--- name: "Robert Preston" canonical: "https://film.one/person/robert-preston" roles: ["Actor"] born: "8 June 1918" died: "21 March 1987" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 71 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T04:08:13.706801+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Robert Preston Actor. Born 8 June 1918 in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, USA. Died 21 March 1987. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 8 June 1918, Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, USA - **Died:** 21 March 1987 - **Active:** 1942–1962 - **Also known as:** Robert Preston Meservey - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 71, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1940s 73 (1), 1960s 70 (2) - **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 1 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Action 1, Comedy 1, Drama 1, Family 1, Music 1, Romance 1 - **Screen time:** 7 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $15m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Preston_(actor), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q451811, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0696481/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/40202 ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*The Music Man*](https://film.one/film/the-music-man.md) (78) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Robert Preston > Robert Preston spent his best years playing men who were selling something and letting you know they knew it. Hollywood kept him in B-picture leads and villains in the epics for the best part of twenty years; the stage worked out what he was for. In *Wake Island* (1942) Robert Preston is Private Joe Doyle, one of two Marines who cannot be in the same room without hitting each other. William Bendix is the other, counting the days to the end of his hitch, and the routine runs a scene or two longer than it needs to. We laughed at the pair of them, more at Bendix than at Preston if we are honest, and then the raids began and John Farrow turned the laughter against us. Preston's job in that film is to be the quick one, the man with the answer, and he does it without asking for the frame. It is a fair sample of what Hollywood thought he was for. Which was not a great deal. Paramount signed him in 1938 out of the Pasadena Community Playhouse and put him into Westerns and adventures, *Union Pacific* and *Beau Geste* in 1939 among them, and into three films for Cecil B. DeMille. He was away for the war, came back to freelance work that led nowhere in particular, and gave the best account of the period himself: "I played the lead in all the 'B' pictures and the villain in all the epics." After a while, he said, it was clear to him he had reached what he was going to be in films. In 1951 he went to Broadway instead. That is where he found the part he had been playing all along. Harold Hill in *The Music Man*, on stage in 1957 and on film in 1962, is a salesman with nothing behind the sample case, and Preston took him on with almost no singing experience to speak of. What he had instead is the thing critics have noticed ever since: the con man who lets you see he knows he is one, and is forgiven for it. He had a Western hero's build and a comedian's timing, and until Hill nobody had thought to use both at once. Films took him back after that, in supporting parts built on the same footing: Roger Morgan in *How the West Was Won* (1962), Ace Bonner for Sam Peckinpah in *Junior Bonner* (1972), and Carroll "Toddy" Todd in *Victor/Victoria* (1982), one of two films he made with Blake Edwards. The Edwards part is the one people mean now when they say his name, and the reason is the one that was already there in 1942: a man putting on an act and telling you so. His last film was *The Last Starfighter* (1984), in which he plays Centauri, a recruiter from another planet talking a boy into a job. He finished as a salesman. Start with Hill if you want him at full stretch. Start with Doyle hitting Bendix if you want to see what the studio had on the payroll for twenty years and did not notice. ## Biography Robert Preston (born Robert Preston Meservey) was an American stage and film actor and singer. He was born on 8 June 1918 in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, and died on 21 March 1987 in Montecito, California. He began his career in the late 1930s with Paramount, appearing in films such as *Beau Geste* (1939), *Union Pacific* (1939) and *Wake Island* (1942) as Pvt. Joe Doyle. After military service in the US Army Air Forces during the Second World War, he focused more on stage work. Preston originated the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 Broadway musical *The Music Man*, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical; he reprised it in the 1962 film adaptation. He received a second Tony for *I Do! I Do!* (1966) and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in *Victor/Victoria* (1982). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, encyclopedia.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) - *How the West Was Won* (1962), Fi1m 62, as Roger Morgan — [page](https://film.one/film/how-the-west-was-won.md) - *The Music Man* (1962), Fi1m 78, as Harold Hill — [page](https://film.one/film/the-music-man.md) - *Wake Island* (1942), Fi1m 73, as Pvt. Joe Doyle — [page](https://film.one/film/wake-island.md) ## Complete filmography (63) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Disclosure* (2020), as Carole 'Toddy' Todd (archive footage) - *Broadway's Lost Treasures* (2003), as Harold Hill (segment "The Music Man") - *Outrage!