Robert Evans (producer)

Robert Evans, originally Robert J. Shapera, nicknamed The Kid ( born June 29, 1930 in New York City ) is an American film producer, actor and presenter.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Evans was one of the most successful film producers ( Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, The Godfather ).

Life and work

Evans grew up as the child of Jewish parents in the West End of New York City on. His father had a thriving dental practice in Harlem, his mother was a housewife and came from a wealthy household business. He had an older brother and a younger sister. Eventually, the father, the entire family Shapera decided to rename after the birth name of his mother in Evans, which is possible names legally in the United States.

Even as a child he wanted to be an actor and was very good at imitating voices. Even as a 12 - year-old he got a speaking role as a Nazi officer in a radio production. Even as a 14 - year-old he was a permanent employee of the popular in the 1940s radio show Let's Pretend.

After his high school graduation he first moved to Miami Beach in Florida and was a disc jockey in a large hotel. For a time he worked for the fashion company of his brother Charles and taught among other things, a boutique in Hollywood one. By chance, he met the influential actress Norma Shearer know, widow of the late Hollywood tycoon Irving Thalberg. She recognized in the young Robert Evans a certain resemblance to her prematurely deceased man and gave him in 1957 the role as his personification in the biopic The Man with a Thousand Faces ( The Man of Thousand Faces, directed by Joseph Pevney ) on the side of Hollywood Star James Cagney as Lon Chaney. However, the film was a flop, and Evans received scathing reviews for his performance.

Nevertheless, he made it again with the help of influential friends in the same year, to obtain a well-developed supporting role in an A - movie: In Between Madrid and Paris ( The Sun Also Rises, directed by Henry King ) based on the novel Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway, he stretched as bullfighter Pedro Romero Tyrone Power whose lover Ava Gardner from. The film was very successful, brought The Kid (such as studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck him baptized because of his " milk facial " ) as an actor but no further.

After a few more minor roles he ended voluntarily his acting career. He turned to film production and this with great success: In the 1960s, he became Vice President of Paramount Pictures and was responsible for the production of numerous film major projects. During the 1970s he led the Paramount on the scale of the ten most financially successful studios in Hollywood from ninth place to first place. Under his aegis that blockbusters and cult films such as Rosemary's Baby (1968), Love Story (1970) Harold and Maude (1971 ), The Godfather (1972 ), The Great Gatsby (1974 ) Chinatown (1974 ), Marathon Man ( 1976), and others. Due to its financial contribution to these film projects Evans was a rich man.

In the 1980s his star in Hollywood began to decline: After huge financial losses in 1984, Coppola's Cotton Club with Richard Gere in the lead role Evans Paramount had to leave and then works only moderately successful as a freelance producer. In the 1990s, brought him his former colleague Stanley Jaffe - now head of Paramount - back, so he was able to realize a number of projects: he produced, among other things Sliver - Gier (1993 ) with Sharon Stone, Towners (1999) with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn as well as How to Lose a Guy - 10 days? (2003) with Kate Hudson, all of which were at least respectable results. In 2006, he was still busy with several film projects.

The 1994 published by Evans autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture ( German: Billing is the conclusion in 1995 vgs, Cologne, published ) in the U.S. was a bestseller and 2002 also successfully made ​​into a documentary film of the same title, which won several awards. Evans gave it a most interesting insight into the " dream factory ", handed out to colleagues and reported on his life full of ups and downs. Book and film bestowed the eccentric Hollywood veterans a late comeback especially as self-promoter. 2003 was the conceived and spoken of him oblique comic series Kid Notorious, in Evans in bizarre James Bond -esque adventure was involved in the U.S. television. However, this was discontinued after one season. Currently a Radio show is entitled In Bed with Robert Evans.

Private caused the enterprising Robert Evans mainly through his numerous affairs with starlets and celebrities always hit the headlines. Among his " conquests ", with whom he was romantically involved usually only a few weeks, were Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Soraya, Joan Collins and Lois Chiles. In the 1970s, he had a long relationship with the Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann.

In the period to 2005, Evans was married seven times, but none of his marriages lasted more than three years. His first marriage was from 1961 to 1962 with Sharon Hugueny. After his first divorce, he was married from 1963 to 1965 with Camilla Sparv and 1969-1972 with Ali MacGraw, he made through the film Love Story star. With MacGraw he has a son, Josh Evans, who is also active in the film industry as a film producer and screenwriter. From 1977 to 1978 he was married to the well-known sports journalist and former Miss America Phyllis George. In 1998, he was a bizarre short marriage with Catherine Oxenberg Dynasty star. Evans marriage to Oxenberg, however, was canceled after only nine days. Then from 2002 to 2004 was married to Leslie Ann Woodward and Victoria White from 2005 to 2006, whom he married in Mexico in August 2005, shortly after his 75th birthday. However, it was enough on June 16, 2006, the divorce on the grounds "due to irreconcilable differences ." In the morning board filming of The Kid Stays autobiography in the Picture of Ali MacGraw is also discussed in detail in Evans relations.

Unproven - - In the 1980s, especially drug-related problems, visits to prisons and psychiatry, Mafia contacts and ensured involvement in a murder case repeatedly for negative headlines of the former tycoon. It has become quiet around him.

Robert Evans is among some Hollywood greats such as, inter alia, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Robert Hoffmann and the French film star Alain Delon as personal friends.

Works

Ballad of the end. A Hollywood Tycoon recalls. vgs, Cologne 1994 ( original English title: The Kid Stays in the Picture Hyperion, New York, 1994. ).

Filmography (selection)

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