After graduating from high school he was awarded a two year scholarship at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. During his second year at Curtis in 1927, he entered the first national radio singing contest, the Atwater Kent Foundation National Radio Singing Contest. Out of 50,000 contestants, Evans and Agnes Davis won the top prizes for male and female contestants, Evans won $5,000 in cash and a two-year scholarship for his junior and senior years at Curtis. [2]

A baritone, Evans performed in radio early in his career. In 1930, he moved to Los Angeles to perform on the radio and in concerts, but having little financial success, returned to New York in 1931 and his burgeoning radio career. During this time he signed with Columbia Concert Management Agency and it’s subsidiary Cooperative-Community Concerts Bureau. They were known for sending out salesman en masse across the US and Canada, selling a roster of concert series to larger towns- usually a singer, violinist, pianist etc. These community concerts catered usually to the social leaders in each city to promote their awareness of bringing musical culture to their areas.

Appearing in Canada and every state in the union “except North Dakota” in concerts, operas, recitals, oratorios. He made his grand opera debut in 1933 in Tristan and Isolde with Fritz Reiner and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. Over the next few years, he appeared throughout North America in concerts, operas, recitals and oratorios. He also served for two years in the Marine Reserve during the 1930s.In the early 1940s, he starred on Broadway in The Merry Widow, The New Moon, La Vie Parisienne, Mexican Hayride and Up in Central Park.

In 1951, Evans co-starred with Mary Martin in the original London production of South Pacific. In the early 1950s, Evans and wife Susanna Foster performed in operettas and musicals, touring extensively. He appeared in By the Beautiful Sea on Broadway in 1954, and his last role on Broadway was in Man of La Mancha (1965). He also appeared in Man of La Mancha at the Mastbaum Theater in Philadelphia in 1966. Throught the 1950s and 1960s, he also performed in concerts and cabarets.

Evans was married four times, including to actress Susanna Foster from 1948 to 1956, with whom he had two children, Philip and Michael. His fourth wife was the former Masako Ogura