Joan Evans

Who is Joan Evans?

Joan Evans is an American film actress who appeared in three movies with actor Farley Granger. Her first film with him was as the title role in Roseanna McCoy, 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. 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 she was so young. But Crawford, not only gave the couple her blessing, but also 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 continued to act and starred in the 1959 Western film No Name on the Bullet. She retired from acting in 1961.