Evans Evans dies at 91: Actress who starred in Bonnie and Cylde, was the widow of John Frankenheimer

Evans Evans starred opposite Gene Wilder in Bonnie and Clyde and played the character of Velma Davis. Before starring in the movie, she also appeared on such TV shows as The Donna Reed Show and Death Valley Days. Evans Evans was born on 26 November 1932 and married director John Frankenheimer in 1963.

The couple were together until John Frankenheimer passed away in 2002. John Frankenheimer’s work included movies such as Birdman of Alcatraz, All Fall Down, The Manchurian Candidate, Black Sunday and Seven Days In May. 

Evans Evans went on to star in the movie Dead Bang, which was directed by her husband and also appeared on Broadway in the 1950s and early 1960s. In the movie Bonnie and Clyde, she not only starred opposite Gene Wilder, but Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway too.

Evans Evans character Velma Davis in Bonnie and Clyde kisses her boyfriend Eugene (played by actor Gene Wilder) when they notice thieves are stealing his car, this movie was also Gene’s big-screen debut. 

The New YorK Post reported that the characters portrayed by Evans Evans and Gene Wilder in Bonnie and Clyde “pursue the thieves — who are  Bonnie (Faye Dunaway), Clyde (Warren Beatty) and their gang. The couple gets abducted by the gang, and events soon turn more lighthearted as they start enjoying each other’s company. However, after Eugene mentions that he is an undertaker, Bonnie leaves the couple on the side of a road. “

Evans Evans also starred in her husband John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate and discussed the movie with The Criterion. She said that “It was a regular atmosphere on set because everybody was working and involved in what they were doing—so it wasn’t jolly-jolly jump-up time, people weren’t running around having a party. I knew Angela Lansbury very well, because she lived up the coast and was a friend, but you certainly never bothered an actor on the set and you didn’t get in their eyelines.”

Other movies Evans Evans starred in include All Fall Down, Story of a Love Story, The Iceman Cometh, Prophecy and Dead Bang.