got a nomination. She made one other film and retired. Peck, of course, never has. “I love you, Atticus,” she said.

Moore took note of the fact that April 5 had been Peck’s birthday. “I’m sure he’s never had this many people to sing happy birthday to him,” which the audience then proceeded to do.