Robert Evans, iconic producer of ‘Chinatown,’ ‘Godfather,’ dies

NEW YORK >> Robert Evans, the protean, fast-living Hollywood producer and former Paramount Pictures production chief who backed seminal 1970s films such as “Chinatown,” “The Godfather” and “Harold and Maude,” has died. He was 89.

Evans’ publicist, Monique Moss, confirmed that he died Saturday. No other details were available Monday.

Evans’ career was a story of comebacks and reinventions. He had launched a successful women’s clothing line with his brother, Charles, and was visiting Los Angeles on business when actress Norma Shearer saw him sunbathing by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

She persuaded producers to hire the handsome, darkhaired 26-year-old to play her late husband, movie mogul Irving Thalberg, in “Man of a Thousand Faces,” a film about horror movie star Lon Chaney.

After acting roles faded, Evans reemerged at Paramount and quickly converted the studio from a maker of mediocre films to the biggest hit machine in Hollywood, home to “The Godfather” and “Love Story,” among others.

For decades, and with many flops in between, the ever-tanned, large-glasseswearing Evans was one of Hollywood’s most outsized and flamboyant personalities, encapsulating the romance of a now bygone movie era when films were greenlit more on instinct than market research. He was married and divorced seven times. He was the model for Dustin Hoffman’s petty-minded Hollywood producer in the 1997 satire “Wag the Dog.”

“The higher you get, the lower you can fall,” Evans mused in a 2003 interview. “You pick yourself up at the count of nine, you come back and win and be done with it. I believe in being a survivor.”

The title of his 1994 memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture” (later turned into a 2002 documentary) came from an early story of his improbable success.

After Evans appeared in “Man of a Thousand Faces,” Darryl Zanuck signed him to a contract at Twentieth Century Fox and cast him as a bullfighter in “The Sun Also Rises.” The filmmakers insisted the young actor wasn’t right for the role, so Zanuck went to Mexico City, where the film was being made, to see for himself. His verdict: “The kid stays in the picture.”

It was Evans who optioned “The Godfather” while Mario Puzo was writing it. As Paramount chief, Evans presided over Francis Ford Coppola’s production, but his role in the movie has sometimes been exaggerated, including by Evans.

Coppola recalled Evans fondly Monday, recollecting the producer’s “charm, good looks, enthusiasm, style and sense of humor.”

“He had strong instincts as evidenced by the long list of great films in his career. When I worked with Bob, some of his helpful ideas included suggesting John Marley as Woltz and Sterling Hayden as the Police Captain, and his ultimate realization that ‘The Godfather’

could be 2 hours and 45 minutes in length,” said Coppola, also noting Evans’ contributions to “The Cotton Club.”

Evans was born Robert J. Shapera in New York. He began acting in radio while in junior high school, going on to appear in more than 300 shows.

After “The Sun Also Rises,” Evans left Hollywood to join his brother in the clothing business but was lured back in 1966 when Zanuck offered him a three-picture contract as a producer. That same year, Paramount Pictures hired him to head production.

From 1966 to 1974, Evans presided over hits such as “The Odd Couple,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Goodbye, Columbus.” He was a pivotal figure not only restoring Paramount, but in a halcyon period of auteur-driven moviemaking, he backed storied directors such as Sidney Lumet, Hal Ashby and Peter Bogdanovich.

Evans went on to form his own production company, and he quickly turned out one of the biggest hits of 1974, Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown.” It earned Evans his only Oscar nod.

Evans’ last movie as a hands-on producer was also a hit: the 2003 romantic comedy “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”