He secured a major role as struggling writer Paul Varjak when he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and later portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes in The Carpetbaggers (1964).

He played Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, the cigar-smoking leader of a renegade commando squad in the 1980s action television series The A-Team.

He did a variety of jobs to pay his way during this time, such as working as a disc jockey, being a radio station engineer, teaching fencing, driving a taxi and being a mechanic in a motorcycle repair shop.

[14] As noted by Filmink, "in hindsight, the late 1950s was a perfect time to be a handsome, Method trained male actor of ability with a beautiful speaking voice based in New York – theatre was vibrant, live television provided plenty of work.

"[15] He appeared with Paul Newman, in The United States Steel Hour (1956), as the singing, guitar-playing baseball player Piney Woods in Bang the Drum Slowly, directed by Daniel Petrie.

[18] It was the first film from Garfein as director and Calder Willingham as producer, plus for Peppard, Ben Gazzara, Geoffrey Horne, Pat Hingle, Arthur Storch and Clifton James.

[20] In September he joined the cast of Girls of Summer directed by Jack Garfein with Shelley Winters, Storch and Hingle, plus a title song by Stephen Sondheim.

[23][24] The bulk of his work around this time was for television: The Kaiser Aluminum Hour ("A Real Fine Cutting Edge", directed by George Roy Hill), Studio One in Hollywood ("A Walk in the Forest"), The Alcoa Hour ("The Big Build-Up" with E. G. Marshall[25]), Matinee Theatre ("End of the Rope" with John Drew Barrymore, "Thread That Runs So True", "Aftermath"), Kraft Theatre ("The Long Flight"), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("The Diplomatic Corpse", with Peter Lorre directed by Paul Henreid), and Suspicion ("The Eye of Truth" with Joseph Cotten based on a script by Eric Ambler).

[29][30] In May 1958, Peppard played his second film role, a support part in the Korean War movie Pork Chop Hill (1959) directed by Lewis Milestone.

During the show's run, Peppard auditioned successfully for MGM's Home from the Hill (1960) and the studio signed him to a long-term contract – which he had not wanted to do but was a condition for the film.

[35] In February 1959, Hedda Hopper announced Peppard would leave Company to make two films for MGM: Home from the Hill and The Subterraneans.

[36] Home from the Hill was a prestigious film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Robert Mitchum, who played Peppard's father.

At the end of 1959 Hopper predicted Peppard would be a big star saying "he has great emotional power, is a fine athlete, and does offbeat characters such as James Dean excelled in.

[42] Peppard returned to television to star in an episode of the anthology series Startime, "Incident at a Corner" (1960) under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock alongside Vera Miles.

[44][45] His good looks, elegant manner and acting skills landed Peppard his most famous film role as Paul Varjak in Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn, based on the novella of the same name by Truman Capote.

She described him as "some kind of Nordic god – six feet tall with beautiful blond hair, blue eyes and a body out of every high school cheerleader's teenage lust fantasy.

[64] He was cast as the lead in Sands of the Kalahari (1965) at a fee of $200,000 but walked off the set after only a few days of filming in March 1965 and had to be replaced by Stuart Whitman.

[67]He had a huge hit with The Blue Max (1966), playing a German World War One ace, alongside James Mason and Ursula Andress, directed by John Guillermin.

[68] Film critic David Shipman writes of this stage in his career: "With his cool, blond baby-face looks and a touch of menace, of meanness, he had established a screen persona as strong as any of the time.

The funding required by this venture prompted Peppard to sign a multi-million-dollar, five-picture contract with Universal in August 1966 – two films for the first year, then one each in the following three.

In Cannon for Cordoba (1970), Peppard played the steely Captain Rod Douglas, who has been put in charge of gathering a group of soldiers on a dangerous mission into Mexico.

During the filming of the pilot episode, which also featured Linda Evans and Bo Hopkins, Peppard repeatedly clashed with the show's producers, Richard and Esther Shapiro; among other things, he felt that his role was too similar to that of J. R. Ewing in the series Dallas.

He travelled to Canada to make Your Ticket Is No Longer Valid (1981) with Richard Harris, to New Zealand for Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1982) and Spain for Hit Man (1982).

"[101] In 1982, Peppard auditioned for and won the role of Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith in the television action adventure series The A-Team, acting alongside Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz.

As "Hannibal" Smith, Peppard played the leader of the A-Team, distinguished by his cigar smoking, confident smirk, black leather gloves, disguises, and distinctive catchphrase, "I love it when a plan comes together."

The episode, co-starring Tracy Nelson, was meant to serve as a backdoor pilot for a series about a father and his estranged daughter both working as private investigators.

Later owned by designer Brenda Antin, who spent a year renovating it, the small home was purchased by writer/actress Lena Dunham in 2015 for $2.7 million.

It aired as an episode of Matlock and was to be spun off into a new television series with Peppard playing an aging detective and Nelson his daughter and sidekick.

He is tough, assured and insolent — in a way that recalls late Dick Powell rather than early Bogart; but his bright blue eyes and blond hair, his boyish face suggest the all-American athlete, perhaps going to seed.

The sophistication is surface deep: you can imagine him in Times Square on a Saturday night, sulky, defiant, out of his depth, not quite certain how he wants to spend the evening.