Peck was one of the Hollywood greats

He was the star of more than 60 films, including classics Cape Fear, Spellbound and Roman Holiday.

He was one of the most popular leading actors of the 20th Century and was nominated for five Oscars.

He won just once, for his role as a lawyer defending a black man against an undeserved rape charge in To Kill A Mocking Bird.

Do I think there's a glamorous male actor today? No way Gregory Peck, speaking in 2000

Peck died peacefully overnight in his Los Angeles home with his French-born wife Veronique by his side, his publicist Monroe Friedman said.

"I have great sorrow in announcing the news that Greg passed away overnight in his home, where he loved to be," he said.

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Peck leaves his wife, four children and several grandchildren.

No funeral services have yet been planned.

"She (Veronique) told me he just died peacefully. She said she was holding his hand and he just closed his eyes and went to sleep and he was gone," Mr Friedman said.

He made his film debut in 1944 in Days of Glory, winning an Academy Award nomination for his second big screen role, playing a priest, in Keys of the Kingdom.

The life and career of Gregory Peck In pictures

He tackled a wide variety of roles, including soldiers, gun fighters, Biblical figures and romantic leads.

Audiences preferred him as a leading man and attempts at unsympathetic roles usually failed.

He played the renegade son in the Western Duel in the Sun and the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil.

Three years ago at Cannes he declared that the age of movie glamour was over.

Theatre

When asked what he thought of today's Hollywood stars earning $30m per movie, he quipped: "I was born too soon."

He said: "Do I think there's a glamorous male actor today? No way."

Peck's classic films Keys of the Kingdom, 1944 Spellbound, 1945 The Yearling, 1946 Gentleman's Agreement, 1947 Twelve O'Clock High, 1949 The Gunfighter, 1950 David and Bathsheba, 1951 The Snows of Kilimanjaro, 1952 Roman Holiday, 1953 Moby Dick, 1956 The Guns of Navarone, 1961 To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962 Cape Fear, 1962 How the West Was Won, 1962 The Boys from Brazil, 1978

He was born Eldred Gregory Peck on 5 April, 1916, in La Jolla, California.

An English literature graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, he started acting when the director of the campus theatre spotted him because he was tall and cast him in Moby Dick.

He later went on to star as Captain Ahab in a 1956 screen version and, coincidentally, his last role was in a 1998 TV adaptation of the Herman Melville classic.

He served as president of the Academy Awards body and was active in the Motion Picture and Television Fund, American Cancer Society, National Endowment for the Arts and other causes.

"I'm not a do-gooder," he said after learning of the Academy's Jean Hersholt humanitarian award in 1968.

"It embarrassed me to be classified as a humanitarian. I simply take part in activities that I believe in."