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Bob Peck

Bob Peck brought the weight of a seasoned stage actor to film and television, often playing men whose composure suggested pressure building just beneath the surface. Born into a working-class family in Leeds on 23 August 1945, he attended Leeds Modern School and spent six weeks with the National Youth Theatre at 15. He later studied at Leeds College of Art, earning a Diploma in Art and Design while taking part in student amateur dramatics. Before his screen career gathered momentum, Peck was a regular performer with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His roles included Iago opposite Donald Sinden in Othello, Macduff in Trevor Nunn’s 1976 Macbeth and, in a later production, Macbeth himself. In The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, he showed his range by playing both the boisterous John Browdie and the predatory Sir Mulberry Hawk, repeating the parts on Broadway and in the 1982 television version. Peck began appearing on television in the 1970s, including work in Thirty-Minute Theatre, Z-Cars and Play for Today. His defining television role arrived in 1985 with Edge of Darkness. As policeman Ronald Craven, investigating the murder of his daughter, Peck gave the political thriller its grieving, determined centre. The six-part BBC Two series attracted four million viewers during its run, and Peck received the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. Film offered him a succession of quietly forceful roles. He played policeman John Graham in The Kitchen Toto, appeared in On the Black Hill and portrayed the android Byron in the science-fiction adventure Slipstream. In Lord of the Flies he was the unnamed marine officer, while his biggest film appearance came as park gamekeeper Robert Muldoon in Jurassic Park. Peck made Muldoon a practical, wary presence—a man who understood the danger before most of those around him did. His later work included Surviving Picasso, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, FairyTale: A True Story and The Opium War. Peck died in 1999. The Miracle Maker, released the following year and featuring his voice as Joseph of Arimathea, was dedicated to his memory.