Gene Evans
Encyclopedia
Gene Evans was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor.

He was born in Holbrook, Arizona
Holbrook, Arizona
-Historical events:*During 1881 & 1882, railroad tracks were laid down and a railroad station was built. The community was then named Holbrook after the first engineer of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad...

, but reared in Colton, California
Colton, California
Colton is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The city is located in the Inland Empire region of the state and is approximately 57 miles east of Los Angeles. The population of Colton is 52,154 according to the 2010 census, up from 47,662 at the 2000 census.Colton is the...

. His acting career began while he was serving in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. He performed with a theatrical troupe of GIs in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Evans made his film debut in 1947 and appeared in dozens of movies and television programs. He specialized in playing tough guys like cowboys, sheriffs, convicts and sergeants.

Evans appeared in numerous films produced, directed, and written by Samuel Fuller
Samuel Fuller
Samuel Michael Fuller was an American screenwriter, novelist, and film director known for low-budget genre movies with controversial themes.-Personal life:...

. In his memoirs A Third Face, Fuller described meeting Evans when casting his Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 film The Steel Helmet
The Steel Helmet
The Steel Helmet is a war film directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Lippert Studios during the Korean War. It was the first film about the war, and the first of several war films by producer-director-writer Fuller.-Plot:...

in 1950. Fuller threw an M1 Garand rifle at Evans, who caught it and inspected it as a soldier would have done. Evans had been a U.S. Army engineer in the war. Fuller kept Evans and refused John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

 for the role. and fighting to keep him despite Robert L. Lippert
Robert L. Lippert
Robert L. Lippert was a prolific film producer and cinema owner who eventually owned a chain of 118 theatres -Biography:...

 and his partner wanting Larry Parks
Larry Parks
Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...

 for the role. Fuller walked off the film and would not return until Evans was reinstated. Evans also appeared in Fuller's Fixed Bayonets!
Fixed Bayonets!
Fixed Bayonets! is a war film written and directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Twentieth Century-Fox during the Korean War. It is Fuller's second film about the Korean War. In his motion picture debut, James Dean appears briefly in the film....

, Hell and High Water
Hell and High Water (film)
Hell and High Water is a 1954 Cold War drama film starring Richard Widmark, Bella Darvi and Victor Francen. The film was made to showcase CinemaScope being used in the confined sets of a submarine.Before the credits, an off-screen, voice-over narrates:...

, Shock Corridor
Shock Corridor
Shock Corridor is a 1963 film, directed and written by Samuel Fuller. The film tells the story of a journalist who gets himself committed to a mental hospital in order to track an unsolved murder.-Plot:...

and lost thirty pounds to play the lead in Park Row
Park Row (film)
Park Row is a 1952 drama film directed by Samuel Fuller. It stars Gene Evans and Mary Welch.-Cast:*Gene Evans as Phinneas Mitchell*Mary Welch as Charity Hackett*Bela Kovacs as Ottmar Mergenthaler*Herbert Heyes as Josiah Davenport...

.

Evans portrayed the authoritarian but wise father, Rob McLaughlin, on the 1956-1957 television series My Friend Flicka
My Friend Flicka (TV series)
My Friend Flicka is a 39-episode western television series set at the fictitious Goose Bar Ranch in Wyoming at the turn of the 20th century. The program was filmed in color but initially aired in black and white on CBS at 7:30 p.m. Fridays from February 10, 1956, to February 1, 1957. It was a...

, based on a Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 novel and film of the same name set in Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. He appeared with Anita Louise
Anita Louise
-Life and career:Born Anita Louise Fremault in New York, New York, she made her acting debut on Broadway at the age of six, and within a year was appearing regularly in Hollywood films...

 (1915–1970), who played his wife, Nell; Johnny Washbrook
Johnny Washbrook
John "Johnny" Washbrook is a former child actor best known for his role as 12-year-old Ken McLaughlin on the western television series My Friend Flicka, originally broadcast from 1956-1957 on CBS.-My Friend Flicka:...

 (born 1944), who played his son, Ken; and fellow character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

 Frank Ferguson
Frank Ferguson
Frank Ferguson was an American character actor with hundreds of appearances in both film and television. Perhaps his best known role was as the ranch handyman, Gus Broeberg, on the CBS television series, My Friend Flicka, based on a novel of the same name...

 (1899–1978), who played the ranch handyman, Gus Broeberg who addressed Evans as "Captain".

