Fazkils

Actor, director, writer Evans connect his dots and long dashes through a life both creative and chaotic. Family, career, and cancer bump heads in a runaway boxcar full of colorful entanglements with the famous and the foolish. Tracing his family history through the years from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression to the tragedy of the Hindenburg, and his early childhood in Japan before WW2, Evans cleverly sets the stage for what follows. His career as an actor ultimately clashed with an early marriage and fatherhood, providing many temptations that carried Evans to Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, Delaware, Kauai, Hawaii, and points beyond. Working in films with stars Jack Nicholson, George C. Scott, David Hemmings, and Michael J. Pollard were high points in his 50-year career that led to a love affair with France and La Nouvelle Vague and the writing, production and direction of his own films and plays. After a season as series regular Paul Hanley opposite Mia Farrow in tv's Peyton Place, Evans moved from early shows like Mr. Novak, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza to an episode of Star Trek with Shatner and Nimoy. Countless other roles sent him on his way to features including major roles in Islands in the Stream, The Nickel Ride, Dirty Little Billy and Synanon, productions that brought him together with many of Hollywood's top directors including Richard Rush, Robert Mulligan, Stan Dragoti and Richard Quine. As his wife, Jo, frequently reminds us, "Dick has made many things, but never without the help of others." Poet Linda Bierds has this to say about Evans' new book: "Kaleidoscopic in its structure, cyclonic in its energy, Fazkils spins the shards of its author's life with wit and audacity, humor and poignancy. We watch, transfixed, as piece by piece, the brilliant, never-to-be-repeated design slips into place before us. This is, quite simply, a marvelous book " Sydney Kaplan writes: "Fazkils is the first genuinely post-modernist Hollywood autobiography. Dick Evans miraculously transforms the genre with this beautifully layered exploration of an artist's life." Writer, director Lewis John Carlino sums it up neatly: "Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a wild ride through this funhouse of fabulous tales told by a consummate jester lovingly at play."