SP: Interview with Harvey Evans

NR: How do you make it through the lean times?

HE: Well, financially I am able to do that because I guess I worked enough, but mentally, it's very hard. Rejection is certainly a part of it, and you have to learn to throw it off whatever way possible. I don't know. I have no rule. Mary Testa said the best thing. She said "Go out and spend money. Buy something. Buy yourself something."

NR: That's good, as long as you can do it. Now you didn't help me too much with your bio. Can you tell me some of those credits from those 44 years?

HE: Well, I've been lucky. I got to do four (Stephen) Sondheim shows. I was the first replacement in West Side Story on Broadway.

NR: What part?

HE: Gee-tar - a Jet part. I also did the movie of West Side Story. Then I did Gypsy, with (Ethel) Merman. I understudied Tulsa and played it for a month. I did Anyone Can Whistle which is also Sondheim and Arthur Laurents, and then I did Follies. So that thrilled me to do four Sondheim shows. Plus, I did Barnaby in Hello Dolly!, and that's a major one.

NR: I heard you did the movie of Mary Poppins.

HE: Mary Poppins. I was a chimney sweep.

NR: OK, you were a chimney sweep. I'm going to have to find you. Of course, I have the video.

HE: Is it the newest version of the video? Because at the end, there are little rehearsal shots in it, and I'm in green shorts. You can't find me in the movie. I'm one of two guys who always does what Dick Van Dyke does. If there's three on the screen, and Dick Van Dyke is there, then I am one of those two, but I can't tell.

NR: That's one of my favorite movies.

HE: Oh good.

NR: And you can't even tell. (laughs) That must have been a lot of fun to do.

HE: Oh, so much fun, so much fun to do!

NR: Did you have any idea that it was going to be the classic that it was?

HE: No. Nobody did. What happened... in my entire career, I've gone from acting, to dancing, to whatever. It's just gone up and down like crazy. I was in L.A. and acting on a soap opera called The Brighter Day and did a little part in a movie called Experiment in Terror opposite Stephanie Powers, when these friends of mine, Marc Breaux and DeeDee Wood, said "We're doing a movie, and we need acrobats." (I'm an acrobat.) "Would you do it?" I thought, "No, I don't want to go back to dancing, I want to stick to acting now." and all that. They convinced me, and I just thought it was a nice job. We got paid well, and had no idea it was going to be the epic until they had a wrap party and they showed part of the film. Then we all thought, "Oh my God." We knew that (Walt) Disney loved it because he would always watch us rehearse. He'd bring Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons back, and all that kind of stuff. We rehearsed on the backlot under a tent and it was very hot. Because the number was so strenuous, we'd break it at 4:00 in the afternoon because that's when you start getting hurt - when you get tired. It was a labor of love.

NR: I bet you have a lot of experiences that you could share.

HE: Yeah. This is not for ego or anything, but I'm blessed with the fact that when I started in the business, all the greats were around doing a show a year. I really sort of tutored or apprenticed under Bob Fosse, and Gower Champion and Jerry Robbins. I remember on the movie of West Side Story, he gave us a ballet barre every morning. I was a tap dancer really and he would specifically tell us what our problem was. I remember thinking, "This is remarkable. It's Jerry Robbins that is teaching me dancing." So, I was blessed with that. I feel sorry for younger people in the business because there are no people that continually do shows like there was. Gower did a show a year. Bob Fosse did a show a year. Joe Layton did a show a year. Jerry Robbins did.

NR: That's incredible. Of all the roles you've done, what's your favorite?

HE: Ah, I don't know. I have a few favorites. I did a production of Our Town on Broadway with Henry Fonda as the Stage Manager, and it consisted of every major character performer in the world - Margaret Hamiltion, Ed Begley, Sr., Irene Tedrow, John Randolph, and wonderful character people. That was a favorite because I was in such incredible company. Mildred Natwick - people like that - incredible company. As a role, I loved ZaZa in La Cage aux Folles, and I loved Mayer Rothschild in The Rothschilds. I replaced in that Off-Broadway. That's a lovely role. You go from 19 to death in it. So you really have to work and age. But Follies, I guess, will be the one that everyone will always say, "Oh God - he was in Follies". I get that a lot. "You were in Follies! Oh my God!" So it might be Follies.

NR: Do you have one that was so bad that you couldn't wait to get it off your resume? That you just look back and really laugh?

HE: Well I don't put one on my resume. It was an Off-Broadway show called Sextet. However, the cast was remarkable. Dixie Carter - it was her first sort of big, big deal. Jerry Lanning. It was wonderful, but it was a terrible property. Terrible.

NR: Looking back, do you have choices you made, like a role you took, or one you didn't take, that you look back and say "Wow, that was really the right decision" or "Wow, that was really the wrong decision"? Is there anything that sticks out like that?

HE: No because that's... I usually felt privileged just to work. But I did turn down... I was going to be in Bye, Bye Birdie originally because I had worked for Gower Champion before in a movie. This understudy in Gypsy came along and I turned down Birdie at the very last minute and sort of made an enemy of a few people over there to do the understudy of Tulsa in Gypsy, but then I got to play it for a month with Merman, so it wasn't the wrong move. Then Gower hired me to do Barnaby in Dolly.