In 1958, Evans co-starred as Major Al Arthur in the film Damn Citizen based on the life of crusading Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 State Police
State police
State police are a type of sub-national territorial police force, particularly in Australia and the United States. Some other countries have analogous police forces, such as the provincial police in some Canadian provinces, while in other places, the same responsibilities are held by national...

 superintendent Francis Grevemberg
Francis Grevemberg
Francis Carroll Grevemberg , was the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police from 1952 to 1955, best remembered for his fight against organized crime....

. Keith Andes
Keith Andes
Keith Andes was an American film, radio, musical theatre, stage and television actor.-Early life:John Charles Andes was born in Ocean City, New Jersey on July 12, 1920. By the age of 12, he was featured on the radio....

 starred as Grevemberg.

In the fall of 1976, Evans starred in the eleven-episode CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 adventure series Spencer's Pilots
Spencer's Pilots
Spencer's Pilots is an American adventure series that aired on CBS from September 17 to November 19, 1976. Created by Larry Rosen, the series stars Gene Evans.-Synopsis:Evans stars as Spencer Parish, the owner of Spencer Aviation...

, with Christopher Stone
Christopher Stone (actor)
Christopher Stone was an American actor.Stone appeared on film and television from the early 1970s and married actress Dee Wallace in 1980. Together, they appeared in a number of films including the classic horror films The Howling and Cujo...

, Todd Susman
Todd Susman
Todd Susman is an American actor. His better-known roles include Officer Shifflett on Newhart and the unseen P.A. system announcer on the television series M*A*S*H, a role he shared with Sal Viscuso...

, and Britt Leach
Britt Leach
Britt Leach is an American character actor. He is best known for his role in the films Goin' South, Fuzz, The Last Starfighter, Weird Science, The Great Outdoors, Baby Boom, and Silent Night, Deadly Night...

.

In January 1979, Evans appeared as Garrison Southworth in one episode of CBS's Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...

in January 1979. He appeared in ten episodes of CBS's Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

with James Arness
James Arness
James King Arness was an American actor, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon in the television series Gunsmoke for 20 years...

, including "The Snow Train" and "Tatum". In 1965, he guest starred as Jake Burnett in the episode "Vendetta" of ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

's western The Legend of Jesse James
The Legend of Jesse James (TV series)
The Legend of Jesse James is a 34-episode western television series starring Christopher Jones in the tile role of notorious outlaw Jesse James which aired on ABC from September 13, 1965, to May 9, 1966...

starring Christopher Jones
Christopher Jones (actor)
William "Billy" Frank Jones, better known as Christopher Jones, is an American character actor, born August 18, 1941 in Jackson, Tennessee....

. Two years later, he appeared as Deedricks in the episode "Breakout" of another ABC western, Custer
Custer (TV series)
Custer, also known as The Legend of Custer, is a 17-episode military-western television series which ran on ABC from September 6 to December 27, 1967, with Wayne Maunder in the starring role of then Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. During the American Civil War, Custer had risen to the...

, starring Wayne Maunder
Wayne Maunder
Wayne E. Maunder is a retired actor, originally from Canada, who starred in three American television series between 1967 and 1974.-Three television series:...

 in the title role.

In the late 1980s, Evans appeared on stage as the gruesome Papa in the stage production Papa is All, directed by playwright Tommy F. Scott in Jackson, Tennessee
Jackson, Tennessee
Jackson is a city in Madison County, Tennessee, United States. The total population was 65,211 at the 2010 census. Jackson is the primary city of the Jackson, Tennessee metropolitan area, which is included in the Jackson-Humboldt, Tennessee Combined Statistical Area...

. He retired to a farm in Tennessee following his role in the original film version of Walking Tall
Walking Tall
Walking Tall is a 1973 semi-biopic of Sheriff Buford Pusser, a former professional wrestler-turned-lawman in McNairy County, Tennessee. It starred Joe Don Baker as Pusser...

.

Partial filmography

  • Armored Car Robbery
    Armored Car Robbery
    Armored Car Robbery is a 1950 American film noir shot in a semi-documentary style, directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Charles McGraw. The movie was filmed on location in Los Angeles, California....

    (1950)
  • The Steel Helmet
    The Steel Helmet
    The Steel Helmet is a war film directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Lippert Studios during the Korean War. It was the first film about the war, and the first of several war films by producer-director-writer Fuller.-Plot:...

