Actress Evans Evans Dead At 91

(TotalConservative.com) – Evans Evans, an early film actress who appeared in “Bonnie and Clyde,” died last week at the age of 91.

Evans lived in Sherman Oaks, California, where she died on Sunday, June 16, according to a public obituary announcing the passing of the actress. The obituary did not provide any additional details about the cause of death.

The actress, who only appeared in a few roles throughout her career, was from Bluefield, West Virginia, where she was born on Nov. 26, 1932. In 1963, she married John Frankenheimer, a Hollywood director known for his 1962 box office hit “The Manchurian Candidate,” a neo-noir psychological thriller about an American brainwashed by communists into becoming an unwitting assassin.

In 2016, Evans was interviewed by Criterion and spoke about her experiences on the press tour with Frankenheimer for the 1962 film, a controversial one at the time it came out during the Cold War. She ended up appearing on various women’s television shows for interviews about the movie, which was a popular topic of debate in the media. She said she had spent her life avoiding such “ladies clubs” but found it “sort of interesting” to talk about “The Manchurian Candidate” “and all the people in it.”

They were married until Frankenheimer died in 2002 at the age of 72 from a stroke. Although the widow was known by her maiden name, she also went by “Evans Frankenheimer.” Evans appeared in a couple of Frankenheimer’s films. She had an uncredited minor role in the 1966 sports drama “Grand Prix,” and another minor role as the character of Mrs. Gebhardt in the 1989 action thriller “Dead Bang.”

Evans’ career spanned over 50 years, including film and Broadway, but her best-known role was in 1967 in the biographical neo-noir film “Bonnie and Clyde,” directed by Arthur Penn and starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

Evans played Velma Davis, whose character was shown in a scene kissing her boyfriend when Bonnie and Clyde roll up to steal his car and then kidnap the couple. The boyfriend (the character Eugene Grizzard) was played by a young Gene Wilder, marking the actor’s debut on the big screen.