Career

Evans appeared in three movies with actor Farley Granger. Her first film with him was as the title role in Roseanna McCoy (1949), based on the real-life romance between two members of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. She gained the role after producer Samuel Goldwyn conducted a national talent search. She was only fourteen years old when she started work on Roseanna McCoy, and her parents added two years to her age so she could claim to be sixteen when the film was released.

Her parents were Hollywood writers Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Her father wrote the book The Day They Gave Babies Away, which was made into the movie All Mine to Give (1957). She was named after actress Joan Crawford, her godmother. When Evans was seventeen years old, she announced that she would marry a car salesman named Kirby Weatherly.

Her parents asked Crawford to dissuade her from marrying, since Evans was so young, but Crawford not only gave the couple her blessing, she had the wedding ceremony performed right in her own house without having the parents present. Evans's marriage to Weatherly lasted, but the friendship between Evans's parents and Crawford ended.

In 1984, Joan Evans and her husband signed a tribute to Crawford in Daily Variety.

Evans' film career was launched with her three pictures opposite Granger, including a supporting role in the drama Our Very Own and a featured part in the crime story Edge of Doom. She had top billing as a suicidal teenager in 1951's drama On the Loose, then second billing to Esther Williams in a 1952 musical comedy, Skirts Ahoy!

Evans continued to make movies throughout the 1950s, including a featured role in It Grows on Trees, a comedy about a family with a tree that grows money in place of leaves. She starred as the love interest of John Derek in a 1954 western, The Outcast, and co-starred twice with Audie Murphy in the westerns Column South and No Name on the Bullet. She retired from acting in 1961. Her last role was in the episode "The Killer Legend" on the TV series Laramie.

Filmography

Film

• Roseanna McCoy (1949) - Roseanna McCoy
• Our Very Own (1950) - Joan Macaulay
• Edge of Doom (1950) - Rita Conroy
• On the Loose (1951) - Jill Bradley
• Skirts Ahoy! (1952) - Mary Kate Yarbrough
• It Grows on Trees (1952) - Diane Baxter
• Column South (1953) - Mary Whitlock
• The Outcast (1954) - Judy Polsen
• A Strange Adventure (1956) - Terry Dolgin
• No Name on the Bullet (1959) - Anne Benson
• The Flying Fontaines (1959) - Jan
• The Walking Target (1960) - Gail Russo

Television

• General Electric Theater (1954)
• Climax! (1954-1955) - Helen O'Neill, Narrator
• The Millionaire (1956) - Julie
• Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1956)
• Cavalcade of America (1957)
• Lux Video Theatre (1956-1957)
• Cheyenne (TV western) (1958) - Lilac
• 77 Sunset Strip (1958) - Diane Forsythe
• Wagon Train (1959) - Sarah
• Zorro (1959) - Leonar
• The Chevy Mystery Show (1960) - Blanche
• The Rebel (1960) - Cassie
• The Outlaws (1961) - Molly Moore
• Tales of Wells Fargo (1961) - Kathy Davidson
• The Brothers Brannagan (1960-1961) - Terry, Peggy Dodd
• The Tall Man (1961) - Lou Belle Martin
• Laramie (1961) - Julie Wade
• Ripcord - Juli Warner

[ Source: Wikipedia ]