Maurice Evans

The Bard Who Conquered the Small Screen

Maurice Evans was not chasing tabloid fame or the spotlight of gossip magazines. In 1935 he arrived in New York to play Romeo opposite Katharine Cornell and discovered that his English accent was a goldmine on Broadway. That young man, born in Dorchester in 1901, brought a classical training that American producers needed to add polish to their stages.

But his real breakthrough came in 1937 with Richard II. No one expected a Shakespeare play to run for 132 consecutive performances at that time. Evans proved that classical theater could be a profitable business if it was handled with the right energy.

And the gamble paid off.

During World War II he served in the U.S. Army and staged shows for troops in the Pacific. In 1941 he became a U.S. citizen and decided his mission was to bring high culture to the masses. So in 1953 he teamed up with NBC to produce and star in televised stage plays on the Hallmark Hall of Fame series.

Those broadcasts drew millions of viewers who had never set foot in a theater in London or New York. Evans didn't just act; he also served as executive producer and oversaw every technical detail of the recordings.

Between Ape Makeup and Witches in Manhattan

Many viewers in the following decades never knew that the method actor was the same man who played Maurice, Samantha Stephens' father, in Bewitched. In 1964 he accepted the role of a sophisticated, somewhat arrogant warlock who appeared now and then to complicate life for his mortal son-in-law. The pay was excellent, and the job allowed him to keep his status as a British gentleman in Hollywood.

In 1968 he took on a grueling physical challenge for a man already approaching seventy. He sat through four hours of makeup every day to transform into Doctor Zaius in the film Planet of the Apes. Beneath the latex layers and synthetic hair, his voice remained the most powerful tool on set.

That same year, he appeared in Rosemary's Baby under the direction of Roman Polanski. He played Hutch, the friend who tries to warn the lead character about the danger lurking in her own building. It was a brief role, but a crucial one for the tension of the film's second act.

Evans understood that prestige didn't pay the bills in old age.

Despite his success in film and television, he never fully abandoned his passion for the written word. In 1987 he published his memoir, All This and Evans Too, in which he looked back on his encounters with the great figures of the twentieth century without slipping into sentimentality. He preferred to talk about acting technique and the logistics of theater tours rather than his private life.

He spent his final years in retirement in England, seeking the milder climate of the south coast. He died of heart failure on March 12, 1989 at a clinic in Brighton, at the age of 87 years old.