Wilbur Evans

Wilbur "Wib" Evans (August 5, 1905 - May 31, 1987) was an American actor and singer who performed on the radio, in opera, on Broadway, in films, and in early live television.

Evans was born in Philadelphia, the son of W. Percy and Emma Whilt Evans, of Welsh descent. He had a brother, Walter, and a sister, Emma, who died at an early age. As a child, he sang with the Welsh Singing Society of Philadelphia and as a soloist in the choir of the First Unitarian Church in the Germantown section of the city. At Holmes Junior High School, he performed in his first play, Daddy Long Legs. From 1921-1925 he attended West Philadelphia High School For Boys. There he starred in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado as Ko-Ko.

After graduating from high school he was awarded a two-year scholarship at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. During his second year at Curtis, in 1927, he entered the first national radio singing contest, the Atwater Kent Foundation National Radio Singing Contest. Out of 50,000 contestants, Evans and Agnes Davis won the top prizes for male and female contestants, Evans won $5,000 in cash and a two-year scholarship for his junior and senior years at Curtis. Some have asserted that Evans and Davis were the 'first American Idols.'

A baritone, Evans performed in radio early his career. In 1930, he moved to Los Angeles to perform on the radio,in concerts and to try his hand has a performer in the movie-talkie fever that was sweeping the land.Having little financial success, at the age of twenty six he returned to New York in 1931 and his burgeoning radio career. During this time he signed with Columbia Concert Management Agency and its subsidiary Cooperative-Community Concerts Bureau. They were known for sending out salesman en masse across the US and Canada, selling a roster of concert series to larger towns- usually a singer, violinist, pianist etc. These community concerts catered usually to the social leaders in each city to promote their awareness of bringing musical culture to their areas.

On May 22 and 23 of 1931, Evans performed the role of the Pirate King in to excellent reviews in the Savoy Company's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" at Philadelphia's famed Academy of Music. The Savoy Company is currently the oldest theatrical group in the world dedicated to performing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Founded in 1901, and still extant, Savoy's performing membership of dedicated amateurs was formed from Philadelphia society's "blue bloods" and Social Register-types.

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