Robert J. Shapera was born on the 29th June 1930, in New York City, USA, and as Robert Evans is an actor, producer and studio executive, best known to the world for his work on such cult films as the horror “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), then romantic drama “Love Story” (1970), and crime drama “The Godfather” (1972), among many other successful productions.
Have you ever wondered how rich Robert Evans is, as of early 2017? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Robert’s net worth is as high as $120 million, earned through his successful career in the entertainment industry, which began in 1950.
Robert Evans Net Worth $120 Million
Robert is the son of Jewish parents, Florence a housewife and Archie Shapera, a dentist in Harlem. Robert had an older brother, Charles who started the Evan-Picone fashion company, for which Robert did promotional work in his early years. Also, Robert was involved in voice work on radio shows. He changed his name while in school to a more ‘English’ one.
Robert’s career started in the early 1950s, when he was cast in Jean Negulesco’s action adventure film “Lydia Bailey” (1952), starring Dale Robertson and Anne Francis. Soon he was spotted by actress Norma Shearer, who found him an engagement in Joseph Pevney’s Academy Award biopic about Lon Chaney – “Man of a Thousand Faces” (1957), starring James Cagney, Dorothy Malone and Jane Greer. The same year he portrayed Pedro Romero in Henry King’s drama “The Sun Also Rises”, based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the same name. In 1958 he had the lead role in the western “The Fiend Who Walked the West”, while in 1959 he featured in the romantic drama “The Best of Everything”, starring Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd and Suzy Parker; his net worth was now well established.
Robert wasn’t quite satisfied with his acting talent and ventured into producing films, but returned to the screen in the mid- ‘90s, and since then has appeared in such productions as “An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn” (1997), “Kid Notorious” (2003), and “The Girl from Nagasaki” (2013).
In the mid- ‘60s he became head of production for the Paramount Studio, and his first film was the crime drama “The Detective” (1968), starring Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick and Robert Duvall. He continued successfully at Paramount with such films as “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), “The Italian Job” (1969), “True Grit” (1969), “Harold and Maude” (1971), and “Save the Tiger” (1973), among many others.
However, Robert was dissatisfied with the payment he received from Paramount, and while still being head of production also began producing films on his own, such as “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather: Part II” (1974). He eventually left Paramount for good, and focused more on sole production, which spawned such films as “Chinatown” (1974), starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston, and “Marathon Man” (1976), with Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier and Roy Scheider as the stars of the film. Until the mid- ‘80s Robert enjoyed fame with such accomplishments as the Golden Globe Award- nominated “Players” (1979), also Golden Globe Award nominated western “Urban Cowboy” (1980), with John Travolta and Debra Winger, and the Academy Award- nominated drama “The Cotton Club” (1984), starring Richard Gere, Gregory Hines and Diane Lane. After that his life and career took a turn for the worse, as he was charged for drug trafficking, largely for his own benefit in use, on which charges he pleaded guilty.
Robert returned to the film world in 1990 with the drama “The Two Jakes”, starring Jack Nicholson and Harvey Keitel, and continued with the romantic thriller “Sliver” (1993), starring William Baldwin and Sharon Stone, and action adventure “The Phantom” (1996), with Billy Zane in the lead role. Before the ‘90s ended Robert produced the comedy “The Out-of-Towners” (1999), with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, which further added to his net worth.
With the beginning of the new millennium, Robert slowed down again – in 2003 he produced the romantic comedy “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”, starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, and then in 2016 produced “Urban Cowboy”, and he several projects released in 2017, including the action film “The White Death”, and drama “The Strangers at the Palazzo d’Oro”, raising his net worth considerably.
Regarding his personal life, Robert has just one child, director Josh Evans with his third wife Ali MacGraw; their marriage lasted from 1969 until 1973. Robert has married seven times, and become known for his short marriages, none more than three years; his marriage to his fifth wife Catherine Oxenberg lasted only ten days in July 1998. His most recent partner was Lady Victoria White, and their marriage lasted from 2005 until 2006.
His health began deteriorating in the late ‘90s, and due to several strokes he suffered, Robert was unable to speak and walk for a while, but managed to recover, and now uses a cane in order to walk. He continues to live in Beverly Hills, California.
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama (1975), David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film (1977), PGA David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures (2003), Satellite Mary Pickford Award (2003), PGA Hall of Fame - Motion Pictures (2000)
Music Groups
Twentieth Century Fox's production, Paramount Pictures
Nominations
Academy Award for Best Picture (1975), David di Donatello for Best Foreign Producer (1985)
Movies
“Lydia Bailey” (1952), “Man of a Thousand Faces” (1957),“The Sun Also Rises”, “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), “Love Story” (1970), “The Godfather” (1972), “The Fiend Who Walked the West” (1958), “The Best of Everything” (1959), “The Phantom” (1996), “The Out-of-Tow...
Often wears large, square-framed, tinted eyeglasses
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Quote
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Success means never having to admit you're unhappy.
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If I wrote the truth of what I know, the book would be 10,000 pages.
