Robert Preston

He won a Tony Award starring in the Broadway masterwork "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."  And fortunately his performance was captured well in the film adaptation of that brilliant show.  (Watch that film for a sample of his greatness.) And he won another Tony Award for "Tru,'his one-man show about Truman Capote (which was later successfully adapted for public television). He was simply compelling. And people who would never have watched the real Truman Capote speak for an evening were mesmerized by his theatrical version of Capote.  I was impressed, too, by his ability to surrender himself entirely to the needs of the role; if he was portraying a real person, like Truman Capote (or, later, Dominick Dunne, for "American Crime Stories"), he could become the character so thoroughly, you almost forgot you were watching Robert Morse. [more]