Moby Dick (1956 film) actor Walter Huston as Ahab, but he had died in 1950. Peck went on to play the role of Father Mapple in the 1998 television miniseries adaptation of Melville's novel, with Patrick Stewart as Ahab. Welles later used the salary from his cameo to fund his own stage production of "Moby Dick", in which Rod Steiger played Captain Ahab. Gregory Peck, comparing his performances in this film and the 1998 "Moby Dick" miniseries, said he liked the miniseries better because it was more faithful to the novel. During a meeting to discuss the screenplay, Ray Bradbury informed John Huston that
Moby Dick (whale) Moby Dick (whale) Moby Dick is a fictional sperm whale who is the main antagonist in Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name. Melville based the fictional whale partially on a real albino whale of that period called Mocha Dick. Ishmael describes Moby Dick as having two prominent white areas around “a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump,” the rest of his body being of stripes and patches between white and gray. The animal's exact dimensions are never given, but the novel claims that the largest sperm whales can reach a length of ninety feet