Young and Restless actor Michael Evans dead

From 1980 to 1995, Evans played the best friend of billionaire Victor Newman, who was played by Eric Braeden, on CBS8217;s The Young and the Restless.

8220;Michael Evans was a total professional from the old English school, a gentleman through and through,8221; Braeden told the Los Angeles Times in a statement on Wednesday.

John Michael Evans was born on July 27, 1920, in Sittingbourne, England. He 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 Around The Moon, co-starring with Harry Belafonte. He went on to a starring role in the 1951 production of Gigi opposite a young Hepburn.

In the late 1950s, he played Harry Higgins in a touring production of My Fair Lady and gave thousands of performances in the United States and abroad, including in Russia at the height of the Cold War.

Evans also appeared on numerous TV shows, including Dr. Kildare, The Man From UNCLE, Hunter and I Spy, as well as in such films as Bye Bye Birdie and Time After Time.