9 Horror Movies That Made Actors QUIT Forever

Gregory Peck was an actor well known as one of the faces of Classic Hollywood Cinema, most often starring as the handsome, charismatic and heroic lead. Not so in the horrifying The Boys From Brazil (1978), adapted by Franklin J Schaffner from Ira Levin's novel of the same name. Interested in flexing his acting muscles, Peck took on the role of a fictionalised version of infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who has created 94 clones of Hitler with the intention of resurrecting the Third Reich.

Only in his early sixties, this was the actor's attempt to redefine himself in a new chapter of his on-screen life, creating a fresh persona and igniting an era of new roles for himself in the way Liam Neeson and Matthew McConaughey have done in recent decades. And, while Peck is all but unrecognisable in the role, critics didn't take kindly to it. Though critical appraisal of his part has changed in the intervening years, this blow at the time meant such plans were left dead in the water.

Peck only took five more roles in the rest of his career – against fifty or so in the years prior – all of which were the kind of parts he was known for in the years before The Boys From Brazil.