LINDA EVANS
When looked at objectively, it often seems that the price of success comes terribly dear. For many folks, success resembles hamsters on a treadmill. They go around in circles, faster and faster, and wind up where they began. Great exercise, I grant you, but a lousy way to travel. People fall off the treadmill occasionally. Sometimes they’re pushed. Only rarely do they elect to step off voluntarily.
One who has, and who’s even managed to land on her feet, is Linda Evans. Evans is a Golden-Globe winning actress who is best known for her appearance as Krystle Carrington on the TV show, “Dynasty.” But as you’ll find, she’s a lot more dimensional than Krystle could ever be.
Q. Did you grow up wanting to be an actress?
A. All I wanted was to grow up to be a traditional wife and mother. A career was never, ever, an option, as far as I was concerned. Although when I was four or five, my mom did take me out to test for a Bob Hope movie. Thank god I didn’t get the part. I might have wound up being one of those awful Shirley Temple clones.
By the time I was in junior high, I was so shy I wouldn’t even stand up and give a book report. They forced me to take drama in high school, hoping that would help me deal with my problem.
Q. Why do you think you were so shy?
A. My mother and father were both alcoholics. They had been professional ballroom dancers, but once they started having kids, she retired and he became a house painter. He was very bitter, and it was not a happy marriage. When you grow up in a home like that, you feel inadequate. No matter how successful you may become, you have to heal that feeling of unworthiness inside yourself or you just go on doubting your own value.
Q. Is that why so many people who have had their wildest dreams come true can’t ever just walk away?
A. Absolutely. They never believe they’re any good. They think they’re going to be caught in the act and shown up to be frauds. They keep trying to prove they deserve the acclaim they really don’t believe they’re entitled to. People such as Marilyn Monroe and even Elvis Presley never did get over that terrible feeling of inadequacy.
Q. How did you make the giant leap from shyness to show biz?
A. A girl friend of mine, an actress named Carole Wells, was going out to try for a commercial. She asked me to come along to keep her company. When the director saw me, he gave me the part.
Q. And you actually accepted?
A. Well, we needed the money because my father had just died. But when I got the news, my reaction was not the normal person’s “Wow!” It was more like “Oh, my god! What do I do now?”
Q. Did you find you enjoyed the work?
A. It was actually pretty easy. After I’d done a few commercials, my agent got me my first real acting job on the TV series, “Bachelor Father,” with John Forsythe. The next time I saw him was about 20 years later, on the set of “Dynasty.” His first words to me were, “My, how you’ve grown!”
Q. Did you feel that your career came easily to you?
A. Absolutely. When I got out of high school, MGM put me under contract. Although they offered classes in diction and acting, I never bothered. It wasn’t until I was in my early 30′s that I decided I should study my craft. And even then, I signed up with Lee Strasberg mainly because my friend Valerie Perrine wanted to go, and she talked me into it.
