Joan Evans, ‘On the Loose,’ ‘Skirts Ahoy!’ actress, dead at 89

Actress Joan Evans, who starred in the 1950s movies “On the Loose” and “Skirts Ahoy!” and was the goddaughter of Joan Crawford, died in Nevada. She was 89.

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Evans died Oct. 21 in Henderson, her son, John Weatherly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Evans worked with Farley Granger, Audie Murphy, Irene Dunne and Esther Williams, according to Deadline.

She signed her first film contract in 1948 when she was 14, the entertainment news website reported.

While doing reshoots for the film “Roseanna McCoy” in 1949, Evans was accidentally shot in the arm by Granger when his gun discharged, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She was hospitalized and needed emergency surgery.

Evans was noted for her role in the 1951 film “On the Loose,” where she played a suicidal teenager in the film written by her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. She also appeared as Dunne’s daughter in “It Grows on Trees” (1952) and starred with Williams in the 1952 musical, “Skirts Ahoy!”

According to Deadline, Evans appeared in several other films during the 1950s, including The Outcast (1954), A Strange Adventure (1956), The Flying Fontaines (1959) and The Walking Target (1960). On television, she had guest roles on “Climax!,” “The Millionaire,” “Cheyenne,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “Wagon Train,” “Zorro,” “Tales of Wells Fargo,” “The Tall Man” and “Laramie.”

Named for her godmother, Joan Katherine Eunson was born on July 18, 1934, in New York, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

When she was 18 in 1952, Evans, urged by Crawford, married her boyfriend, Kirby Weatherly, a 26-year-old car dealer.

Her parents were against the wedding and were angry with Crawford, according to The Hollywood Reporter. They never spoke to her again.

Evans and Weatherly remained married until his death this year on Jan. 1. The marriage “wasn’t the mistake that my parents foretold,” Evans later said.

Evans stopped acting during the early 1960s to raise a family and later became an editor at Hollywood Studio Magazine, Deadline reported.

Survivors include her son; a daughter, Dale; and a grandson, Chris.

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