Michael Evans (July 27, 1920 – September 4, 2007) was an English actor best known for starring in the original 1951 Broadway production of Gigi with Audrey Hepburn, and later as Colonel Douglas Austin on the American soap opera The Young and the Restless.
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John Michael Evans was born July 27, 1920, in Sittingbourne, Kent; to A.J. Evans, a World War I Royal Flying Corps pilot and double prisoner-of-war escapee who wrote the 1926 novel "The Escaping Club,"[1] and his wife the former Marie Galbraith, an Irish concert violinist.[2] Evans later told the Tornoto Star in a 1992 interview on his return to "My Fair Lady" touring Russia, that aged 12, he decided to be an actor after seeing Sir John Gielgud on stage in "Richard II."
During World War II he was a Royal Air Force navigator, and flew during the Blitz.[3] He returned to Winchester College and graduated in 1943, and then studied acting with the Old Vic company, with whom he made his stage debut in London's West End theatre in 1948 as a member of the Old Vic company.
Evans then moved to United States, making his New York debut in the Broadway theatre production of "Ring Round the Moon" opposite Harry Belafonte. Evans then played opposite a young Audrey Hepburn in "Gigi" in 1951.[4] He then took on the role of Henry Higgins in a touring production of My Fair Lady, but although considered at the time the essential Higgins, Rex Harrison took the role for the Hollywood film production.
Evans returned to Broadway in Mary, Mary and made the move to Hollywood when he took a role in Bye Bye Birdie (1963). While in Hollywood, he took on many guest starring roles in shows such as: The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Perry Mason and his best known television role as Colonel Douglas Austin on The Young and the Restless.
In 1948, Evans married Pat Wedgewood. The couple had two sons (Nick and Christopher), and divorced in 1983. His second wife Pat Sigris Evans, died in 1986, with whom he had two daughters: Rosemarie and Bridget.[5]
Evans died in a Woodland Hills assisted-living facility in Los Angeles on September 4, 2007, of complications related to age.[5]
He was buried in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery.