Evans was born in London into a family of music hall and
circus performers. His grandfather, also named Fred Evans, was a popular
clown who staged
harlequinades; his uncle
Will Evans was a leading music hall comedian; and his parents were members of several touring musical troupes. He was a childhood friend of Charlie Chaplin. As a child he performed with his brother Joe as part of his parents'
pantomime act, the Florador Quartet. Fred and Joe then worked together and individually in music hall, and for Sanger's Circus, before joining filmmakers Cricks and Martin in 1910. Evans' early screen appearances were as Charley Smiler, a disaster-prone '
dude' character dressed in
frock coat,
waistcoat and
spats. Unable to use the Charley Smiler character because of legal threats from Cricks and Martin, Evans devised a new character, Pimple, an accident-prone clown with a tight jacket, baggy pants, big boots, cricket cap, and lank strands of hair around a central parting. In ''Pimple in 'The Whip''' (1917), another parody, the Evans brothers used
pantomime horses and a man wearing a horse head and carrying a stick in each hand to represent the front legs, to re-enact the original movie's thrilling race scenes. The films also made use of jokey and
punning
intertitles. The films were extremely successful in Britain, and by 1915 the Evans brothers were producing some six titles each month, most of which are now lost. Evans promoted the films by travelling around the country to present them, sometimes also performing a live act as part of a mixed programme. He also toured as part of an
Army campaign to promote and raise funds for servicemen fighting the war, but in 1916 received a medical discharge from the forces. He continued to make films but his popularity declined. He returned to performing in the music halls, and had his performances filmed, but was declared bankrupt in 1920. His last films were made in 1922. Evans later appeared in revues with his wife and daughters, and worked as a film
extra in the 1930s, eventually reuniting with his brother Joe – who had worked in the United States – to present a
puppet show in the Second World War. He died in 1951 after performing in a circus. ==Selected filmography==