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29-425: Andy Schaeffer is a spoiled mama's boy who usually gets his way. He breezes through college, while girlfriend Susan Daniels works hard at a job to pay for her education. She isn't sure where their relationship is going. Andy's grades begin to worsen, and he's being drafted by the army. Andy reports for basic training at Fort Ord, making it clear to everybody there that he'd rather be anyplace else. Marion Hargrove had

58-472: A Tony Award for his performance. Preston appeared on the cover of Time on July 21, 1958. He continued in the role until January 1959, when he was replaced by Eddie Albert for 18 months. In June 1960, Preston returned to the role for two weeks, until his successor, Bert Parks , became available. Parks finished the run while Preston was in Hollywood, busy with the film version of the show. In 1961, Preston

87-526: 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,

116-869: A Los Angeles police detective in the noir This Gun for Hire (1942). World War II interrupted Preston's Paramount assignments. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the United States Army Air Forces and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. 9th Air Force with the 386th Bombardment Group (Medium). At the end of the war in Europe, the 386th and Captain Robert Meservey, an S-2 Officer (intelligence), were stationed in Sint-Truiden, Belgium . Meservey's job had been receiving intelligence reports from 9th Air Force headquarters and briefing

145-521: A Musical . He reprised the role in the 1962 film adaptation , for which he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination. Preston made his Broadway debut in The Male Animal in 1952. He won two Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical for The Music Man (1957) and I Do! I Do! (1967) and was Tony-nominated for Mack and Mabel (1975). In 1972 Preston co-starred alongside Steve McQueen as Ace Bonner in

174-418: A billing clerk for American Express . 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,

203-420: A huge success with his book See Here, Private Hargrove , which sold 3,500,000 copies. Warner Bros. approached him to see if he would write a story about a draftee in the army in peacetime. Hargrove agreed but wanted the story to be accurate, as he had left the army in 1945. He arranged through Warners to undertake enlistment and some basic training at Fort Ord. Hargrove told Warners he had enough material for

232-508: A stepdaughter. Hargrove died from complications of pneumonia in Long Beach, California, on August 23, 2003, aged 83. Robert Preston (actor) Robert Preston Meservey (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer. His best known role was Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man for which he received the Tony Award for Best Actor in

261-562: A surprise novelty hit and part of many baby-boomers' childhood memories. In 1962, Preston played an important supporting role, as wagonmaster Roger Morgan, in MGM's epic How the West Was Won . In 1965, he was the male part of a duo-lead musical, I Do! I Do! with Mary Martin , for which he won his second Tony Award. He played the title role in the musical Ben Franklin in Paris , and he originated

290-482: Is mainly episodic and smacks of the service comedies turned out during World War II, but provides entertaining fare for the youthful and family trade." The film was the 72nd highest grossing film of 1957. Notes Marion Hargrove Edward Thomas Marion Lawton Hargrove Jr. (October 13, 1919 – August 23, 2003) was an American writer. Hargrove was born in Mount Olive, North Carolina . He worked on

319-582: The Archive of American Television. Hargrove was one of three Hollywood writers interviewed and analyzed at length in Prime Time Authorship (2002), by Douglas Heil. While working at Warner Bros. in 1959, he was the center of a successful grass-roots letter-writing campaign to acquire a suitable couch for his office on the studio lot. A selection of these letters was published in Playboy Magazine under

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348-616: The Sam Peckinpah film, Junior Bonner. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards , first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982), the latter earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor . Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts , the son of Ruth L. (née Rea) and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and

377-1075: The United States entered World War II. (The book was made into a 1944 movie with Robert Walker as Hargrove and Donna Reed as his love interest.) During the war, he served on the staff of Yank, the Army Weekly . After the war, Hargrove wrote two novels: Something's Got to Give (1948) and The Girl He Left Behind (1956), which was made into a motion picture in 1956, starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood. He also wrote for various popular magazines, and served as feature editor of Argosy . Hargrove settled in Los Angeles in 1955 and began writing television and film scripts. His credits include Bert D'Angelo/Superstar , Cash McCall (1960) starring James Garner , The Music Man (1962) with Robert Preston , and television episodes of Maverick (1957) with James Garner, The Restless Gun (1957) starring John Payne , Colt .45 (1957), Zane Grey Theater (1957),

406-402: The bomber crews on what to expect in accomplishing their missions. When Preston resumed his movie career in 1947, it was as a freelance character actor, accepting roles for Paramount, RKO , MGM , and various independent producers. Although Preston acted in many movies, he never became a major star. In a 1984 interview, he recalled, "I played the lead in all the B pictures and the villain in all

435-522: The book. The studio paid him to write the novel and retained only the screen rights. The novel was published in 1956. Hargrove wanted to call it All Quiet in the Third Platoon , but Warners preferred The Girl He Left Behind . Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood had appeared in The Burning Hills together, and Warner Bros. was keen to build them into an on-screen team. Filming started May 1956. Much of

464-458: The epics. After a while, it was clear to me I had sort of reached what I was going to be in movies." Preston found additional roles in 1950s television. Preston is probably best known for his performance as Professor Harold Hill in Meredith Willson 's musical The Music Man (1957). "They'd run through all the musical comedy people before they cast me", Preston remembered years later. He won

