Actor Harve Presnell dies of blight at 75

NEW YORK – Harve Presnell, whose booming baritone graced such Broadway musicals as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "Annie," has died at age 75.

The amateur died Tuesday of pancreatic blight at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., said Gregg Klein, Presnell's agent.

Although he was best accepted for his roles in agreeable theater, Presnell additionally is remembered as William H. Macy's father-in-law in the Coen brothers' 1996 blur "Fargo."

Among his added movies were "When the Boys Meet the Girls" (1965), "The Glory Guys" (1965) and "Paint Your Wagon" (1969) as able-bodied as the TV alternation "The Pretender" (1997-2000).

Yet it was in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1960) that the rugged, 6-foot-4 Presnell was aboriginal noticed by Broadway audiences. In the Meredith Willson musical, he played advantageous mining prospector "Leadville" Johnny Brown adverse Tammy Grimes' angry Molly. Presnell afresh his role in the 1964 blur adaptation which starred Debbie Reynolds as the afloat appellation character.

Presnell alike played the adventurous Rhett Butler in a agreeable adaptation of "Gone with the Wind" (adapted by Horton Foote and with a account by Harold Rome) that was apparent in London in 1972.

For a acceptable allotment of his career, Presnell portrayed the wealthy, follicle-challenged Daddy Warbucks in assorted incarnations of "Annie." The amateur was aboriginal offered the role in a bout of "Annie" and anticipation the appellation was a appearance business abridgement for "Annie, Get Your Gun," the agreeable in which he had already played analyzer Frank Butler.

Then he abounding "Annie" and saw a bald, earlier man instead of a dashing, adventurous lead.

It was a big shock, he told The Associated Press in an account in 1993: "I thought, `What's this? I'm a arch man!'"

But the absoluteness was acceptable for him, Presnell said, adding: "It was a catechism of saying, `I'm no best Frank Butler or Rhett Butler or 'Leadville' Johnny Brown. And they were advantageous acceptable money."

After Presnell did the two-year "Annie" bout (1979-81) he went into "Annie" on Broadway and was still Daddy Warbucks on closing night, Jan. 2, 1983, in New York. In 1990, he played Warbucks in "Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge," the blighted aftereffect to "Annie" that bankrupt during its Washington attack and never got to New York.

Another version, blue-blooded "Annie Warbucks," alike off-Broadway in 1993 for a four-month run with Presnell afresh assuming Annie's affluent benefactor.

The amateur was built-in George Harvey Presnell on Sept. 14, 1933, in Modesto, Calif. He went to the University of Southern California on a sports scholarship. After three weeks, the arch of the music academy heard him sing and offered him the aforementioned scholarship for music. He anon abdicate academy and spent three seasons singing in Europe. And it was in Berlin that Willson, the artisan of "Molly Brown," aboriginal heard him sing.