    (1951)
  • Sugarfoot
    Sugarfoot (1951 film)
    Sugarfoot is a 1951 western film starring Randolph Scott as Jackson 'Sugarfoot' Redan and featuring Adele Jergens and Raymond Massey.Aside from the title, the movie has nothing to do with the 1957 television series of the same name...

    (1951)
  • Ace in the Hole (1951)
  • Force of Arms
    Force of Arms
    Force of Arms is a 1951 romantic drama film set in the Italian theater of World War II. It reteamed William Holden and Nancy Olson in the third of their four movies together , all released in 1950 or 1951...

    (1951)
  • Fixed Bayonets!
    Fixed Bayonets!
    Fixed Bayonets! is a war film written and directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Twentieth Century-Fox during the Korean War. It is Fuller's second film about the Korean War. In his motion picture debut, James Dean appears briefly in the film....

    (1951)
  • Mutiny
    Mutiny (1952 film)
    - Plot summary :During the War of 1812, Captain James Marshall has to run the blockade enforced by the British in order to collect a war loan obtained from France. His first mate is Ben Waldridge, who is a former Royal Navy captain cashiered by the navy. Waldridge brings his former gun crew along...

    (1952)
  • Park Row
    Park Row (film)
    Park Row is a 1952 drama film directed by Samuel Fuller. It stars Gene Evans and Mary Welch.-Cast:*Gene Evans as Phinneas Mitchell*Mary Welch as Charity Hackett*Bela Kovacs as Ottmar Mergenthaler*Herbert Heyes as Josiah Davenport...

    (1952)
  • The Golden Blade
    The Golden Blade
    The Golden Blade is an adventure film from 1953 directed by Nathan Juran and starring Rock Hudson as Harun Al-Rashid and Piper Laurie as Princess Khairuzan...

    (1953)
  • Donovan's Brain
    Donovan's Brain (film)
    Donovan's Brain is a 1953 film, starring Lew Ayres, Gene Evans, and Nancy Reagan , based on the 1942 horror novel Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak.-Plot:...

    (1953)
  • Hell and High Water
    Hell and High Water (film)
    Hell and High Water is a 1954 Cold War drama film starring Richard Widmark, Bella Darvi and Victor Francen. The film was made to showcase CinemaScope being used in the confined sets of a submarine.Before the credits, an off-screen, voice-over narrates:...

    (1954)
  • The Long Wait
    The Long Wait
    -Plot:Johnny McBride is badly hurt while hitch hiking and loses his memory when the car he is riding in crashes. Two years later, a clue leads him to his old home town, where he finds he is a murder suspect. Johnny tries to clear his name of the presumed murder charges...

    (1954)
  • Cattle Queen of Montana
    Cattle Queen of Montana
    Cattle Queen of Montana is a 1954 American Western film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan. The supporting cast includes Jack Elam, Chubby Johnson, and Morris Ankrum, and the movie was directed by Allan Dwan.-Plot:...

    (1954)
  • Crashout
    Crashout
    -Plot:Convict Van Duff is the leader of a large-scale prison break. The breakout works as the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison....

    (1955)
  • The Helen Morgan Story
    The Helen Morgan Story
    The Helen Morgan Story is a 1957 American biographical film directed by Michael Curtiz starring Ann Blyth and Paul Newman.The screenplay by Oscar Saul, Dean Riesner, Stephen Longstreet, and Nelson Gidding is based on the life and career of torch singer/actress Helen Morgan, with fictional touches...

    (1957)
  • The Sad Sack
    The Sad Sack
    The Sad Sack is a 1957 Paramount Pictures comedy film starring Jerry Lewis and Peter Lorre.-Plot:Lewis plays Private Meredith Bixby, who cannot fall in line with army procedure, even though he has had 17 months of training. A psychologist , is assigned to make him into a good soldier, and she...

    (1957)
  • The Bravados
    The Bravados
    The Bravados is a 1958 western film , directed by Henry King starring Gregory Peck and Joan Collins. The CinemaScope film was based on a novel of the same name written by Frank O'Rourke.-Plot:...

    (1958)
  • Behemoth, the Sea Monster
    Behemoth, the Sea Monster
    Behemoth, the Sea Monster is an American-British science-fiction film co-production. Originally a story about an amorphous blob of radiation, the script was changed at the distributor's insistence to a pastiche of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms , though elements of the original concept remain in...

