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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Robert Preston (actor)

American actor and singer (1918–1987)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Robert Preston Meservey was an American stage and screen actor, best known for his role as Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man, for which he received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He reprised the role in the 1962 film adaptation, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Robert Preston (actor)” as american actor and singer (1918–1987). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 1962—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Robert, Preston and actor can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actor and singer (1918–1987). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1957 and 1962.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Robert Preston (actor)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Preston (actor) primary sources, Robert Preston (actor) archive and Robert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Robert Preston (actor)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Robert Preston (actor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.