‘The Music Man’: Secrets From Set of the 1962 Movie, Including How Robert Preston Got the Part
Filming The Music Man became a family affair for Shirley Jones, who was secretly pregnant with her second son, Patrick. “Robert Preston and my mom are on that footbridge singing,” recalls Shirley’s oldest, Shaun Cassidy. “Preston steps back and says, ‘What the hell was that?’ My mother looks down and realizes that was Patrick Cassidy, because he’s just kicked Mr. Preston from the womb.”
Shirley’s pregnancy, which she initially kept secret for fear of being fired, wasn’t the only obstacle facing the film’s production. Bringing the musical by Meredith Willson from the Broadway stage, where it became a smash in 1957, to film also required some ruthless decision-making. “Even though Robert Preston won a Tony Award for The Music Man, Jack Warner wanted a big star,” says Debra Warren, author of Robert Preston: Forever the Music Man. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra both wanted to star. Warner Bros. also considered Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Dean Martin and Cary Grant for the role of con man Harold Hill. “Meredith Willson came in and said, ‘Listen, unless you use Robert Preston, you don’t do my show,’” recalls Shirley. “And that’s how Preston got the part.”
The studio had more control over the other cast and hired Shirley, who had recently won an Oscar for 1960’s Elmer Gantry, over Barbara Cook, a previous Tony winner in the role of librarian Marian on Broadway. “She was devastated,” says Warren. “But they wanted the big name draw of Shirley Jones.”
The situation also made Shirley nervous. “She feared that she would constantly be compared to Barbara,” explains Warren. “She was very pleasantly surprised because Robert was very magnanimous and big-hearted. He never mentioned the Broadway production, and they became friends.”
Shirley, who was married to performer Jack Cassidy, often brought her son Shaun to work. “I was 4 years old,” he recalls. “I learned to ride a bicycle on the set of this movie because this older kid, Ron Howard, was already riding a bike around the lot. My mom got me a tricycle, and I started riding that around, chasing Ronnie.”
Ron began playing Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show shortly before being hired as Winthrop, Marian’s withdrawn little brother. “Ron had natural acting talent, but the singing and dancing were a struggle for him,” says Warren. In some dancing scenes, “they filmed him from the knees up!”
More than 60 years after The Music Man debuted in theaters, it remains a beloved classic. “Meredith Willson wrote The Music Man as a valentine to America,” explains Warren. “It offers a message of hope. The con man is rehabilitated. Marian transforms from a stick-in-the-mud librarian to someone open to love. And the whole town chang- es from being a rigid place to a place where everyone gets along.”