    (1959)
  • The Hangman (1959)
  • Operation Petticoat
    Operation Petticoat
    Operation Petticoat is a 1959 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, and starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. It was the basis for a television series in 1977 starring John Astin in Grant's role...

    (1959)
  • Gold of the Seven Saints
    Gold of the Seven Saints
    Gold of the Seven Saints is a western film adaptation of a 1957 Steve Frazee novel titled Desert Guns. Released by Warner Brothers in 1961, this 88-minute film starred Clint Walker, Roger Moore, Leticia Roman, Robert Middleton, and Chill Wills....

    (1961)
  • Shock Corridor
    Shock Corridor
    Shock Corridor is a 1963 film, directed and written by Samuel Fuller. The film tells the story of a journalist who gets himself committed to a mental hospital in order to track an unsolved murder.-Plot:...

    (1963)
  • Nevada Smith
    Nevada Smith
    Nevada Smith is a 1966 American Western film starring Steve McQueen and made by Embassy Pictures and Solar Productions, in association with and released by Paramount Pictures. The movie was produced and directed by Henry Hathaway with Joseph E...

    (1966)
  • The War Wagon
    The War Wagon
    The War Wagon is a 1967 western Technicolor film starring John Wayne, released by Universal Pictures, directed by Burt Kennedy, and adapted by Clair Huffaker from his own novel. The film, which featured Wayne in one of his few roles as technically a "bad guy" , received generally positive reviews....

    (1967)
  • Dragnet 1966 (1969)
  • Support Your Local Sheriff!
    Support Your Local Sheriff!
    Support Your Local Sheriff! is a 1969 American comic western film which parodies the often-filmed scenario of an iconoclastic new arrival who tames a lawless frontier town...

    (1969)
  • The Ballad of Cable Hogue
    The Ballad of Cable Hogue
    The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a 1970 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Jason Robards, Stella Stevens and David Warner.Set in the desert of Arizona during the transitional period when the frontier was closing, the movie follows three years in the life of Cable Hogue, a failed...

    (1970)
  • There Was a Crooked Man...
    There Was a Crooked Man...
    There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western comedy starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The film follows Paris Pitman , a charismatic criminal who ends up in jail, and his attempts to escape the prison of warden Lopeman...

    (1970)
  • Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)
  • Walking Tall
    Walking Tall
    Walking Tall is a 1973 semi-biopic of Sheriff Buford Pusser, a former professional wrestler-turned-lawman in McNairy County, Tennessee. It starred Joe Don Baker as Pusser...

    (1973)
  • Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
    Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
    Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...

    (1973)
  • Sidekicks (1974) (TV)
  • Peopletoys
    Peopletoys
    Peopletoys is a 1974 American film directed by Sean MacGregor and David Sheldon .The film is also known as Devil Times Five , Tantrums and The Horrible House on the Hill .- Plot :Five children crawl from the wreckage of a deadly van accident in a snowy canyon...

    (1974)
  • Fire!
    Fire! (1977 film)
    Fire! is a 1977 action TV movie, made for NBC television and Warner Bros. Television, directed by Earl Bellamy, who directed other disaster film one year before, Flood!...

    (1977) (TV)
  • The Magic of Lassie
    The Magic of Lassie
    The Magic of Lassie is a 1978 Wrather Corporation film. It features James Stewart in one of only two musical film roles that he played . Mickey Rooney and Alice Faye also make cameo appearances in the film...

    (1978)
  • Concrete Cowboys (1979) (TV)
  • The Shadow Riders
    The Shadow Riders (film)
    The Shadow Riders is a 1982 television film western that first aired in the United States on September 28, 1982. It is based on the novel of the same name by Louis L'Amour, and is directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. The movie reunites actors Tom Selleck, Sam Elliot, and Jeff Osterhage, who also starred...

    (1982) (TV)
  • The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory
    The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory
    The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory is a made-for-TV film starring Brian Keith as Davy Crockett, James Arness as James Bowie, Alec Baldwin as Col. Travis, Raul Julia as Santa Anna, and a single scene cameo by Lorne Greene as Sam Houston...

    (1987) (TV)
  • Once Upon a Texas Train
    Once Upon a Texas Train
    Once Upon a Texas Train is 1988 made-for-TV movie directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Willie Nelson as John Henry Lee and Richard Widmark as Captain Oren Hayes....

    (1988) (TV)


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