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When I went out to L.A., I knew one thing: property is king. No one wanted me--there's nothing worse than a pretty boy actor who wants to be a producer, especially a lousy actor. And I bought a property called "The Detective" to get my foot in the door. So I went to 20th Century-Fox and demanded a three-picture deal and got it. Without the property, they wouldn't have given me anything.
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It's not just what you pay the actors, everything goes up when you do it [in Hollywood], it just grows and grows. But the English artists I was working with cared more about what they were doing than how much they were paid to do it. It's not that way in America, I hate to say it but it's true.
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I've always been a gambler; I've always taken risks. Anyone who says you will always win if you take a risk is a liar, because it's not a risk then.
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. . . I believe that rules are made to be broken but I believe that vows made between two people must be adhered to. And I got married two weeks ago, and my vows are what we're talking about now: the four Ls. My vows are very simple: like, love, in love and lust--if we are to make our union work, I vow to adhere to at least two of them every day. One of them has to be like, because like is very important. And if you can't, something's wrong.
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A love story could be for an evening, a week, a month, it could be forever. There is a big difference between like, love, in love and lust.
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The producer is the most important element of a film. It's the producer who hires the director . . . The producer buys the property, he hires the writer, the director; he's involved in hiring all the actors, involved with production, costs, post-production and involved with marketing. He's on a film for four or five years and gets very little credit for it.
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I didn't hang around with famous people . . . they hung around with me.
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[about his proposal to Catherine Oxenberg while recovering from a stroke, which resulted in a 12-day marriage] I was very, very seductive but in fact I was crazy. My brain was swollen still.
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[speaking to women] If you're ever approached with the line, "You ought to be in pictures, I'm a producer", tell the guy to fuck off. He's a fraud, and the pictures he wants to put you in don't play in theaters.
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When a director hires a producer, you're in deep shit. A director needs a boss, not a yes man.
Was implicated but never charged in the murder of theatrical impresario Roy Radin, in the so-called "Cotton Club Murder." Evans, who was producing The Cotton Club (1984), had been in contact with Radin as a potential investor in the film.
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In May 2002 he was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.
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Two of his divorces were finalized on the date of July 21st. Another two were finalized on the date of July 22nd.
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His seventh wife, Lady Victoria White, filed for divorce on June 16, 2006 citing irreconcilable differences (June 21, 2006).
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After shepherding such hits as Love Story (1970) and The Godfather (1972) to the screen, but not sharing in the profits, Evans--then Paramount Pictures production chief--inveigled Charlie Bluhdorn, the head of conglomerate Gulf+Western which owned Paramount, into allowing him to personally produce movies like the old-time moguls. Pleased that Evans had turned Paramount from a money-loser into the hottest studio in Hollywood, Bluhdorn allowed him to branch into production. Evans produced the classic neo-noir Chinatown (1974) in his first outing. The financial and critical success of that film effectively doomed Evans as production chief, as the other producers at Paramount resented his success and believed he would siphon off the best projects in the future. To forestall a rebellion, Evans had to step down as chief of production. Production designer extrarordinaire Richard Sylbert, an Oscar-winner who had received an Academy Award nomination for "Chinatown," was hand-picked by Evans as his successor. Evans was impressed by Sylbert's close relationships with such heavyweight talents as Warren Beatty, Mike Nichols and Roman Polanski. He was also impressed by Sylbert's grasp of visual storytelling. Sylbert took over as Paramount production chief when Evans stepped down in 1975. Evans' post-production chief career was disastrous, yielding only two unqualified hits, Marathon Man (1976), which he produced for Paramount in 1976, and Urban Cowboy (1980). Sylbert was eventually sacked by Paramount head Barry Diller in 1978 and went back to his successful production designing career, which yielded him a second Oscar. Evans went from debacle to debacle as his personal and professional life disintegrated. A masterful studio boss, he seemed incapable of making a success of the more picayune job of producer in a medium increasingly dominated by writer-directors and superstar actors.
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He has suffered three near-fatal strokes.
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According to his book he was contacted by Sharon Tate and asked to be her houseguest on the evening she was killed, but he had to decline. She then invited Jay Sebring.
Accompanied Raquel Welch to Super Bowl (X) at Miami's Orange Bowl where eleven cameras were simultaneously shooting live crowd and football scenes for his movie Black Sunday (1977)
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Attended Super Bowl (I) with friend Clint Eastwood in 1967
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Was offered the role of Monroe Stahr in the biopic The Last Tycoon (1976) (inspired by Irving Thalberg) but declined. Coincidentally, Evans had earlier played Thalberg in his film debut.
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Attended Henry Kissinger's 50th birtday party at New York's Harmony Club in 1973
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Henry Kissinger played tennis with champ Jimmy Connors at Evans' estate, where Kissinger was a frequent VIP guest.
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Celebrity attorney Robert Shapiro celebrated his 50th birthday at the estate.
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His luxurious Beverly Hills estate, "Woodland," once belonged to screen legend Greta Garbo
Was the inspiration for the Stanley Motss character played by Dustin Hoffman in Wag the Dog (1997). Hoffman emulated Evans' work habits, mannerisms, quirks, his clothing style, hairstyle, and wore large square-framed eyeglasses. After seeing the film, Evans reportedly said, "I'm magnificent in this film!".