AP News, September 27th, 2007
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ British-born actor Michael Evans, who wooed Audrey Hepburn on Broadway in "Gigi" and appeared on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless," has died. He was 87.
Evans died Sept. 4 from age-related complications at an assisted-living center in Woodland Hills, said his son, Nick Evans.
John Michael Evans was born July 27, 1920, in Sittingbourne, England. His mother, Mary Galbraith, was an Irish concert violinist and his father, A.J. Evans, was a World War I flyer who twice escaped prisoner-of-war camps and wrote an adventure book about it, "The Escaping Club."
Evans decided at 12 to become an actor after seeing John Gielgud perform on stage in "Richard II," he told the Toronto Star in 1992.
He was a Royal Air Force navigator during World War II and flew during the German bombing of London.
He made his London stage debut in 1948. A few years later, he came to Broadway for the show "Ring Round The Moon." He went on to a starring role in the 1951 production of "Gigi" opposite a young Hepburn.
In the late 1950s, he played Henry Higgins in a touring production of "My Fair Lady," performing in the United States and abroad.
From 1980 to 1995, Evans played Col. Douglas Austin, the best friend of billionaire Victor Newman on CBS' "The Young and the Restless."
Evans also appeared on numerous other shows, including "Dr. Kildare," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Hunter" and "I Spy," and in such films as "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Time After Time."
SEATTLE (AP) _ Helen Elaine Freeman, known to many as "the Jane Goodall of snow leopards" for her advocacy on behalf of the increasingly rare central Asian big cats, has died. She was 75.
Freeman died Thursday of lung disease, according to the International Snow Leopard Trust, which she founded in 1981 after becoming fascinated with two of the creatures at a zoo.
Freeman traveled to Asia, Europe and around the United States to drum up support for protecting the endangered cats in their native habitat.
She was born Helen Maniotas, the only child of Greek immigrants, and married Stanley Freeman in 1958.
Her interest in snow leopards began with Nicholas and Alexandra, obtained from the Soviet Union in 1972, while she was working as a volunteer docent at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.
Freeman earned a degree in animal behavior at the University of Washington, then helped design a program that overcame problems for zoos in getting snow leopards to breed in captivity. Nicholas and Alexandra produced 29 cubs.
