Peppard, George (1928-1994)

US actor. He brought a gift for laconic understatement to leading roles in several early-1960s productions, including Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and The Carpetbaggers (1964). From 1983 to 1987 he played the grizzled, cigar-chomping leader of The A-Team, an NBC TV series.

Peppard was born in Detroit, Michigan. He trained at the Actors Studio in New York before appearing in TV dramas and making his film debut in the drama The Strange One in 1957. After his big break as the kept man who eventually finds new values and true romance with Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), he briefly seemed to be headed for Hollywood stardom, but he failed to capitalize on this early success. He continued to work regularly during the 1960s and 1970s, but usually in conventional tough-guy guise, with occasional excursions into long-forgotten comedies like What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968). He appeared 1972-74 in the title role of the popular TV detective series Banacek, but his attempt at widening his horizons by producing and directing a big-screen vehicle for himself, Five Miles from Home (1978), met with scant success. In his later years he appeared in occasional stage productions, and toured in the USA in The Lion in Winter (1992).