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George Peppard Bio

George Peppard (Deceased)

The handsome clean cut all American man remembered as Audrey Hepburn’s love interest, Paul Varjak, in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ But later, in the 1980’s his role as the silver haired fugitive in’ The A Team’ along with Mr T, Dwight Schultz and Dirk Benedict.

George Peppard was born in Detroit, Michigan on October 1^st 1928 into a semi-performing family with his father, George Sr, employed as a building contractor and his mother Vernelle Rohrer, being an opera singer. After graduating from Dearborn High School in Michigan at seventeen, he joined the Marine Corps but only completed one tour of duty and then returned to Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, where he studied Civil Engineering.

While attending Pittsburgh University George enrolled in The Pittsburgh Playhouse where he made his debut performance in 1949. After this he developed a deep love of acting and moved to New York where he joined The Actors Studio. While there he made his first television appearance in ‘The United States Steel Hour’ in 1956 with another up and coming actor, Paul Newman.

A later appearance on Broadway saw him gaining the attention of the big guns in Hollywood and he signed his first contract with MGM studios. Once at MGM, Peppard’s career really took off. In 1957 he played Robert Mitchum’s son in ‘Home from the Hill’ but it would be his role in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ that shot him to international fame and landed him roles in ‘How the West was Won’ with Henry Fonda and Debbie Reynolds, ‘The Carpet Baggers’ with Alan Ladd and ‘The Blue Max’ alongside James Mason and Ursula Andress.

As Peppard’s career progressed, so did his involvement with alcohol and he became synonymous with lesser roles in B rate movies. During the period of the 1970’s the only memorable role offered to Peppard was that of Banacek, the Boston based private investigator. Peppard quit the show in order to prevent his ex-wife Elizabeth Ashley from receiving a larger percentage of his earnings as part of their divorce settlement. The 1980’s saw Peppard being offered the role of Blake Carrington in ‘Dynasty’ but due do disputed with the writers he finally turned the part down and it eventually went to John Forsythe.

The 1980’s also brought Peppard back into the public eye with his role as Colonel John ‘Hannibal’ Smith in ‘The A Team’. During his life Peppard had five marriages from which he produced two sons and one daughter.

Along with his addiction to alcohol Peppard was also a long time smoker and it was after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992 that he gave up smoking. It was just after his diagnosis that Peppard met and married his fifth and final wife who nursed him until he died on May 8^th 1994 in Los Angeles.

ABB