Leading Character a Librarian?

Meridth Wilson’s “The Music Man” hums in our ears, whether we are watching the show or film or not. The musical hit on Broadway dates to 1957. The story has its roots in Wilson’s Iowa boyhood. Howard Hill, the very-much-a-traveling-con-man played famously by Robert Preston, is the leading male character. He is as loveable as a con man can be. Marian Paroo, the well-bred and prim librarian in River City, Iowa, is the female lead. She sings a yearning “Good Night, My Someone” early in Act I, and they together sing “Till There Was You” late in Act II. An unlikely pairing that comes to be ends magically well. You cannot leave the theater or exit the TV channel without feeling good, and without a smile. That is the fictional librarian who is perhaps best known in the world of the a…