The Music Man's Robert Preston Was With Wife Catherine For Nearly 50 Years Before His Death

Veteran actor Robert Preston had a long and distinguished stage and screen career, with memorable roles in comedies ("Victor/Victoria"), dramas ("The Dark at the Top of the Stairs"), sci-fi ("The Last Starfighter"), thrillers ("Rehearsal for Murder"), and everything in between. But to millions of fans all over the world, he'll always be known as "Professor" Harold Hill, the charming flim-flam artist of "The Music Man." Preston originated the role on Broadway, and then reprised it in the 1962 film adaptation, co-starring Shirley Jones (who later added to her fame as the beloved matriarch of "The Partridge Family"). 

Many remember the actor most fondly for his Oscar-nominated role in "Victor/Victoria." Preston played Toddy, a gay cabaret performer in 1930s Paris who befriends Victoria, a fellow downtrodden singer. With Toddy's help, Julie Andrews stunningly transforms into female impersonator Victor, making her/him a nightclub sensation. Preston was so convincing in the role that viewers assumed he was a member of the LGBTQIA+ community in real life. In fact, he had one of the most enduring hetero marriages in Hollywood — a rarity in an industry where divorces and multiple spouses abound. 

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Born Robert Preston Meservey, he was raised in Southern California, began his acting career as a teenager and never looked back. After meeting fellow actor Catherine Craig at the Pasadena Playhouse, he didn't look back, either. A November 1940 announcement in the Oakland Tribune read in part: "Robert Preston, film star, and Catherine Craig, young actress, returned to Hollywood today from a Las Vegas, NV, elopement. They motored to Las Vegas yesterday and were married at a ceremony performed by the Rev. Berkeley Bunker. [...] They postponed an immediate honeymoon because Preston is working."

After joining the ranks of celeb couples who had ultra-private weddings — only the owners of the Las Vegas chapel witnessed their union — Robert and Catherine Preston stayed together for nearly a half century, separating only briefly when the "S.O.B." star served in World War II. Catherine, born Catherine Jewel Feltus, took on a few additional movie and stage projects after marrying, then shifted her focus to supporting Robert's ambitions. He acknowledged this in a 1965 interview quoted by the Los Angeles Times. "My wife...used to be an actress," he acknowledged. "She submerged her career to her marriage. In marriage someone has to be a giver and someone a taker. I am a taker who married a giver."

Like any couple, the Prestons weathered their fair share of storms. Infertility issues sadly thwarted the couple's hopes of starting a family, and Robert's well-known dalliances with other women repeatedly tested their vows. In a 1982 interview with People, the Oscar nominee admitted that his wife "can probably remember my being temperamental, because I'm not afraid to show her a side that I won't show to other people." Catherine added that she was sympathetic to Robert's temper if he was busy working on an acting project. "Sometimes, though, he's temperamental and I don't understand," she added. 

And yet, their love and commitment to each other always won out. "We keep each other pretty straight," Catherine reasoned. "And that's a real pleasure. Bob wears well." The Prestons would no doubt have stayed together to celebrate their golden anniversary and beyond if not for Robert's death from lung cancer in 1987, at the age of 68. Catherine never returned to acting, and never remarried. She lived another 17 years, dying in 2004, at 88.