* (1986), as Dennis Riordan - *Finnegan Begin Again* (1985), as Mike Finnegan - *The Last Starfighter* (1984), as Centauri - *September Gun* (1983), as Ben Sunday - *Rehearsal for Murder* (1982), as Alex Dennison - *Victor/Victoria* (1982), as Carroll 'Toddy' Todd - *S.O.B.* (1981), as Dr. Irving Finegarten - *The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg* (1980), as Stranger - *The Chisholms* (1979), series, as Hadley Chisholm - *Semi-Tough* (1977), as Big Ed Bookman - *My Father's House* (1975), as Tom Lindholm Sr. - *Mame* (1974), as Beauregard - *Child's Play* (1972), as Joseph Dobbs - *Junior Bonner* (1972), as Ace Bonner - *All the Way Home* (1963), as Jay Follet - *Island of Love* (1963), as Steve Blair - *How the West Was Won* (1962), as Roger Morgan — Fi1m 62, [page](https://film.one/film/how-the-west-was-won.md) - *The Music Man* (1962), as Harold Hill — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/the-music-man.md) - *The Dark at the Top of the Stairs* (1960), as Rubin Flood - *Made in Heaven* (1956), as Zachary Meredith - *Sentinels in the Air* (1956), as Narrator (voice) - *The Last Frontier* (1955), as Col. Frank Marston - *The 20th Century Fox Hour* (1955), series, Actor - *Climax!* (1954), series, as William Struthers, Cleve Gordon, Lt. Hogue - *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, as Jim Tweedy - *Face to Face* (1952), as Jack Potter - *Schlitz Playhouse of Stars* (1951), series, Actor - *My Outlaw Brother* (1951), as Joe Walter - *Best of the Badmen* (1951), as Matthew Fowler - *Cloudburst* (1951), as John Graham - *When I Grow Up* (1951), as Father Reed - *Lux Video Theatre* (1950), series, as Phil Baxter, Dowey, Jed Kennedy, Kelly, Isaac Eaton, Tom - *Your Show of Shows* (1950), series, Actor - *The Sundowners* (1950), as James Cloud ('Kid Wichita') - *Robert Montgomery Presents* (1950), series, as Jeff Frazer, Professor Richard Wanley - *The Lady Gambles* (1949), as David Boothe - *Tulsa* (1949), as Brad Brady - *Whispering Smith* (1948), as Murray Sinclair - *Blood on the Moon* (1948), as Tate Riling - *Big City* (1948), as Rev. Philip Y. Andrews - *Wild Harvest* (1947), as Jim Davis - *Variety Girl* (1947), as Robert Preston - *The Macomber Affair* (1947), as Francis Macomber - *Night Plane from Chungking* (1943), as Nick Stanton - *Wake Island* (1942), as Pvt. Joe Doyle — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/film/wake-island.md) - *This Gun for Hire* (1942), as Det. Michael Crane - *Reap the Wild Wind* (1942), as Dan Cutler - *Star Spangled Rhythm* (1942), as Robert Preston (uncredited) - *Pacific Blackout* (1941), as Robert Draper - *The Night of January 16th* (1941), as Steve Van Ruyle - *New York Town* (1941), as Paul Bryson, Jr. - *Parachute Battalion* (1941), as Donald Morse - *The Lady from Cheyenne* (1941), as Steve Lewis - *North West Mounted Police* (1940), as Ronnie Logan - *Moon Over Burma* (1940), as Chuck Lane - *Typhoon* (1940), as Johnny Potter - *Beau Geste* (1939), as Digby Geste - *Union Pacific* (1939), as Dick Allen - *Disbarred* (1939), as Bradley Kent - *Illegal Traffic* (1938), as Charles Bent Martin - *King of Alcatraz* (1938), as Robert MacArthur ## Gallery - ![Robert Preston](https://film.one/media/person/1233437/gallery-ac059569662d.jpg) Robert Preston — Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Robert_Preston-publicity.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photo of Robert Preston and Mary Martin from the Broadway play I Do! I Do!. (1966)](https://film.one/media/person/1233437/gallery-462e3676f4d0.jpg) Photo of Robert Preston and Mary Martin from the Broadway play I Do! I Do!. (1966) — RCA Records--they produced the album for the Broadway show, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Robert_Preston_Mary_Martin_Ido%21_Ido%21_1966.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Gregory Peck, Joan Bennett and Robert Preston in American adventure film The Macomber Affair (1947).](https://film.one/media/person/1233437/gallery-6e7f8cc00f36.jpg) Gregory Peck, Joan Bennett and Robert Preston in American adventure film The Macomber Affair (1947). — Benedict Bogeaus Productions, United Artists, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Gregory_Peck%2C_Joan_Bennett%2C_Robert_Preston_The_Macomber_Affair.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Robert Preston](https://film.one/media/person/1233437/gallery-2927136577a6.jpg) Robert Preston — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Preston](https://film.one/media/person/1233437/gallery-239ec81d4d54.jpg) Robert Preston — Image via TMDB - ![Robert Preston](https://film.one/media/person/1233437/gallery-2e40412e6497.jpg) Robert Preston — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1983: Best Supporting Actor (nominated), for *Victor/Victoria* ### Other awards — 2 won, 1 nominated - Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical 1975: Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical (nominated) - Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical 1967: Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical (won) - Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical 1958: Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/robert-preston