British-born actor Michael Evans, who wooed Audrey Hepburn on Broadway in “Gigi” and was the best friend to a billionaire on the soap opera “The Young and the Restless,” has died. He was 87.
Evans died Sept. 4 from age-related complications, said his son Nick Evans.
From 1980 to 1995, Evans played Col. Douglas Austin, the friend of billionaire Victor Newman, on CBS’s long-running “The Young and the Restless.” Newman is played by Eric Braeden, who hailed Evans as “a total professional from the old English school, a gentleman through and through.”
Evans made his London stage debut in 1948. In 1950, he came to Broadway for the short-lived play “Ring Round the Moon.”
He went on co-star in the 1951 production of “Gigi” as the handsome Parisian who falls in love with young Gigi, played by Audrey Hepburn. The play, which made Hepburn a star, was based on the same novel by the French author Colette that was later turned into a Hollywood musical starring Leslie Caron.
In the late 1950s he played Henry Higgins in a touring production of “My Fair Lady,” performing in the United States and abroad, including in Russia at the height of the Cold War.
Evans also appeared on numerous TV shows, including “Dr. Kildare,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “Hunter” and “I Spy,” as well as in such films as “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Time After Time.”
John Michael Evans was born in 1920 in Sittingbourne, England; his father had been a flier in World War I and his mother a concert violinist. The younger Evans served in the Royal Air Force in World War II.
(Via Entertainment Index)