493-679: The film was shot at Fort Ord and used real soldiers. "We had a very nice company and a very nice cast," said director David Butler, who claims he recommended James Garner play the lead, but had to accept Hunter. Tab Hunter recalled, "David Butler was more of a traffic cop than a director, keeping us on time, under budget, and thoroughly uninspired. The most memorable thing about the film was the supporting cast, brimming with more fresh talent: James Garner, David Janssen, Alan King, Henry Jones, and Murray Hamilton — all destined for long careers." Hunter said Natalie's Wood's "development" since The Burning Hills "was incredible. She became freer with herself in

522-664: 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 Dick Allen in the Cecil B DeMille epic Union Pacific. Although not awarded until 2002 due to World War II, the film was the first winner of the Palme d'Or for 1939. He featured in North West Mounted Police (1940), also with Cooper. He played

551-502: The newspaper at his Charlotte, North Carolina, high school and worked part-time at The Charlotte News while he was in high school. He attended Belmont Abbey College and was the feature editor of The Charlotte News before he went into the Army, where he worked on the staff of Yank, the Army Weekly . Hargrove is noted for the bestselling book See Here, Private Hargrove , a collection of humorous newspaper columns written mostly before

580-649: The pilot script for 77 Sunset Strip titled Girl on the Run (1958) with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. , The Rogues (1964) with David Niven , Charles Boyer and Gig Young , I Spy (1966) with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby , The Name of the Game (1969) with Tony Franciosa , Gene Barry and Robert Stack , Nichols (1972) with James Garner, The Brothers O'Toole (1973), The Waltons (1975), and Bret Maverick (1981) with James Garner. Collaborator Roy Huggins discusses Hargrove at length in part 6 of his video interview with

609-505: The role of Henry II in the stage production of The Lion in Winter , whom Peter O'Toole portrayed in the film version, receiving an Academy Award nomination. In 1974, he starred alongside Bernadette Peters in Jerry Herman 's Broadway musical Mack & Mabel as Mack Sennett , the famous silent film director. That same year, the film version of Mame , another Jerry Herman musical,

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638-557: The roles he had played in his youth, despite having aged out of them. With a libretto and songs by Bob Merrill and direction by Gene Saks , the show closed during its Boston tryout. In 1979, Preston portrayed a snake-handling family patriarch Hadley Chisholm in a CBS Western miniseries , The Chisholms , with Rosemary Harris as his wife, Minerva. The story chronicled the Chisholm family losing their land in Virginia and migrating to

667-517: The title "Hollywood Horizontal" (1959) and anthologized in The Playboy Book of Humor and Satire (1965). In 1965, Hargrove attempted to mold a television series after See Here, Private Hargrove , with Peter Helm in the starring role. The pilot was produced but never sold. Hargrove married Alison Pfeiffer on December 1, 1942. They had three children and were divorced on May 11, 1950. He and his second wife, Robin, had three children. He also had

696-436: The way she used her face and body. She was maturing as a woman and an actress, and while her mother drilled her to never bite the hand that fed her... she privately groused about being stuck in such a tiny, lame role, unworthy of an Oscar nominee." James Garner had a small role. He later said the film "was awful and I was awful, but it was the best I could do at the time." Variety said "Film, with sometimes serious overtones,

725-447: The well-received HBO 1985 movie Finnegan, Begin Again with Mary Tyler Moore . Preston's final role was in the television film Outrage! (1986); he portrayed a grief-stricken father who seeks justice for the brutal rape and murder of his daughter. Preston married actress Catherine Craig in 1940. On March 21, 1987, at age 68, Preston died of lung cancer . He is the subject of

754-866: The west to begin a new life. When CBS tried to continue the saga as a series the following year, Preston reprised his role, his character dying in the fifth episode. The series, which also featured co-stars Ben Murphy , Brett Cullen , and James Van Patten, lasted only four more episodes after Preston's departure. Preston appeared in several other stage and film musicals, including Victor/Victoria (1982), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. His other film roles include Ace Bonner in Sam Peckinpah 's Junior Bonner (1972), "Big Ed" Bookman in Semi-Tough (1977), and Dr. Irving Finegarten in Blake Edwards ' 1981 Hollywood satire, S.O.B. His last theatrical film role

783-495: Was asked to make a recording as part of a program by the President's Council on Physical Fitness to encourage schoolchildren to do more daily exercise. Copies of the recording of the song, Chicken Fat , written and composed by Meredith Willson, performed by Preston with full orchestral accompaniment, were distributed to elementary schools across the nation and played for students as they performed calisthenics . The song later became

812-585: Was in The Last Starfighter (1984) as an interstellar con man / military recruiter called Centauri. He said that he based his approach to the character of Centauri on that which he had taken to Professor Harold Hill. Indeed, the role of Centauri was written for him with his performance as Harold Hill in mind. In 1983, Preston played an aging gunfighter in September Gun , a CBS TV Western film opposite Patty Duke and Christopher Lloyd . He also starred in

841-433: Was released with Preston starring, alongside Lucille Ball , in the role of Beauregard Burnside. In the film, which was not a box-office success, Preston sang "Loving You", which Herman wrote especially for Preston's film portrayal. In 1978, Preston starred in another musical that did not make it to Broadway, The Prince of Grand Street, in which he played a matinee idol of New York's Yiddish theater who refused to renounce

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