- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRobert J. Shapera
- Nickname
- Bobby
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- Robert Evans was born in New York City, to Florence (Krasne) and Archie Shapera, a dentist with a thriving practice in Harlem. His family was of Russian Jewish descent. He was raised on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He began his show-business career as a teenage radio actor. After flopping in his first attempt at movie acting, he took a job promoting sales of ladies' slacks for Evan-Picone, the clothing company founded and run by his brother. Some years later, Norma Shearer spotted him hanging around the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel; she successfully touted him for the role of Irving Thalberg in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). In a New York nightclub, Evans also caught the eye of Darryl F. Zanuck, who cast him as a bullfighter in The Sun Also Rises (1957). By the end of the fifties, Evans writes, "I was sure of one thing: I was a half-assed actor." He determined to recast himself as a producer.Before launching his first picture, though, he was hired by Charlie Bluhdorn, head of the Gulf + Western conglomerate, as part of a shakeup of Paramount Pictures.
Within months Evans was head of production. In the late 1960s and early '70s, he became the quintessential "new Hollywood" executive, with: slickly packaged productions like Rosemary's Baby (1968), Love Story (1970) and The Godfather (1972) revived Paramount. (The latter film and Chinatown (1974) are the artistic highlights of Evans' Paramount career, though the amount of credit he deserves for them has been debated for decades.) Eased out of Paramount, he saw The Cotton Club (1984) turn from a musical "Godfather" into a fiasco of front-page proportions. Evans righted his career with a new Paramount deal in the 1990s, with his last producing credit having been on the blockbuster romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003).
He died on October 26, 2019.- IMDb Mini Biography By: David S. Smith
- SpousesLady Victoria White(August 6, 2005 - June 19, 2006) (divorced)Leslie Ann Woodward(December 12, 2002 - July 22, 2004) (divorced)Catherine Oxenberg(July 12, 1998 - July 21, 1998) (annulled)Phyllis George(April 14, 1977 - July 22, 1978) (divorced)Ali MacGraw(October 24, 1969 - June 7, 1973) (divorced, 1 child)Camilla Sparv(September 2, 1964 - January 1967) (divorced)Sharon Hugueny(May 28, 1961 - July 21, 1962) (divorced)
- ChildrenJosh Evans
- ParentsArchibald ShaperaFlorence Krasne
- Often wore large, square-framed, tinted eyeglasses
- Long hair
- Was the inspiration for the Stanley Motss character played by Dustin Hoffman in Wag the Dog (1997). Hoffman emulated Evans' work habits, mannerisms, quirks, his clothing style, hairstyle, and wore large square-framed eyeglasses. After seeing the film, Evans reportedly said, "I'm magnificent in this film!".
- His older brother, Charles Evans, started a women's clothing line, Evan-Picone, which was the source of much of Robert's money.
- One child, with Ali MacGraw, actor/director Josh Evans.
- Was implicated but never charged in the murder of theatrical impresario Roy Radin, in the so-called "Cotton Club Murder." Evans, who was producing The Cotton Club (1984), had been in contact with Radin as a potential investor in the film.
- When a director hires a producer, you're in deep shit. A director needs a boss, not a yes man.
- [speaking to women] If you're ever approached with the line, "You ought to be in pictures, I'm a producer", tell the guy to fuck off. He's a fraud, and the pictures he wants to put you in don't play in theaters.
- [about his proposal to Catherine Oxenberg while recovering from a stroke, which resulted in a 12-day marriage] I was very, very seductive but in fact I was crazy. My brain was swollen still.
- I didn't hang around with famous people . . . they hung around with me.
- The producer is the most important element of a film. It's the producer who hires the director . . . The producer buys the property, he hires the writer, the director; he's involved in hiring all the actors, involved with production, costs, post-production and involved with marketing. He's on a film for four or five years and gets very little credit for it.
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