Madge Evans

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Maureen O’Sullivan, Skyscraper Souls, 1931. Robert Young, Madge Evans, Una Merkel directed by Harry Beaumont. That’s how MGM announced announced the high-rise Grand Hotel, which wound up with   Warren William, O’Sullivan, Verree Teasdale helmed, well enough, by Edgar Selwyn.
  2. Maureen O’Sullivan, Tugboat Annie, 1932.  As happened the year before, the mighty MGM changed its corporate mind about the appeal of Evans – and put the newly signed O’Sullivan to wortk. (She’d be soon on the vine with Tarzan). Evans stayed and improved at Metro. So much so, it was she and not O’Sullivan being seen – along wih the million others! – for Scarlett O’Hara for Gone With The Wind.
  3. Karen Morley, Flesh, 1932.        For the ex-con seducing German wrestler Wallace Beery, Madge  and Colleen  Moore  were also  in the mix as directors changed from Edmund Goulding, Robert Z Leonard and Raoul Walsh to  become John Ford’s MGM debut.
  4. Maureen O’Hara, Tugboat Annie, 1932.     MGM had second thoughts about “the audience appeal” of Evans – and gave Pat to O’Hara. As if anyone noticed. This was Marie Dressler’s film from start to finish. Marjorie Rambeau, Jane Darwell and Minerva Urecal in the Warner, Republic and TV sequels didn’t come close.
  5. Myrna Loy, Penthouse, 1933.   Change of Gertie when an ostracized society lawyer turns detective to save his girlfriend’s fiancé from a murder rap.   Sounds familiar? Should do – re-made five years later with Walter Pidgeon as the Society Lawyerand Virginia Bruce.  Loy, of course, was the future helpmate (and wife) of William Powell in The Thin Manseries.
  6. Jean Parker, Murder in the Fleet, 1934.      Maureen O’Sullivan was replaced as Betty by Evans who was replaced in turn by Parker who… stayed put in the play-it-again version of director Edward Sedgwick’s previous whodunnit, Death ln the Diamond, 1933. Only the settings are different – a US Navy cruiser instead of a baseball team.
  7. Irene Harvey, Three Godfathers, 1935.    Four cowboy bank-robbders save a baby found in the desert and head back to New Jerusalem, no less – to give it to  Evans…er, Harvey, as Molly. A much better version than the two made by John Ford in 1919 and 1948.
  8. Vivien Leigh, Gone With The Wind, 1938. 

 Birth year: 1909Death year: 1981Other name: Casting Calls:  8