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Show Harve fresheUSays: DacTs "My a Guy No-Nonsen- se F (M W'- - I ft' : (A i I first met Harve when Pres-ne- ll Tammy Grimes, who costarred with him in the Broadway production of "The Unsink-abl- e Molly Brown," brought him over to the house for dinner one night. On Father's Day, this robust singer pays tribute to a "tough" dad who was not above giving his son a whack but knew how to bring him up to be a man By PEER J. OPPENHEIMER Family Weekly, June iO, I6S He had just flown in from a fishing trip up north with his father, Hubert Presnell. And though his agents were in town working desperately to get him the role of Leadville Johnny Brown in the film version of "Molly Brown," all he could talk about was his father and their trip. His dad had hooked a big salmon and played the leaping, splashing fish for more than an hour along the rocky bank of a pool. Finally he stumbled into a pothole and went over backward. The big fish snapped the leader and with an impudent splash of its tail disappeared upstream. Glowering disgustedly, Harve's dad picked himself out of the water, reeled in his line, put on a new wet fly, and began to cast again. "You don't catch any fish sitting around in the water," he explained tersely. This blunt, direct attitude toward existence has colored Harve Presnell's life and character. At d 30, the to the Hollygiant brings wood screen not only the best male voice heard in films in recent years but an outgoing, rowdy toughness that reminds one of the 7 Old West. When I spoke to Harve again recently, he was working on his new film, a Western, "The Glory Guys" (he got the part in "Molly Brown" of course). I asked him whether his robust, style came from brown-haire- big-budg- rough-and-rea- et his father, who at 50 is still a busy chicken rancher near Modesto, Calif. "I was certainly raised without, any frills," Harve replied. "My father believes in doing things in a straightforward .way. When I got even a little out of hand, he used to knock me clear acrosT;he room before trying to analyze my reasons." Considering that Harve had shot up to six feet, three inches by the time he was 13, such reprimands were no easy task! But while this attitude made Harve listen to orders, his father also taught him to stand on his own two feet. "The most valuable advice he gave me," Harve recalls, "was: 'Don't get too much in a rut. Don't do the same thing over and over. Just remember, there's only one difference between a rut and a grave it's a matter of depth.' " His father was most emphatic about interesting him in different occupations. "He told me many times, 'If you have talent, don't beat your brains out on steady manual labor for $1 or $1.50 an hour. Go in as many directions as you can." ' ,s A result, Harve has mined gold, been a broncobuster and a poultry rancher, worked in a feed t, mill, driven construction End done almost every kind of farm work. But in the back of his mind was always the idea of becoming a singer. "I guess it started in church choirs," he explained. He was barely eight when he was singing in the Choral Society of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra. Thereafter, he sang at most of the community concerts in the area. Harve was never much for formal education. He seemed to play truant almost as often as he was equip-,men- |