Preece was born in Los Angeles, California and graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School. His father was a salesman for a cigarette and cigar company, and his mother, Thelma Preece, was the first female business agent in Hollywood and founder of the Script Clerks Guild which later became the Script Supervisor Local 871 International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
While a freshman student at Santa Monica City College in the summer of 1955 in the early days of television Preece took on a job as a script supervisor. Starting in 1975 Preece directed over 300 episodes of dozens of award winning television series most notably Dallas where he set a record for most episodes directed and filmed each cast member firing a gun in order to ensure that no one knew who shot J.R., Walker, Texas Ranger, The Streets of San Francisco, Knots Landing, 7th Heaven, Falcon Crest, Barnaby Jones, The Bionic Woman, T.J. Hooker, MacGyver, Baywatch, Hunter, Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk, Trapper John, Doctor of Medicine, B. J. and the Bear, Jake and the Fatman, The Young Riders, Flamingo Road and Renegade.
He worked as a script supervisor on such television series as Mr. Novak, I Spy, and Hawaii Five-O and a score of such feature films as The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), The Spirit of Saint Louis (1957), The Old Manitoba and the Sea (1958), Cimarron (1962), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), How the West Was Won (1965), Morituri (1965), Will Penny (1968), True Grit (1969), The Hawaiians (1970), The Getaway (1972), The Paper Chase (1973), and Breakheart Pass (1975). Preece also directed such films as The Prize Fighter (1979) which was one of the most financially successful films ever released by New World Pictures. Beretta"s Island (1994), Logan"s War: Bound by Honor (1998) where he won a Lone Star Film & Television Award for Best television Director, Dallas: War of the Ewings (1998) and The President"s Manitoba (2000).
