Robert Preston (actor)

Robert Preston Meservey (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards. Early life Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. (née Rea) and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and a billing clerk for American Express. In high school, Preston was interested in music and he appeared in operettas. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. Career Preston appeared in a stock company production of Julius Caesar and a Pasadena Playhouse production of Idiot's Delight. A Paramount Pictures attorney liked his work and recruited him to the studio. The Los Angeles Times reported that Preston's mother was employed by Decca Records, 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 the Pasadena Playhouse. The result was a contract with the Crosby agency and a movie deal with Paramount Pictures, Crosby's studio. Preston made his screen debut in 1938, in the crime dramas King of Alcatraz (1938) and Illegal Traffic. The studio ordered Preston to stop using his family name of Meservey. As Robert Preston, the name by which he was known for his entire professional career, he appeared in many Hollywood films, predominantly but not exclusively Westerns. He was Digby Geste in the sound remake of Beau Geste (1939) with Gary Cooper and Ray Milland, and he featured in North West Mounted Police (1940), also with Cooper. He played a Los Angeles police detective in the noir This Gun for Hire (1942).