Evans As A Character in Film and Theater
Actors have admitted imitating Evans's distinctive mannerisms.
Orson Welles' unfinished final film, The Other Side of the Wind (1970-6), a scathing satire on 1970s Hollywood, has a young studio boss "Max David" played by Geoffrey Land, who Welles admitted was a spoof of Evans. While the film as a whole has never been released, certain scenes have, and numerous well-known internet video sites carry a scene of Land's performance, in which he is sceptically watching in unfinished arthouse film.
In the 1997 movie Wag the Dog, a Washington, D.C. spin doctor distracts the electorate from a U.S. presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer played by Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman's character was based directly upon Robert Evans. Hoffman emulated Evans' work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing style, hairstyle, and his large square-framed eyeglasses. The real Evans is said to have declared, "I'm magnificent in this film!"
Bob Ryan, a recurring character in the HBO series Entourage is based on Evans. The character, portrayed by Martin Landau, was a successful movie producer in the 1970s who now chafes at no longer being considered a major Hollywood player. While Evans reportedly declined an offer to play the part himself, he did agree to allow his home to be used in the show as Bob Ryan's home.
Evans similarly served as the inspiration for a Mr. Show sketch, in which Bob Odenkirk portrays God recording his memoirs, dressed as and speaking like Evans. Odenkirk also attributes Evans as his primary influence on his portrayal of lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad.
Smuggler Films has acquired the stage rights to Evans' memoirs, The Kid Stays in the Picture and its sequel, The Fat Lady Sang, which will be published in conjunction with the debut of the play. Award-winning director Sir Richard Eyre is set to direct with Jon Robin Baitz, in place to pen the stage play.
Evans plays himself in the movie An Alan Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn (1998). His "character", like those of other real-life personages in the film, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Jackie Chan, comprises parodical exaggerations of his personality traits.
Michael Douglas' character in the 2009 film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Wayne Mead, is an obvious parody of Evans, capitalizing on his well known hair, glasses, style of dress and reputation as a ladies' man who frequently entertained celebrity performers.
Evans also appears in the Bruce Campbell novel Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way, with Bruce impersonating him to infiltrate the Paramount Studios lot.
Read more about this topic: Robert Evans (producer)
Famous quotes containing the words evans, character, film and/or theater:
“A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true.”
—Ray Evans (b. 1915)
“An interesting play cannot in the nature of things mean anything but a play in which problems of conduct and character of personal importance to the audience are raised and suggestively discussed.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“Be reflective ... and stay away from the theater as much as you can. Stay out of the theatrical world, out of its petty interests, its inbreeding tendencies, its stifling atmosphere, its corroding influence. Once become “theatricalized,” and you are lost, my friend; you are lost.”
—Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932)