Obituary by Bruce Clark

from The Times, Wednesday October 6 1993:

Rory Peck, war cameraman, was killed in Moscowon October 3 aged 36. He was born on December 13, 1956.

Rory Peck was one of the bravest and most accomplished war cameraman of his generation. He was also an utterly astonishing character: an aristocrat in the broadest sense of the word, not entirely of this century, perhaps not entirely of this world.

His death during the vicious gun battles that raged around Moscow's television centre was one that he would consider fitting and dignified, and he had high standards in these matters. But it would be far too simple to say - as many will be tempted to do - that he actively courted such an ending.

Among his peers, Peck was legendary for his willingness to go to besieged cities and burning buildings where more prudent colleagues would fear to tread. In doing so he often exposed terrible human suffering. His coolness under fire and courage were superbly displayed during the December 1989 fighting in Bucharest; in Iraq during the Gulf War; in Bosnia, Afghanistan and all other ghastly wars that have broken out on the periphery of the former Soviet Union.

And yet Peck's sobering experience of war at its sharpest did not tempt him into underestimating the value of life, his own or that of others. He was always adamant that risk must be ruthlessly balanced against the value of the story being pursued. One of the few things that made him angry was being forced to take pointless risks; he would not sell himself cheaply.

An Anglo-Irishman with distinguished French and American connections, Peck grew up outside Dublin and attended a series of local schools. His warmth, flare and charm were evident from an early age, but there was a wildness about him as a young man that made it difficult for him to settle down. There were brief stints at universities in several countries, a commission in the Grenadier Guards which he resigned, and a hair-raising journey down the Red Sea by dhow.

But Peck found his métier as a cameraman, and perhaps his real self, in the mountains of Afghanistan, where he headed in a state of bitterness and self-reproach over the break-down of his first marriage to Lady Jane Alexander. The Afghan rebel cause appealed to his intense, romantic conservatism, but his experience of the terrible human consequences of the war brought a new depth and thoughtfulness to his personality. In one experience that particularly marked him, a convoy in which he was travelling was ambushed and he had to carry a dying man over the mountains for several days.

It was in Peshawar that he met his second wife, Juliet, a recently widowed British aid worker who shared his resourcefulness, stylishness and taste for the exotic and challenging places. Together they set up home in a lovely wooden cottage in Peredelkino outside Moscow, the scene of enormous happiness for their combined total of four children and many friends.

It was hard to prompt Peck to say exactly what it was that drew him to the battle zone. But a young reporter from Azerbaijan, whose cameraman brother had recently died on the battlefield, extracted some revealing remarks from him during an interview last year. War, Peck said, was a place where people throw off their masks: the brave, cowardly, honest and dishonest reveal themselves as they truly are. He is survived by his wife and four children.

Reproduced with permission

(c) The Times, London

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