#MIKE EVANS ACTOR 1999 SERIES#
The hit series centredon Archie's black neighbours from Queens, now living in a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.Įvans's Lionel was the college-student son of Louise and George Jefferson, the wealthy owner of a chain of dry-cleaning stores. After studying acting at Los Angeles City College, he landed the role of Lionel in the 1970s sitcom All in the Family.Įvans kept the role when The Jeffersons- an All in the Family spinoff- launched in 1975.
#MIKE EVANS ACTOR 1999 TV#
14 at his mother's home in California, according to his niece, Chrystal Evans.Įvans also co-created and helped write Good Times, one of the first TV comedy series to feature a primarily black cast.īorn in Salisbury, N.C., Evans and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child. He was 57.Įvans died of throat cancer Dec. He died of throat cancer in 2006 at age 57 at his mother's home in Twentynine Palms, California.Actor Mike Evans, who played Lionel Jefferson in the television comedy series All in the Family and The Jeffersons, has died. By this time he had delved into Southern California real estate. Mike took on a low profile after his 1970s successes and was not seen onscreen again. The family show ended its long run in 1985 after a decade. His character of Lionel, however, had dwindled so significantly in importance that he left the show again in 1981, this time for good. Mike eventually reclaimed the part in 1979 after the cancellation of "Good Times". In fact, he left the role completely in the fall of 1975 after only eight months to focus on his writing and was replaced by actor Damon Evans (no relation to Mike), who inhabited the part for four seasons. The major responsibilities and hardships of writing for "Good Times", which became one of the first TV sitcoms to feature a primarily African American cast in quite some time, took its toll, and Mike began making fewer appearances as Lionel. In the meantime, Mike and writing partner Eric Monte also cocreated and were writing for another Lear sitcom, Good Times (1974), which was a spin-off of Lear's comedy hit Maude (1972), which in turn was a spin-off of sitcom daddy All in the Family (1971). This became a major source of combustible comedy material that initially fed the new sitcom. Mike's character eventually met and fell for Jenny, the beautiful product of an interracial marriage. The "moving on up" was from Queens to a "deluxe apartment" in Manhattan, where the burgeoning, financially successful George now held court as head intolerant. The hit series spun the Jefferson clan into its own "moving-on-up" sitcom The Jeffersons (1975) four years later. Mention the Disney family comedy feature Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), starring Kurt Russell. During the run of the show, Mike also boosted his visibility with the TV movies Killer by Night (1972), Call Her Mom (1972), and Voyage of the Yes (1973), costarring Desi Arnaz Jr., not to As friend to Archie's daughter, Gloria, and her husband, Mike, Lionel had to somehow tolerate his grouchy neighbor's exasperating politically incorrect banter but made up for it with clever, carefully worded digs at the often-clueless Archie. As the calm, intelligent, level-headed Lionel, son of hothead George ( Sherman Hemsley) and his beleaguered wife, Louise Jefferson ( Isabel Sanford), Lionel's liberal-minded stance was more akin to Archie's live-in younger generation. Due to the quality of the cast and writing, the series managed to thoroughly engage and entertain an audience despite being fronted by a blue-collar bigot in the form of Archie Bunker (played by the great Carroll O'Connor). The series altered the course of TV comedy while tackling many then-taboo subjects, including racial prejudice. In fact, Mike was still attending acting school when he was cast in the 1971 show at age 21. Landing the role of black next-door neighbor Lionel Jefferson in Lear's iconic sitcom All in the Family (1971) was a lucky fluke - something every fledgling actor should get to experience. Graduating from Los Angeles High School, he attended Los Angeles City College before his abrupt TV success. North Carolina, on November 3, 1949, his dentist father and school instructor mother moved the family to Los Angeles when Mike was quite
Clean cut and smoothly handsome as a youth, Mike Evans got on board the Norman Lear TV train in the early 1970s and took a straight ride to sitcom stardom in both a landmark comedy series and its black-oriented spin-off.
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