Robert Preston
Robert Preston (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. Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a garment worker and a record store clerk. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School, training as a musician and playing several instruments, but quit at age sixteen to study acting at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. Preston made his Broadway debut in 1940 in the play The Philadelphia Story. He went on to star in a number of successful Broadway musicals, including The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), and I Do! I Do! (1966). He also appeared in a number of films, including The Music Man (1962), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), and Victor/Victoria (1982). Preston was a versatile actor who could play a wide range of roles. He was known for his charisma, his singing voice, and his comic timing. He was a two-time Tony Award winner and was nominated for an Academy Award. He was also a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Preston died of cancer in 1987 at the age of 68. He was survived by his wife, Catherine Craig; the couple had no children. A biography of the actor, @Robert Preston - Forever The Music Man”, was published in 2022.
How the West Was Won
as Roger MorganThe epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to...
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Disclosure
as Carole 'Toddy' Todd (archive footage)An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel...
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This Gun for Hire
as Det. Michael CraneSadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked...
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Video game expert Alex Rogan finds himself transported to another planet after conquering the...
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Junior Bonner
as Ace BonnerWith his bronco-busting career on its last legs, Junior Bonner heads to his hometown to try his...
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S.O.B.
as Dr. Irving FinegartenA movie producer who made a huge flop tries to salvage his career by revamping his film as an...
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Victor/Victoria
as Carroll "Toddy" ToddA struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates...
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Mame
as Beauregard Jackson Pickett BurnsideThe madcap life of eccentric Mame Dennis and her bohemian, intellectual arty clique is disrupted...
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The Music Man
as Harold HillA con man comes to an Iowa town with a scam using a boy's marching band program, but things...
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Reap the Wild Wind
as Dan CutlerThe Florida Keys in 1840, where the implacable hurricanes of the Caribbean scream, where the...
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Whispering Smith
as Murray SinclairSmith is an iron-willed railroad detective. When his friend Murray is fired from the railroad...
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Night of 100 Stars II
as SelfThis special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited...
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Blood on the Moon
as Tate RilingDown-and-out cowhand Jim Garry is asked by his old friend Tate Riling to help mediate a cattle...
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The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
as StrangerA mysterious stranger descends on the small town of Hadleyburg to teach its deceitful residents...
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Semi-Tough
as Big Ed BookmanA three-way friendship between two free-spirited professional football players and the owner's...
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The Macomber Affair
as Francis MacomberA big-game hunter takes a rich American couple on an African safari. Film adaptation of Ernest...
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Variety Girl
as Robert PrestonDozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business...
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Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade
as Self (archive footage)An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured...
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Beau Geste
as Digby GesteWhen three brothers join the Foreign Legion to escape a troubled past, they find themselves...
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Union Pacific
as Dick AllenOne of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad...
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Tulsa
as Brad BradyIt's Tulsa, Oklahoma at the start of the oil boom and Cherokee Lansing's rancher father is...
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The Last Frontier
as Col. Frank MarstonThree trappers become scouts for a cavalry captain who loses his fort to a hated colonel.
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Child's Play
as Joseph DobbsAt an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older...
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Wake Island
as Pvt. Joe DoyleIn late 1941, with no hope of relief or re-supply, a small band of United States Marines tries...
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Cloudburst
as John GrahamCanadian World War II veteran John Graham works in London as a code breaker. Tragedy strikes...
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Night Plane from Chungking
as Nick StantonWithout lights and in a driving rain, a bus is lumbering along the muddy Assam Road en route...
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The Lady Gambles
as David BootheWhen Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass...
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North West Mounted Police
as Ronnie LoganTexas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him)...
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Broadway's Lost Treasures
as Harold Hill (segment "The Music Man")The golden age of the annual Tony Awards ceremony lasted from 1967 to 1986 — the period during...
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Best of the Badmen
as Matthew FowlerAfter the North defeats the South, Union Maj. Jeff Clanton heads to Missouri to provide the...
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Typhoon
as Johnny PotterTwo men searching for black pearls are marooned on an island when their crew mutinies. There...
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Night of 100 Stars
as SelfThe most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took...
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Finnegan Begin Again
as Mike FinneganA schoolteacher in her early 40s, involved in a dead-end love affair with a married mortician,...
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Big City
as Rev. Philip Y. AndrewsA young orphan in New York's Lower East Side is collectively adopted by three neighborhood...
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My Father's House
as Tom Lindholm Sr.Recovering from a heart attack, a workaholic editor recalls the simple days of his youth....
