David John Preller Sr., a Baltimore attorney who had been chairman of the old State Board of Movie Censors, died Jan. 6 of a massive stroke at St. Joseph Medical Center.
The longtime Brooklandville resident was 87.
Mr. Preller, the son of grocers, was born in Baltimore and raised on Kennedy Avenue. After graduating in 1941 from City College, he went to work at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River.
Mr. Preller enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1943 and after being trained as a B-24 Liberator Bomber nose gunner, he was assigned to the 15th Air Force 464th Bomb Group in Italy, where he completed 50 missions over Germany.
Discharged with the rank of staff sergeant at war's end, Mr. Preller briefly returned to the Martin Co., before leaving to become a salesman and part-owner of Veterans Realty Co.
In 1946, Mr. Preller went to work in the law office of David Markoff, where he remained until 1947 when he became a claims examiner for the old United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co.
He earned a law degree in 1950 from the University of Baltimore, the same year he ran an unsuccessful Democratic campaign for the House of Delegates.
"David was a good friend of my father's and had a Democratic club in the York Road area. I remember giving out cards for Dave when he ran in 1950," said retired state Attorney General Joseph J. Curran Jr.
Mr. Preller established the Third District Independent Democratic Club and had been president of the Young Democrats.
He had been a political ally of former Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr. and had served as assistant city solicitor.
In the early 1950s, Mr. Preller started a private law practice that specialized in civil, criminal, estate and business law in the Equitable Bank Building on North Calvert Street. He later moved his firm to 15 Charles Center Plaza.
"Someone had hit my car and I wanted to file a legal action and my father told me to go and see Dave," Mr. Curran recalled.
"I went in and there was this very attractive lady who was his secretary. I spoke to her and a few weeks later I went to a Democratic club dance and she was there. Her name was Barbara Atkins and we started dating," he said. "And here we are 50 years later, married. I tell people that I met my wife when I went to Dave's office."
The firm changed its name in 1976 to Preller & Preller after his son, David J. Preller Jr., joined the law practice. In 2003, a grandson, David J. Preller III, entered the practice.
"He was a good trial lawyer and I never saw him lose his temper," said Thomas P. Raimondi, former assistant deputy state insurance commissioner who had practiced law with Mr. Preller for nearly a decade.
"I first met Dave in 1949 and I've known him for 61 years. We worked together in politics and the Young Democrats. He was one of the kindest, level-headed individuals I've ever know and he taught me how to practice law," he said.
One day, Mr. Raimondi asked why Mr. Preller was sending carbon copies of papers involving a legal case to the client.
"'So they know you're working on their case,' he told me. 'Sometime these cases can take two or three years.' It was good advice," Mr. Raimondi said.
"He was a good lawyer and very effective because he knew so many people," said Mr. Curran, who as a young lawyer worked in Mr. Preller's firm for two years.
"As an attorney, he treated every client with respect and dignity. People were never numbers to him," said a daughter, Barbara L. Hazzard of Ellicott City. "He became lifelong friends with many people who he met through being their attorney."
Mr. Preller was appointed in 1972 to the Maryland Board of Motion Picture Censors — at the time the last such board remaining in the country — by Gov. Marvin Mandel.
His tenure on the board coincided with that of the flamboyant and outspoken Mary M. Avara who once was known as "America's Mother Superior of Censors" and boasted to The Baltimore Sun that she had "looked at more nude bodies than 80, 100 or 50,000 doctors."
Mr. Preller and Mrs. Avara made appearances together on the Dick Cavett and Merv Griffin TV shows.
When the Censor Board closed down the showing of "Deep Throat" at the North Cinema on East North Avenue in 1974, Mr. Preller explained to The Sun that "it's obscene, the entire film."
Later that fall while appearing at a Johns Hopkins Symposium at Shriver Hall with Mrs. Avara, Mr. Preller surprised the largely student audience by suggesting that perhaps the time had come to ban the censor board.
"Maybe we should do away with it and encourage any film to come into Maryland," he told The Sun, suggesting that theaters could be licensed and restrict audiences to viewers who were over 18.
"I think something like that would be easy to police for the protection of the community and let anybody who wants to see it, see it. I don't think it's going to deform them in any way," he said.
Mr. Preller left the board in 1976 — five years before it was abolished in 1981 — when he was named chairman of the Baltimore City Board of Election Supervisors, a position he held until 1987.
"He was a super-nice guy. A prince of a man. One of the nicest guys in the world," said Gene M. Raynor, former city elections director.
"He was bright, intelligent and really into computers and that proved worthwhile when he moved forward in that area, and he did," Mr. Raynor said.
In 1978, Mr. Preller was able to persuade city officials to allocate about $550,000 to replace 800 aging and obsolete voting machines with reconditioned models in time for that year's primary election.
Mr. Preller was a member of the American Legion and had been a past commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5629 and was a former vice commander of VFW District 8.
He had been president of the Midwood Improvement Association and later of the Bellona-Gittings Community Association.
Mr. Preller retired in 2008.
He was an avid poker player and once held a royal flush.
"Some friends of his had it framed and it's going in his casket," said Mrs. Hazzard.
The former Homeland resident enjoyed spending weekends at a second home he formerly owned in Ocean City. He also liked to play pool and travel.
He was a parishioner of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Cockeysville, where a Mass of Christian burial was offered Tuesday.
Also surviving are his wife of 64 years, the former Pearl Maenner; a son, David John Preller Jr. of Hunt Valley; another daughter, Deborah A. Vernon of Hudson, Ohio; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.