Maurice Evans (actor)
| Maurice Evans | |
|---|---|
Evans in 1956
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| Born |
Maurice Herbert Evans 3 June 1901 Dorchester, Dorset, England, UK |
| Died | 12 March 1989 (aged 87) Rottingdean, East Sussex, England, UK |
| Occupation | Actor, producer |
| Years active | 1926–1983 |
Maurice Herbert Evans (3 June 1901 – 12 March 1989) was a British actor noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. However, his best-known screen roles are probably Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes and as Samantha Stephens' father Maurice in Bewitched.
Evans was born at 28 Icen Way (where there is now a memorial plaque, unveiled in 2013 by Tegen Evans, his great-great niece) in Dorchester, Dorset, England, to Laura (Turner) and Alfred Herbert Evans, a dispensing chemist and keen amateur actor who made adaptations of novels by Thomas Hardy for the local amateur company. Hardy lived in Dorchester and thought highly of Evans's adaptations and productions. Young Maurice made his first stage appearance as a small boy in "Far from the Madding Crowd". He first appeared on the stage in 1926 at the Cambridge Festival Theatre and joined the Old Vic Company in 1934, playing Hamlet, Richard II and Iago.
He was selected by Terence Gray to appear in the opening production in November 1926 at the Festival Theatre, taking the part of Orestes in two parts of the sensational production of the Oresteia of Aeschylus. This was followed by Lord Belvoir in The Man Who Ate the Popomack by W.J. Turner, and Saint Anthony in Maeterlinck's The Miracle of Saint Anthony. Then in 1927 Evans played a poet in The Pleasure Garden by Beatrice Mayor followed by Young Man in On Baile's Strand by W. B. Yeats, Midir in The Immortal Hour by Fiona Macleod, the Hon. Algernon Moodie in The Rumour by C.K. Munro, Mark Ingestire in Sweeney Todd by Dibdin Pitt, the poet in The Lost Silk Hat by Lord Dunsany, the Captain in Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw, Mister Four and Young Man in The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice, Don Juan in the play of the same title by James Elroy Flecker, two parts in Terence Gray's own play The Red Nights of the Tcheka, the Stage Manager in The Player Queen, also by W. B. Yeats, the Second Engineer in The Insect Play by the Čapek brothers, Prince Kamose in another Gray play called And in the Tomb and finally in June 1927 Don Pelegari in Pirandello's Each In His Own Way. Both Yeats and Shaw attended performances of their own plays.
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