Wayde Preston
American actor (1929-1992)
Wayde Preston (born William Erskine Strange; September 10, 1929 – February 6, 1992) was an American actor cast from 1957 to 1960 in the lead role in 67 episodes of the ABC/Warner Bros. Western television series, Colt .45.
Background
Preston was born William Erskine Strange in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, and his father taught in a high school there. He was a park ranger and performed musically on the rodeo circuit before he got his break as an actor.
Preston attended the University of Wyoming and served 4+1⁄2 years in the Army, half of that time in Korea. He served with anti-aircraft forces, paratroops and tanks before coming out as a first lieutenant in 1954.
Acting career
In Colt .45 he played Christopher Colt, a government undercover agent who masquerades as a Colt 45 revolver salesman traveling throughout the Old West. Preston also played the role of Christopher Colt in 1958 and 1959 in four episodes relating to "The Canary Kid" of the ABC/WB Sugarfoot series. Preston appeared in "The Saga of Waco Williams" on Maverick.
“Wayde Preston” enters the record as american actor (1929-1992). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wayde, Preston and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Wayde Preston” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Wayde, Preston and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1611179. VIAF identifies the subject as 76021310. The Library of Congress control number is no2004015962. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1992, 1957 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wayde Preston” 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.