July 10, 2023
Andrea Evans, popular for her stints on One Life to Live, Passions and The Bay, died July 9, 2023, at 66 following a battle with breast cancer.
She was born June 18, 1957, in Aurora, Illinois. Her first film work was as an extra in the Brian De Palma thriller The Fury (1978), and her first credited performance was on the miniseries The Awakening Land (1978).
Almost immediately, the almond-eyed beauty with a heart-shaped face and an enviable mane was cast in her most famous role, as Tina Lord on One Life to Live.
She would play the role, off and on, from 1978-2011.
She was also well known for playing two different roles on The Young and the Restless (1983-2010), Tawny Moore on The Bold and the Beautiful (1999-2011), Rebecca Hotchkiss on Passions (2000-2008) and, in her final project, Patty Walker on The Bay (2017-2020).
Evans's career was sidetracked when she was persistently stalked by a man who in 1987 confronted her on the set of One Life to Live, eventually slitting his wrists. He sent her letters written in blood, permanently terrifying the star.
She told People magazine in 2008 that fear “forever changed me. There’s no way it could not." She survived with “therapy, support from my friends and family, time and truly my faith. I prayed a lot. It was a lot of baby steps.”
The stalker stopped coming for her in the early '90s, only because he was institutionalized and became too elderly to be as aggressive.
Among Evans's other work: an appearance in the Tommy Shaw star-studded music video "No Such Thing (as the Perfect Love)" in 1987, the film A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994) and the 2020 TV movie Joy & Hope.
Evans, who was formerly married to One Life to Live co-star Wayne Massey from 1981-1983, is survived by her husband Stephen Rodriguez and their daughter Kylie.
