Muriel_Evans

Muriel Evans

Muriel Evans (20 July, 1910 - 26 October, 2000) was an American film actress. She is best known for her many appearances in popular westerns of the 1930s for which she won a Golden Boot Award.

Early life and career

Muriel Adele Evanson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Norwegian immigrant parents. Her father died when she was only two months old, forcing her mother to move to California to find work. Once in California, Evans' mother took a job as a maid at First National Studios. She spent her afternoons on film sets and was soon noticed by a studio executive. The executive introduced her to the director Robert Z. Leonard, who gave her a small role opposite Corinne Griffith in the 1926 film, Mademoiselle Modiste. Evans continued attending classes at Hollywood High School and landing bit parts in stock theater productions and silent films.

In 1929, Evans co-starred in the silent, comedic short films, Good Night Nurse and Joyland with comedian Lupino Lane. Shortly after completing Joyland, Evans put her acting career on hold to finish school. Later that year, she married Michael Cudahy, the wealthy scion of a meatpacking family. The couple traveled the world and settled in Europe. In 1931, Evans decided to pursue the film career she had given up and left her husband in Paris. Evans returned to Hollywood, signed a contract at MGM and quickly began making films again. She and Cudahy would eventually divorce in 1932.

Later that year, Evans starred in six films, most notably, Young Ironsides with Charley Chase and Pack Up Your Troubles with Laurel and Hardy. She would go on to star in eight more short films with Charley Chase before his death in 1940. Evans' success was due in large part to her pleasant speaking voice. She made a smooth transition from silent pictures to talkies, and throughout the 1930s, Evans continued to work steadily. She appeared in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Manhattan Melodrama with Clark Gable and William Powell, and The Prizefighter and the Lady with Myrna Loy. By the mid 1930s, Evans also began co-starring in popular westerns alongside Tom Mix, John Wayne and Tex Ritter. She also starred in three Hopalong Cassidy films opposite William Boyd, and did seven westerns with Buck Jones.

Later years

In 1936 at the age of 26, Evans married theatrical agent Marshal R. Worchester. By age 30, she had grown tired of the movie business and retired. One of her last film appearances came in 1946, in the Pete Smith short, Studio Visit. Soon after retiring, Evans and her husband settled in Washington, D.C. Over the next 10 years, she starred in four radio shows and in the television show Hollywood Reporter. In 1951, the couple moved back to Hollywood, although Evans never resumed her acting career. Eventually, the couple bought property in Tarzana, California, where Evans dabbled in real estate.

After the death of her husband in 1971, Evans began work as a volunteer nurse at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills not far from her home. After a stroke in 1994, she became a resident within the complex and often dined with fellow actors with whom she had once worked, including Anita Garvin.

In 1999, Evans made her last film appearance in the 2000 documentary, I Used to be in Pictures. Evans was one of many former actors who recalled their life stories for the film.

Death

On October 26, 2000, Muriel Evans died of colon cancer at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 90 years old.