Joan Evans

Joan Evans, born Joan Katherine Eunson on July 18, 1934, in New York City, was an American actress whose career spanned film, television, and Broadway. She was the daughter of Hollywood writers Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Her father authored the book The Day They Gave Babies Away, which was later adapted into the 1957 film All Mine to Give. Evans was named after actress Joan Crawford, who served as her godmother. She died on October 21, 2023, in Henderson, Nevada, at the age of 89.

Evans made her Broadway appearance in 1935, at the age of one, when she was credited in the revue Earl Carroll's Sketch Book. Her screen career began at the age of fourteen, when producer Samuel Goldwyn cast her in the title role of Roseanna McCoy (1949) following a national talent search after original star Cathy O'Donnell withdrew from the project. Because Evans was only fourteen when production began, her parents added two years to her age so she could be presented as sixteen upon the film's release. Roseanna McCoy, based on a real-life romance between members of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, starred Farley Granger opposite Evans. She appeared with Granger in two additional films: a supporting role in the drama Our Very Own (1950) and a featured part in the crime story Edge of Doom (1950).

Evans received top billing in RKO's On the Loose (1951), in which she played a suicidal teenager, and second billing to Esther Williams in the MGM musical comedy Skirts Ahoy! (1952). Goldwyn lent her to Universal for It Grows on Trees (1952), where she played the daughter of Irene Dunne. She served as the leading lady opposite Audie Murphy in Column South (1953) and was later reunited with Murphy in No Name on the Bullet (1959). At Republic Pictures, she starred alongside John Derek in the Western The Outcast (1954) and took the lead in the crime film A Strange Adventure (1956). Her final feature film was The Walking Target (1960).

Her television work included appearances on General Electric Theatre, Climax!, The Millionaire, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Cavalcade of America, Lux Video Theatre, Cheyenne, Wagon Train, 77 Sunset Strip, and Zorro, among others. Her final television role was as Julie Wade in the Laramie episode "The Killer Legend." Evans retired from acting in 1961 at the age of 27.

Beyond performing, Evans wrote articles for Photoplay magazine during the 1950s and beginning in May 1966 served as editor of Hollywood Studio Magazine under her married name, Joan Evans Weatherly. In the 1970s she became an educator and served as director of Carden Academy in Van Nuys, California.

On July 24, 1952, six days after her eighteenth birthday, Evans married car dealer Gerald Kirby Weatherly at Joan Crawford's home. Her parents had sent Evans to Crawford hoping the actress would discourage the marriage, but Crawford instead arranged the ceremony, held it at her house, and notified the press without informing Evans's parents. The couple had a daughter on August 16, 1955, and a son in January 1960. Their marriage lasted 70 years; Weatherly died on January 1, 2023, at the age of 97. Evans was survived by her two children and a grandson.