Michael Preece: Movies & Filmography

Michael Conway Preece (September 15, 1936 – February 27, 2025) was an American film and television director, script supervisor, producer, and actor whose prolific career spanned more than five decades. Born in Los Angeles, California, Preece graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School before taking his first professional job as a script supervisor in the summer of 1955 while attending Santa Monica City College. Coming from a deeply rooted Hollywood family, his mother, Thelma Preece, was the first female business agent in Hollywood and the founder of the Script Clerks Guild, which later became the Script Supervisor Local 871 IATSE, while his father worked as a salesman for a cigarette and cigar company. Preece built an impressive resume as a script supervisor on iconic television series such as Mr. Novak, I Spy, and Hawaii Five-O, as well as numerous feature films including The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Cimarron (1962), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), True Grit (1969), The Getaway (1972), and The Paper Chase (1973). Starting in 1975, he transitioned into directing and helmed over 300 episodes of television, setting a record on Dallas for the most one-hour episodes directed. Notably, on Dallas, he filmed each cast member firing a gun to keep secret the identity of J.R.'s shooter. Among his other notable directorial works were Walker, Texas Ranger, The Streets of San Francisco, Knots Landing, 7th Heaven, Falcon Crest, MacGyver, and Baywatch. Preece also directed the financially successful film The Prize Fighter (1979) for New World Pictures, as well as Logan's War: Bound by Honor (1998), for which he won a Lone Star Film & Television Award for Best TV Director. In his personal life, Preece married his high school sweetheart Paula in 1953, with whom he had four children before their 1968 divorce; his daughter Gretchen married acclaimed singer-songwriter Randy Newman. He later married Hollywood hairstylist Evelyn Preece (née Thomas) in 1969, remaining with her until her death in 2017. Preece passed away of heart failure at his Brentwood home in Los Angeles on February 27, 2025, at the age of 88, and was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.