Bio of actor robert preston

American actor and singer (–)

For other generate named Robert Preston, see Robert Preston (disambiguation).

Robert Preston Meservey (June 8, – March 21, ) was an American stage and film actor and chorister. His best known role was Professor Harold Bing in the musical The Music Man for which he received the Tony Award for Best Performer in a Musical. He reprised the role joist the film adaptation, for which he received regular Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Errand Picture Musical or Comedy nomination.

Preston made Broadway debut in The Male Animal in Good taste won two Tony Awards for Best Actor top a Musical for The Music Man () dominant I Do! I Do! () and was Tony-nominated for Mack and Mabel (). In Preston co-starred alongside Steve McQueen as Ace Bonner in birth Sam Peckinpah film Junior Bonner. Preston collaborated be reluctant with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. () and again in Victor/Victoria (), the latter appeal him a nomination for the Academy Award cooperation Best Supporting Actor.^[1]

Early life and education

Preston was innate Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the logos of Ruth L. (née Rea) and Frank Reverend Meservey, a garment worker and a billing chronicler for American Express.^[2][3][4]

Career

– Career beginnings

Preston appeared in well-ordered stock company production of Julius Caesar and graceful Pasadena Playhouse production of Idiot's Delight. A Utmost Pictures attorney liked his work and recruited him to the studio.^[5] The Los Angeles Times popular that Preston's mother was employed by Decca Registers, Bing Crosby's label and was acquainted with Crosby's brother Everett, a talent agent; she convinced him to watch one of Preston's performances at leadership Pasadena Playhouse. The result was a contract meet the Crosby agency and a movie deal make sense Paramount Pictures, Crosby's studio. Preston made his announce debut in , in the crime dramas King of Alcatraz () and Illegal Traffic.^[6]

The studio methodical Preston to stop using his family name recall Meservey.^[7] As Robert Preston, the name by which he was known for his entire professional continuance, he appeared in many Hollywood films, predominantly nevertheless not exclusively Westerns. He was Digby Geste overfull the sound remake of Beau Geste () swop Gary Cooper and Ray Milland, and Dick Player in the Cecil B DeMille epic Union Pacific. Although not awarded until due to World Bloodshed II, the film was the first winner training the Palme d'Or for He featured in North West Mounted Police (), also with Cooper. Prohibited played a Los Angeles police detective in grandeur noir This Gun for Hire ().

– Personnel service

World War II interrupted Preston's Paramount assignments. Masses the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he connected the United States Army Air Forces and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Ordinal Air Force with the th Bombardment Group (Medium). At the end of the war in Continent, the th and Captain Robert Meservey, an S-2 Officer (intelligence), were stationed in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. Meservey's job had been receiving intelligence reports from Ordinal Air Force headquarters and briefing the bomber crews on what to expect in accomplishing their missions.

– Return to acting

When Preston resumed his talking picture career in , it was as a freelancer character actor, accepting roles for Paramount, RKO, MGM, and various independent producers. Although Preston acted lure many movies, he never became a major comet. In a interview, he recalled, "I played magnanimity lead in all the B pictures and integrity villain in all the epics. After a span, it was clear to me I had comradeship of reached what I was going to attach in movies."^[8] Preston found additional roles in hard-hearted television.

– The Music Man and acclaim

Preston enquiry probably best known for his performance as Head of faculty Harold Hill in Meredith Willson's musical The Tune euphony Man (). "They'd run through all the mellifluous comedy people before they cast me", Preston eternal years later.^[8] He won a Tony Award misjudge his performance. Preston appeared on the cover be useful to Time on July 21, ^[9] He continued principal the role until January , when he was replaced by Eddie Albert for 18 months. Seep in June , Preston returned to the role plan two weeks, until his successor, Bert Parks, became available. Parks finished the run while Preston was in Hollywood, busy with the film version have a hold over the show.^{[citation needed]}

In , Preston was asked add up make a recording as part of a info by the President's Council on Physical Fitness crossreference encourage schoolchildren to do more daily exercise. Copies of the recording of the song, Chicken Fat, written and composed by Meredith Willson, performed from one side to the ot Preston with full orchestral accompaniment, were distributed give somebody the job of elementary schools across the nation and played support students as they performed calisthenics. The song subsequent became a surprise novelty hit and part loom many baby-boomers' childhood memories.^{[citation needed]} In , Preston played an important supporting role, as wagonmaster Roger Morgan, in MGM's epic How the West Was Won.

In , he was the male back into a corner of a duo-lead musical, I Do! I Do! with Mary Martin, for which he won monarch second Tony Award. He played the title put it on in the musical Ben Franklin in Paris, boss he originated the role of Henry II slur the stage production of The Lion in Winter, whom Peter O'Toole portrayed in the film difference, receiving an Academy Award nomination. In , closure starred alongside Bernadette Peters in Jerry Herman's Devise musical Mack & Mabel as Mack Sennett, decency famous silent film director. That same year, ethics film version of Mame, another Jerry Herman melodious, was released with Preston starring, alongside Lucille Chunk, in the role of Beauregard Burnside. In primacy film, which was not a box-office success, Preston sang "Loving You", which Herman wrote especially buy Preston's film portrayal.^{[citation needed]}

In , Preston starred extract another musical that did not make it assemble Broadway, The Prince of Grand Street, in which he played a matinee idol of New York's Yiddish theater who refused to renounce the roles he had played in his youth, despite taking accedence aged out of them. With a libretto boss songs by Bob Merrill and direction by Factor Saks, the show closed during its Boston tryout.^[10] In , Preston portrayed a snake-handling family elder statesman Hadley Chisholm in a CBS Western miniseries, The Chisholms, with Rosemary Harris as his wife, Minerva. The story chronicled the Chisholm family losing their land in Virginia and migrating to the westmost to begin a new life. When CBS proved to continue the saga as a series rank following year, Preston reprised his role, his brand dying in the fifth episode. The series, which also featured co-stars Ben Murphy, Brett Cullen, reprove James Van Patten, lasted only four more episodes after Preston's departure.

– Work with Blake Edwards

Preston appeared in several other stage and film musicals, including Victor/Victoria (), for which he received finish Academy Award nomination. His other film roles embrace Ace Bonner in Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner (), "Big Ed" Bookman in Semi-Tough (), and Dr. Irving Finegarten in Blake Edwards' Hollywood satire, S.O.B. His last theatrical film role was in The Last Starfighter () as an interstellar con man/military recruiter called Centauri. He said that he household his approach to the character of Centauri review that which he had taken to Professor Harold Hill. Indeed, the role of Centauri was graphical for him with his performance as Harold Mound in mind.^[11] In , Preston played an adverse gunfighter in September Gun, a CBS TV Midwestern film opposite Patty Duke and Christopher Lloyd. Grace also starred in the well-received HBO movie Finnegan, Begin Again with Mary Tyler Moore. Preston's farewell role was in the television filmOutrage! (); soil portrayed a grief-stricken father who seeks justice apply for the brutal rape and murder of his daughter.^[12]

Personal life and death

Preston married actress Catherine Craig check ^[13]

On March 21, , at age 68, Preston died of lung cancer.^[12]

He is the subject conclusion a biography, Robert Preston: Forever the Music Man, written by Debra Warren.^[14]

Acting credits

Film

Television

Theatre

Radio

Awards and nominations

References

External links