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The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
as Rubin FloodIn Oklahoma in the 1920s, Rubin Flood loses his job as a traveling salesman when the company...
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Moon Over Burma
as Chuck LaneThe managers of a teak lumber camp in Burma compete for the affections of a beautiful American...
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The Lady from Cheyenne
as Steve LewisFictionalized story of the 1869 adoption of women's suffrage in Wyoming Territory. In the...
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King of Alcatraz
as Robert MacArthurA convict who has just escaped from Alcatraz Prison takes over a passenger ship. Two of the...
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The Sundowners
as James Cloud ('Kid Wichita')Brother is pitted against brother in this tale of fueding ranchers in the old west.
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Island of Love
as Steve BlairCon artist Steve Blair persuades Tony Dallas, a Manhattan gangster, to finance a movie about...
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Illegal Traffic
as Charles Bent MartinG-Man Charles Bent Martin is sent out to break up a nationwide racket. A transport company is...
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My Outlaw Brother
as Joe WalterDanny, a greenhorn from New York comes to the Mexican border in search for his older brother...
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Disbarred
as Bradley KentThe Bar Association disbars attorney Tyler Cradon when it appears he was implicated in the...
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When I Grow Up
as Father ReedJosh is a young boy who feels neglected and misunderstood at home. Preparing to run away, he...
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All the Way Home
as Jay FolletIn the early 1900's Tennessee, a loving family undergoes the shock of the father's sudden,...
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New York Town
as Paul Bryson, Jr.Victor Ballard, a happy-go-lucky albeit impoverished sidewalk photographer, shares a New York...
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Rehearsal for Murder
as Alex DennisonA year after his fiancée's death, a playwright schedules a rehearsal for his new play, which...
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The Night of January 16th
as Steve Van RuyleAccused of killing her employer, financier Bjorn Faulkner, Kit is championed by wisecracking...
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Outrage!
as Dennis RiordanAfter a technicality results in the release of a man being tried for the rape and murder of a...
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Wild Harvest
as Jim DavisJoe is the head of an itinerant combine crew, working the harvests against rival crew boss...
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Face to Face
as Jack PotterTwo short films released together under a collective title. The first, "Secret Sharer", directed...
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September Gun
as Ben SundayBen Sunday, a long-in-tooth gunfighter forms an uneasy alliance with a Catholic nun. The...
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Chita Rivera: A Lot Of Livin' To Do
as Self (archive footage)A retrospective of Chita Rivera's film, television and stage career, including interviews with...
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Star Spangled Rhythm
as Robert Preston (uncredited)Pop, a security guard at Paramount has told his son that he's the head of the studio. When his...
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Parachute Battalion
as Donald MorseDirector Leslie Goodwins' 1941 military drama, about various men who become buddies when they...
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Going Hollywood: The '30s
as Self - HostRobert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they...
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Pacific Blackout
as Robert DraperFalsely convicted of murder, young Robert Draper escapes custody during a practice blackout...
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Wings Up
as HimselfClark Gable stars in this propaganda short about the Officers Candidate School of the Army Air...
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What's My Line?
as Self - Mystery GuestFour panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while...
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What's My Line?
as Self - PanelistFour panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while...
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Tony Awards
as Self - Presenter / PerformerThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award,...
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Tony Awards
as Self - Host / Nominee/ PerformerThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award,...
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Tony Awards
as Self - HostThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award,...
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Tony Awards
as Self - PresenterThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award,...
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Tony Awards
as Self - PerformerThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award,...
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Climax!
as William StruthersClimax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was...
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Climax!
as Cleve GordonClimax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was...
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Climax!
as Lt. HogueClimax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was...
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The Merv Griffin Show
as SelfThe Merv Griffin Show is an American television talk show, starring Merv Griffin. The series ran...
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Robert Montgomery Presents
as Jeff FrazerRobert Montgomery Presents is an American dramatic television series which was produced by NBC...
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Robert Montgomery Presents
as Professor Richard WanleyRobert Montgomery Presents is an American dramatic television series which was produced by NBC...
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Your Show of Shows
as uncreditedYour Show of Shows was a live 90-minute variety show that was broadcast weekly in the United...
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The 20th Century Fox Hour
as uncreditedThe 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States...
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The Chisholms
as Hadley ChisholmThe Chisholms is a CBS western miniseries starring Robert Preston, which aired from March 29,...
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General Electric Theater
as Jim TweedyGeneral Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was...
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Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
as uncreditedSchlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS....
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