Longtime Y&R Actor Michael Evans Dies

Starred on Broadway opposite Audrey Hepburn in 1951

Woodland Hills, CA — British actor Michael Evans, who starred on Broadway with Audrey Hepburn in Gigi, but was perhaps best known as Col. Douglas Austin on the long-running daytime television drama The Young and the Restless, died September 4. Evans, who passed away at an assisted-living center in Woodland Hills, California, was 87.

Austin, whom Evans played on Y&R from 1980 to 1995, was the best friend of billionaire Victor Newman, played by Eric Braeden.

He was born John Michael Evans on July 27, 1920, in Sittingbourne, England. His mother, Mary Galbraith, was an Irish concert violinist and his father, A.J. Evans, was a World War I pilot who twice escaped prisoner-of-war camps and later wrote a book about his experiences, titled The Escaping Club.

Evans was inspired to become an actor at age 12, when he saw John Gielgud perform the title role in a stage in a stage production of Shakespeare’s Richard II.

During World War II he was a Royal Air Force navigator and flew during the German bombing of London.

He made his London stage debut in 1948. A few years later, he came to Broadway for the show Ring Round the Moon, featuring Harry Belafonte. He went on to a starring role in the 1951 production of Gigi opposite a young Hepburn.

Evans went on to appear on numerous prime-time television series, including Dr. Kildare, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Hunter and I Spy, and in such movies as Bye Bye Birdie and Time After Time.

He is survived by his sons, Nick and Christopher, and two sisters, Rosemarie and Bridget.