On the Loose and Edge of Doom actress Joan Evans has died at the age of 89.
Evans died at her home in Henderson, Nevada, on October 21, her son John Weatherly told Fox News.
The actress was the goddaughter of actress Joan Crawford — whom she was named after — and became famous in the 1950s via her film roles. Her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert, were also screenwriters who wrote the 1951 movie On the Loose.
In 1952, she also starred in the musical Skirts Ahoy! Evans went on to star in the films Edge of Doom, Our Very Own, Column South, and No Name on the Bullet over the next decade.
Edge Of Doom, U.S .poster, center from left: Mala Powers, Farley Granger, right from top: Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Mala Powers, Adele Jergens, 1950. (Photo by LMPC via Getty)
Evans, who was born in New York in 1934, noted in a 2013 interview that her mother — who was a Hollywood reporter for Photoplay magazine and oftentimes covered Crawford — was “best friends” with the legendary actress.
During that interview, Evans also revealed how she and her husband Kirby Weatherly got married. The actress explained that she was invited to a dinner party at the home of Crawford, who insisted that night that the couple tie the knot.
Publicity portrait of actors Joan Evans (as ‘Diane Baxter’) and Richard Crenna (1926-2003) (as ‘Ralph Bowen’) in the film ‘It Grows on Trees’, 1952, United States. (Universal Pictures/De Carvalho Collection/Getty Images)
Evans, who had just turned 18 at the time, and Weatherly, who was 26, said “I do” just after midnight on July 24, 1952, after Crawford called a judge over to her home.
“The head of publicity at Goldwyn had said to me, ‘Joan, I don’t care what you do, just don’t call me in the middle of the night and tell me you’re married,'” Evans recalled in the interview. “So, I called him in the middle of the night and told him I was married.”
LOS ANGELES – AUGUST 5, 1953: Actress Joan Evans and Kirk Weatherby attend a premier in Los Angeles, California. (Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
After that, Evans’ parents were very unhappy with Crawford and did not speak to her again. Evans, however, remained close to Crawford up until her death in 1977.
“I saw a wonderful, darling friend who was generous to the max to everyone, certainly to me,” she said. “When I was a little girl, I traveled on the train from New York to California with Joan; now that would bring out the worst in any great actress, [and it didn’t].”
As for Evans and Weatherly, they stayed married, and the actress said their marriage “wasn’t the mistake that my parents foretold.”
Weatherly later died on January 1, 2023. The couple share two children: their son, John, and their daughter, Dale.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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