Robert Preston

Forever The Music Man

By: Debra Warren

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Born Robert Preston Meservey in the suburbs of Boston in 1918, Preston moved with his family to Los Angeles as a toddler. He caught the acting bug in high school and continued as an actor with a Shakespearean acting troupe and at the Pasadena Playhouse before being discovered by Paramount Studios in 1938 at the age of nineteen. After languishing in B-movies for over a decade, he made the decision to seek success on the Broadway stage.

The song “Seventy-Six Trombones” from The Music Man would forever link Robert Preston to the Broadway musical and the iconic 1962 film that would establish him as a Hollywood and Broadway star. His role as Harold Hill in The Music Man was a pivotal moment for the actor who appeared in dozens of films as well as theater and television productions. Although Harold Hill was admittedly not Preston’s favorite character, it was this singular, spectacular role that catapulted him to stage and screen stardom and ensured he would forever remain the Music Man.

In a film and stage career that spanned five decades, Robert Preston managed to survive the studio system and the fickleness of the film industry while maintaining his integrity and calling his own shots. A master at shielding his private life, Robert Preston was a distinguished actor and gifted artist on the public stage, yet remained a reclusive, enigmatic man in his private life. Extensive archival research, and interviews Preston’s family members and fellow actors including Rosemary Harris, Christopher Walken, Lesley Ann Warren, Loretta Swit, Bob Gunton, Neva Small, and others, has unveiled a richly detailed portrait of the gifted actor’s personal life as well as an overview of the films and Broadway productions to which he lent his talent.

Despite some fits and starts in both his professional and private life, what emerges from the fabric of Preston’s life is the undeniable truth of his versatility as a performer, one who possessed the innate ability to perform superbly in a variety of genres - drama, comedy, westerns, or musicals. As a testament to his skill as an actor, Preston continued to deliver remarkable performances on stage and screen and strived to reach new apogees, even when cast in flawed projects, up until his untimely death in 1987.

REVIEWS

"From Broadway to Hollywood and back again, Preston's tireless work ethic and solid professionalism have always been legendary, but until now no single narrative has so thoroughly portrayed the man behind the performer. Debra Warren has written a fascinating and meticulous chronology of a heretofore enigmatic star – gregarious but intensely private, overachieving but underestimated, charismatic but modest, strategizing but sincere. Often the subject of both gossip and adulation – sometimes simultaneously – Preston is now revealed in the full spectrum of his personality. Ms. Warren's passion for detail makes this biography as invaluable a reference as it is an enticing read.”
- Ron Spivak, Musical Theater Historian

“Debra Warren captures the breadth and depth of Robert Preston’s remarkable career, his discipline and generosity as an actor, and his immense charm. Warren also reveals the private life behind this gregarious personality, and the selfless woman who for over four decades was Preston’s haven from the tempests of show business. A well-researched—and long-overdue—biography on this beloved prince of the American screen and stage.”
- Paul F. Brown, author of Rufus: James Agee in Tennessee