Evans was born on 27 July 1920 in
Sittingbourne,
Kent; to
John Evans, a
cricketer and
First World War Royal Flying Corps pilot and double prisoner-of-war escapee who wrote the 1926 novel,
The Escaping Club, and his wife, the former Marie Galbraith, an
Irish concert violinist. Evans later told the
Toronto Star in a 1992 interview on his return to "
My Fair Lady" touring
Russia, that aged 12, he decided to be an actor after seeing
Sir John Gielgud on stage in "
Richard II". During the
Second World War he was a
Royal Air Force navigator, and flew during
the Blitz. He returned to
Winchester College and graduated in 1943, and then studied acting with the
Old Vic company, with whom he made his stage debut in
London's
West End theatre in 1948 as a member of the
Old Vic company. Evans then moved to the
United States, making his
New York debut in the
Broadway theatre production of "
Ring Round the Moon". He then took on the role of Henry Higgins in a touring production of
My Fair Lady. While in Hollywood, he took on many guest starring roles in shows such as:
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
Combat!,
Perry Mason and his best known television role as Colonel Douglas Austin on
The Young and the Restless.
Personal life In 1948, Evans married Pat Wedgewood. The couple had two sons (Nick and Christopher), and divorced in 1983. His second wife, Pat Sigris Evans, died in 1995, with whom he had no children. Evans died in a
Woodland Hills assisted-living facility on 4 September 2007, of complications related to age. He was buried in
Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery. ==Select filmography==