Robert Evans and his career in Hollywood film production

Robert Evans: A life on film and behind the scenes of the film industry

According to the Hollywood trade publication Variety, at a recent tribute to the Hollywood film producer Robert Evans, Evans said he was "the only person to have gone from being head of a studio and ended up as a cartoon" in Hollywood history.

Producer and former Paramount studio head Evans was referring to the fact that his best-selling memoir, the Kid Stays in the Picture, had spawned both an eponymous film and a cartoon entitled Kid Notorious. The animated TV series for Comedy Central adapted anecdotes from Evan's life in a South Park-style manner, and was full of into "snarky, knowing Hollywood insider humor.

" Despite the show's frequently "self-deprecating" and "scatological" humor, Evans enthusiastically voiced the cartoon himself.

The cartoon series is a fitting coda to a life in Hollywood that has always proved eccentric. The Hollywood film producer Robert Evans is one of the few examples of a child actor who successfully transitioned into an adult career, although Evans eventually moved from in front of the camera to behind the scenes of the industry. After his brief, mercurial start as a child, Evans left Hollywood to go into the clothing business with his brother. Evans was successful, but was called back to Hollywood when actress Norma Shearer chose him as the ideal candidate to play the 'Boy Wonder' movie mogul Irving Thalberg in the Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). "Legend says Thalberg's widow…spotted the hunky, smooth operator Evans on the telephone poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel and, feeling he was the spitting image of her husband, put him up for the part.

" His role as a producer Boy Wonder eventually proved prophetic: "although Evans had the movie-star looks, he lacked the talent to move beyond a smattering of small roles, including in the Sun Also Rises (1957)" yet he succeeded as a studio leader.

Still entranced by the movie business, Evans left his clothing company permanently and went to work at 20th Century-Fox. While Evans did have some famous roles as an actor his reputation in cinema history is due to the films he produced during the radical era of the 1960s and 1970s, not to his prowess as a thespian. Still, one on-screen appearance did have a memorable outcome. He appeared as matador Pedro Romero in 1957 film adaptation of Ernest Hemmingway's the Sun Also Rises. Evans has the distinction of having Ernest Hemingway, Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner and almost everyone else on-location demand that he be removed from the film. Yet studio head Darryl Zanuck, who came to Spain to observe the production saw Evans' first take. No doubt impressed by what would become the future producer's signature tan, basso vocal tones, and seductive demeanor

Zanuck said: "The kid stays in the picture." Hence the title of Evans' autobiography.

Then, "despite his relative lack of experience, Evans was made the head of production at floundering Paramount in 1966. Under his Thalberg-esque watch, the rejuvenated studio turned out some of the most important hits of the late 1960s and early '70s. Evans played a critical role in bringing controversial film classics to life. Some of the most indelible classics he produced include the adaptation of the Neil Simon play Barefoot in the Park (1967), controversial director Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Love Story (which starred Evans' wife at the time, Ali McGraw) (1970), and the Godfather (1972).

The history of the Godfather's production was famously stormy. "Francis and I have a perfect record; we disagreed on everything" said Evans.

"Evans and Coppola's toughest argument was over the director's original cut, which, Coppola has said, he had repeatedly been ordered to keep at two hours and ten minutes. Evans insists he had commanded Coppola to add more texture and to hell with the length: 'What studio head tells a director to make a picture longer? Only a nut like me. You shot a saga, and you turned in a trailer. Now give me a movie!' (Evans claims that the additional half-hour he coerced Coppola into adding saved the film; Coppola says he merely restored the half-hour that Evans had ordered be cut.)"

Coppola denies Evans' version of events, stating that it was Coppola who wished to add the extra scenes, to keep his film's sense of artistry. The clashing personalities of the two men seemed to give birth to the unique texture and atmosphere of the film. Evans wanted to bring Mario Puzo's work to life in a sensationalist manner to capitalize upon its bestseller status, and Coppola passed on the project, confessing that he had tried to read Puzo's book but was repulsed by the sex and violence. However, Coppola needed the money and gradually, after much research, began to see a deeper theme in the story of Don Corleone "He decided it should be not a film about organized crime but a family chronicle, a metaphor for capitalism in America. 'Is he nuts?' was Evans's reaction to Coppola's take" on the material.

But it was precisely Coppola's attitude to what could have been tabloid fare that gave the Godfather its greatness as cinema.

As the studio system began to decline, Evans became an independent producer in 1974. He oversaw the creation of another classic of director Roman Polanski: Chinatown (1974), which starred Evans' friend Jack Nicholson and later would inspire a less successful sequel the Two Jakes, produced by Evans and directed by and starring Nicholson

Evans often liked to work with his friends. For example, another major motion picture he produced, the thriller Marathon Man (1976) starred his other close friend Dustin Hoffman "who would later reportedly use Evans as the inspiration for his undefeatable producer character in 1997's Wag the Dog."

Evans' golden touch began to turn to lead around the time "he was busted for cocaine possession during the production of Popeye (1980)."

The film was also a box-office failure. When he attempted to direct his first film, the Cotton Club (1984), Evans had to beg for Francis Ford Coppola's assistance. "The shoot spiraled out of control as the script was endlessly rewritten, the budget doubled, and Evans and Coppola fought publicly, not to mention the fact that Evans was also implicated in the murder of a funding source. Evans beat the rap, but he couldn't beat the bad publicity or the Cotton Club's mediocre performance."

His life, personally and professionally, began to spiral downward.

But like all great Hollywood tales, Evans' career had a second act. After he was fired in 1985 from his co-starring role in the Chinatown sequel the Two Jakes he published "his juicy autobiography, the Kid Stays in the Picture, in 1994. The book was a smash hit because of its gossipy tone. The book was popular even in Hollywood "and insiders gleefully passed around the sometimes unintentionally hilarious audio edition, narrated by Evans himself.