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Deaths on March 21

Robert Preston (actor)
1987Mar, 21

Robert Preston (actor)

Robert Preston, American captain, actor, and singer (b. 1918)
Robert Preston Meservey (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer of Broadway and cinema, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards.

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Events on 1987

  • 27Apr

    Kurt Waldheim

    The U.S. Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim (and his wife, Elisabeth, who had also been a Nazi) from entering the USA, charging that he had aided in the deportations and executions of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
  • 1May

    Auschwitz concentration camp

    Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
  • 5Jul

    Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

    Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE uses suicide attacks on the Sri Lankan Army for the first time. The Black Tigers are born and, in the following years, will continue to kill with the tactic.
  • 27Jul

    RMS Titanic

    RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
  • 7Nov

    Habib Bourguiba

    In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.