The Many Many Marriages of Robert Evans

Robert Evans was the kind of movie producer who seemed to embody the post-studio era of Hollywood. Having begun his career selling women's apparel and doing bit-part voice work on radio, he was discovered by the legendary actress Norma Shearer while enjoying the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She got him cast in a movie playing her late husband, the producer Irving Thalberg, and following some time in front of the camera, he moved behind it to become one of the most legendary producers the biz had ever seen.

He was made head of Paramount Pictures in 1967, aged only 37, and he ushered in a new era for the ailing studio that included mega-hits like The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, and The Italian Job. He eventually went independent and made movies like Marathon Man and Urban Cowboy. Evans was also a genuine oddball who got involved in cocaine trafficking and the murder of a man while trying to make a movie about the Cotton Club.

Later in life, he became something of a legend through his extremely juicy memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture, and the documentary adaptation of it. Patton Oswalt said the whole thing read like Satan dictating his memoirs, and he wasn't wrong. Almost every time you see a parody of a sleazy, sharp-talking studio executive on film or TV, even today, it's a parody of Robert Evans: From Documentary Now! and Entourage to The Boys and The Studio. Dustin Hoffman copied him for Wag the Dog and Orson Welles inserted a thinly veiled mockery of him into his final film, The Other Side of the Wind. Evans was a coke-snorting, cigar-chomping, cravat-wearing lunatic with good movie instincts and a ravenous hunger for success. So, of course he had a ton of wives. Seven, to be precise.

ONE: SHARON HUGUENY

In 1958, Warner Bros. put down an impressive $160 - 200,000 for the film rights to a novel, Parrish by Mildred Savage. It was the story of a young man who works his way out of poverty through the tobacco fields of Connecticut. The studio thought it was a hit in the making, and a potential star vehicle for whoever was cast. A ton of people were announced, like Anthony Perkins and Natalie Wood, but never officially signed on. Cast in a supporting role was Sharon Hugueny, a wide-eyed teenager who seemed primed for stardom. In his memoirs, Evans said that Hugueny was "being protected as if she were the Hope diamond" and was being set up as an Elizabeth Taylor type for Warner Bros. Evans and Sharon met, and he said it was love at first sight.

He asked her to marry him, in part because he wanted to reassure his dying mother that he would be a responsible husband and family man after her passing. He was 31. She had just turned 17. She'd never even dated other guys before Robert, let alone had sex. They married in Beverly Hills, and the guest list included Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon, Kirk Douglas, and Liz Taylor (she was with husband number four, Eddie Fisher, at this point in time.)

He quit acting to help his brother with his women's clothing business, and the pair moved to New York. Sharon was way too young and unprepared for her new life as a married woman. It probably didn't help that Evans kept referring to her as his "child bride." He also cheated like a dog. They got a quickie divorce in Mexico after a year. Sharon went back to acting, still only a teenager, but the buzz around her had dissipated. She married twice more after that before passing from cancer in 1996, aged 52.

TWO: CAMILLA SPARV

While dining with Warren Beatty, the playboy actor told Evans he had "batted out" with "Miss Iceberg", the newest discovery by modelling agent Eileen Ford. "I knew this was a girl I had to meet," said Evans. Her name was Camilla Sparv, a Swedish model who didn't seem all that impressed by Evans, according to his recollections of their first meeting. They had breakfast together. She tried to leave after finishing her food, he cracked a joke about how, "the more you eat, the taller you get," and she laughed back, "Too tall for you, Mr. Smoothie." Within 24 hours, they were a couple, and within a year, they were married.