When we talk of Hollywood legends, the first people that come to our minds are the actors that have played the major roles and even the directors who were working behind the camera.

While it is true that the success of a series or film lies within their hands, there is a larger-than-life force in work to bring a certain project into creation.

And that is a huge off-screen role Robert Evans chose to play.

Evans, famed Hollywood producer, died Saturday at the age of 89. In celebration of his career, we came up with a tribute remembering his life in the industry.

A young actor in the '50s limelight

Born June 29, 1930 in New York City to a dentist and his wife, Robert J. Shapera or Robert Evans first became a child actor on radio and in the early years of television. With his handsome face and toothy grin, he'd certainly qualify as a movie star in the late '50s.

Evans took a job promoting sales for Evan-Picone, a clothing company co-owned by his brother. He was in the middle of this job when actress Norma Shearer spotted him at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool. She casted her for the role of her late husband, MGM producer Irving Thalberg, in the 1957 film "Man of a Thousand Faces."

Later on, Evans was also casted by producer Darryl F. Zanuck for "The Sun Also Rises," which was based on the classic Ernest Hemingway novel. The young actor played the role of matador Pedro Romero.

B-actor Turned Executive

After trying his luck with acting, Evans realized that telling stories wasn't the path for him. With that decision, the man turned to creating stories. In 1966, he went to work for Paramount Pictures.

People thought Evans wouldn't last even six months, but he proved them wrong. He was able to stay as a production chief for eight years.

"People said, 'That B-actor is suddenly becoming an executive," Evans told The New York Times in a 1976 interview.

However, Evans revealed that he became a "bad executive" who worked with a few pictures and let a lot of other things past.

"I was lucky, because at least the pictures that I got involved with ended up being successful," Evans added.

Evans made a lot of American film classics with Paramount, including 1968 films "The Odd Couple" and "Rosemary's Baby", "True Grit" in 1969, "Love Story" in 1970, "Harold and Maude" in 1971, "The Godfather" in 1972, "Serpico" in 1973, and "The Conversation" in 1974.

In his latter years with Paramount, he realized that he didn't want to be sitting down with agents and making deals - he wanted to be more fully involved with the films he would be creating. He left his executive position and worked as an independent producer.

Evans continued to produce exceptional films, engineering "Chinatown" in 1974, "Marathon Man" in 1976 and "Urban Cowboy" in 1980.

The Fall of the Star

For a while, everything went well. But as the famous saying goes, "change is the only constant thing on earth."

In 1980, Evans' name was involved in a drug bust, and that was the beginning of his career's descent. He was tainted as an accessory to what became known as the "Cotton Club" murder, a scandal that rooted from the murder-for-hire killing of producer Roy Radin.

In a 2017 interview with Vanity Fair, Evans called himself a hermit who preferred to live quietly in his property. He seldom accepted interviews at this point of his life and paid little attention to the modern Hollywood.

Earlier in 2019, Paramount Pictures has ended its 52-year relationship with Evans.

Evans may have not been able to give himself a proper comeback, but regardless, the ultimate truth remains: he left a huge mark in the film industry. He made a revolutionary turn in the Hollywood scene, and that in itself is enough for him to remain as a legend.

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