Robert Preston

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 708-709. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.

He received an Oscar nomination for his triumphant portrayal of a witty, gay entertainer in Victor Victoria (1982).

He won a Tony Award for the role and repeated it in the film version (The Music Man (1962)).

Now a star of the first magnitude, Preston alternated between stage and film, winning another Tony for "I Do, I Do" and appearing to enormous good effect in such films as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), All the Way Home (1963) and Junior Bonner (1972).

Twice won Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical): in 1958, for "The Music Man," a performance he recreated in the film version of the same name, The Music Man (1962); and, in 1967, for "I Do! I Do!". He was also nominated in the same category in 1975 for "Mack and Mabel", in which he played movie pioneer Mack Sennett.

He played many roles on Broadway and in 1957 got the part that would immortalize him in entertainment history: Professor Harold Hill in the musical "The Music Man".

During the early 1950s he and his wife Catherine and 16 of their friends maintained an informal acting group called "Eighteen Actors". They were film actors trying to gain theatrical experience with their actress wives. Included were Charles Lane, Dana Andrews, Moroni Olsen, Addison Richards, Victor Jory and Don Porter. Their productions ran four consecutive weekends in a small state-donated building near the Rose Bowl.

American leading man of vast charisma, Robert Preston was the son of a garment worker and a record store clerk and grew up in Los Angeles. He was a trained musician, playing several instruments, and in high school became interested in theatre. He joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse, taking classes and appearing in scores of plays alongside such soon-to-be-well-known actors as Dana Andrews, George Reeves, Victor Mature and Don DeFore. Even in the distinguished company of Playhouse veterans like Victor Jory and Samuel S. Hinds, young Preston Meservey--or Pres, as he was always known to intimates--was an acknowledged star in the making. During one play a Paramount scout saw him and he signed a contract with the studio, which renamed him Robert Preston. After several roles in inconsequential films, Preston became a favorite of director Cecil B. DeMille, who cast him in several films but became nevertheless one of the few people Preston actively and publicly disliked. In 1946, after serving in England with the Army Air Corps, Preston married Kay Feltus (aka Catherine Craig), whom he had known in Pasadena. He struggled through numerous unfulfilling roles in the '40s, then relocated to New York and concentrated on theatre.

Was in three Oscar Best Picture nominees: Wake Island (1942), The Music Man (1962) and How the West Was Won (1962).

Served three years in the US Army Air Corps--the predecessor of the US Air Force--as an S-2 (Intelligence Officer), 386th Bombardment Group (Medium), a B-26 Marauder bomber unit assigned to the 8th Air Force and later to the 9th Air Force, based primarily in England, during World War II. By war's end the 386th had moved forward, in pursuit of its own invading forces, and Capt. Robert Meservey (his birth name) and the 386th was re-stationed in Belgium. His job was to receive intelligence reports from 9th Air Force headquarters, in turn briefing 386th bomber crews about what they would most likely encounter, and also to apprise them of HQ expectations.