16/07/2024
Although Robert Preston scored a great success in the original stage version of the show "The Music Man," he was not the first choice for the film version, mostly because he was not a major box office star. Bing Crosby was offered the part, but turned it down. Jack L. Warner, who was notorious for wanting to film stage musicals with bigger stars than the ones who played the roles onstage, wanted Frank Sinatra for the role of Professor Hill, but the show's creator Meredith Willson insisted upon Preston. Warner also offered the role of Hill to Cary Grant, but Grant declined, saying "nobody could do that role as well as Bob Preston." Grant also reportedly told Warner that he (Grant) would not bother to see the film unless Preston was in it.
However... Despite winning a Tony Award for playing Marian Paroo on Broadway, Barbara Cook lost the role in the film to Shirley Jones. This because the studio needed a bankable star to open the movie;,and neither Cook nor Preston, though both Tony winners, were thought to be bankable. But Shirley Jones in 1961 was a box office superstar. a proven Broadway ingenue. and an Oscar winner,so she got the role.
Before starring in "The Music Man," Preston had not only never appeared in a musical before, he had never sung a note professionally before.
"Everytime I turned down something, or wasn't offered something I really wanted, the very next thing that I did was the thing I should have done all along. It's been a lucky career that way. Nothing that I've ever made really hurt me. I've survived some bad ones, just the way I've survived some plays that ran four performances."(Wikipedia/IMDb)
Happy Birthday, Robert Preston! See less
