Man of a Thousand Lives
The magic Evans weaves as a dealmaker and a storyteller—the giddy
spell he casts when holding court in the legendary screening room
at his Bev erly Hills Tudor home—didn’t translate to the big screen
when he began his movie career as an actor. The New York–born Evans
got his start in acting courtesy of actress Norma Shearer, who,
according to Evans, spotted him poolside, noted a resemblance to
her late husband, Irving Thalberg, and prevailed upon the powers
that be to cast Evans as wunderkind studio chief Thalberg in the
1957 Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces, starring
James Cagney. Shortly thereafter, Twentieth Century Fox studio head
Darryl Zanuck saw Evans dancing at the legendary nightclub El Morocco
and liked his style, enough so to cast him in the role of bullfighter
Pedro Romero in the studio’s adaptation of Hemingway’s The Sun
Also Rises. On the set, the rest of the cast—which included
Ava Gardner (with whom, Evans hints in his book, he went on to have
an affair), Mel Ferrer, and Eddie Albert—were less than impressed,
and they implored Zanuck, via telegram, to replace Evans. Zanuck,
Evans says, pronounced, “The kid stays in the picture. And anybody
who doesn’t like it can quit!” Hence, the title of Evans’s book.
His acting career fizzled shortly after his turn as Romero. (He
went on to play all-purpose cad Dexter Key in The Best of Everything;
having decided that his part was too small, one source says, he
attempted to stretch out his screen time by speaking slower, prompting
director Jean Negulesco to scream at him, “Talk faster, you faggot
sonofabitch!”) All the same, Evans is known to most of his associates
as a born performer, a master showman. Not surprisingly, Evans’s
idol was the 1950s impresario Mike Todd, who once famously threw
a party for himself at the old Madison Square Garden for 18,000
of his nearest and dearest. Todd was completely broke at the time.
One might presume that this fact was not lost on Evans. “I went
from having $15 million after I sold my share in [the clothing company]
Evan-Picone—when being a millionaire meant something—to having about
$15 in the bank,” Evans recalls.
Shortly after his strokes, Evans sent Hollywood jaws dropping
to the floor by marrying actress Catherine Oxenberg (best known
for her portrayal of Amanda Carrington on the prime-time soap Dynasty).
That the union lasted for all of 12 days was less shocking to many
than the fact that it happened in the first place. Evans, who prides
himself on being a gentleman, won’t discuss the marriage, but a
videotape of the wedding ceremony seems straight out of the Bizarro
Universe. Oxenberg was wearing a long white dress with a gold bindi
on her forehead, and Evans, noticeably weakened by the strokes and
on medication, sat next to her, facing the 25 or so guests.
Evans told the throng that he knew that “with Catherine in my
life, I will get well ten times faster.” In a rambling address,
Oxenberg confessed that for a long time she felt that her “dream
of a perfect male counterpart was delusional.” But then, she “met
Evans,” and thought she’d “died and had been reborn.” Oxenberg then
proceeded to walk over to a table, pick up a silver bowl, and offer
it to Evans as her wedding present. But then she stopped and, almost
as an aside, asked the crowd if anyone there was a cop or undercover
narc. When no one fessed up, Oxenberg then informed Bob that the
bowl contained the “flesh of God”—i.e., hallucinogenic mushrooms
and peyote buds. Fortunately, Evans showed restraint and opted out
of noshing on God’s flesh.
Even after his acting career went south, Evans’s passion
for Hollywood did not diminish. He returned to New York, and to
the shmatte business, partnering with his older brother, Charles.
Not long thereafter, their concern, Evan-Picone, was sold to Revlon,
making them millionaires. The money gave Evans a way to get back
into the picture. Armed with advance information, he optioned the
film rights to the novel The Detective, before it was published.
Every major actor in Hollywood wanted to play the title role. (The
part for the 1968 film eventually went to Frank Sinatra.) Evans
sold the property to David Brown and Richard Zanuck and convinced
them to take him along as a producer. Brown says of the deal, “If
it were up to Dick Zanuck, we wouldn’t have given him an office.
About a year later, Evans tells me he wants out of the deal, because—and
this was unbelievable—he was going to London to become the head
of the international division of Paramount.”
After Evans had spent a short time in London, Charles Bludhorn,
the chairman of the Gulf + Western corporation (Paramount’s parent
company at the time), saw fit to make him the head of production
at Paramount in L.A. Frank Yablans, who was then the president of
the studio, says of the Evans hire, “Charlie [Bludhorn] was an uncivilized
pig, but he was in love with Evans’s lifestyle—Evans gave Charlie
an entrée into showbiz.” Although he had virtually no production
experience, Evans, along with Yablans and Peter Bart (now the editor
in chief of Variety and still a major Evans pal and ally)
turned the money-losing studio around. “His yin to my yang made
for a great team,” Yablans says. In addition to Love Story
and Rosemary’s Baby, they produced The Godfather,
one of the last true Hollywood classics and an absolute financial
home run for the studio. Yablans says of Evans, “He was perfect
for the time. Bludhorn and the exhibitors loved the parties at Evans’s
home, which came with an assortment of beautiful women and stars.
Charlie ate it up.”
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