Robert Evans, Legendary Producer And Studio Head Behind ‘The Godfather’ And ‘Chinatown’, Is Dead At 89
By Chris Evangelista/Oct. 28, 2019 11:00 am EST
After his brief stint in front of the camera, Evans used his money to break into producing. He soon caught the attention of Charles Bluhdorn, who was head of Paramount owner Gulf+Western. Bluhdorn installed Evans at Paramount and by 1967, Evans was running the studio. At the time of Evans’ arrival, Paramount was in trouble. Despite having virtually no experience running a studio, Evans was able to turn Paramount into the most successful studio in Hollywood, ushering in films like Rosemary’s Baby, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Chinatown, and many more.
Evans continued to produce up through the early 2000s, but his work came nowhere close to his glory days. Some of his later films include Sliver, Jade, The Phantom, and The Saint. The final film to feature an Evans producing credit was How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
Married seven times and convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980, Evans’ personal life was rocky, and became the stuff of Hollywood urban legend. Evans was introduced to a whole new generation in the acclaimed documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, adapted from his own memoir, which Evans narrated himself. This inexplicably lead to a short-lived Comedy Central animated series, Kid Notorious, in which Evans voiced a fictionalized version of himself.
