Leading Man

Robert Evans Play to Hit Broadway

Paramount producer becomes theater subject.

Film producer Robert Evans is stepping out from the behind the scenes and into the spotlight as the longtime producer’s career will become the subject for the Broadway stage. Jon Robin Baitz is currently writing a play about Evans, who worked on The Godfather, Rosemary’s Baby, and Chinatown, and producers (including Chicago’s John N. Hart Jr.) hope the show will make its Broadway debut within the next year. Evans, the former head of Paramount, is taking a backseat, but hopes the story will be an inspiration. “It begins with me dying,” he said, citing his 1998 stroke that left him unable to speak and his right side paralyzed. After years of fighting (and tanning), the 79-year-old is ready to share his tale of survival. “I wanted to get back. I got back,” he said of his life story, which director Richard Eyre described as having Don Quixote and Casanova qualities. The latter comparison to the notorious womanizer is likely due to Evans' seven wives, including former Miss America Phyllis George, and actress Ali MacGraw.