Tribute to One Life to Live Star Andrea Evans in the Wake of Her Death

Publish date: 2024-10-11

If you’re reading this article, it’s probably not your first time visiting Soaps.com. So you know that we can be brutal. Harsh. Unforgiving. You will also understand, perhaps, why it is so meaningful that we remain so devastated by the death of Andrea Evans on July 9, 2023.

If you, like us, are of a certain age, the actress defined daytime drama nearly if not as much as Susan Lucci, Eric Braeden, Deidre Hall and the immortal tag team of Genie Francis and Anthony Geary. Evans grew and grew into her role of One Life to Live minx Tina Lord, bringing to bear a flair for comedy that is almost unmatched and a gift for playing high drama that seemed to come as naturally to her as spreading butter on toast.

She was, in short, a gem.

ONE LIFE TO LIVE - Airdate January 25, 1979. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images) ERIKA SLEZAK;ANDREA EVANS

Evans had many roles beyond Tina, of course. But she sparkled differently in each of them. As Jack Abbott’s first wife Patty Williams on The Young and the Restless, she demonstrated the kind of fragility that could drive a virginal bride to shoot her unfaithful spouse. As low-rent Bold & Beautiful conniver Tawny Moore, Evans unleashed the kind of laser focus that made difficult choices as simple as pie. And as Passions pot-stirrer Rebecca Hotchkiss…

Well, it was Passions. Let’s be real. It was “anything goes,” and Evans was always game to go wherevere “anything” took her character!

Andrea Evans and Ben Masters "Passions" Set Radford Studios 2/6/03 ©Paul Skipper/JPI 310-657-9661 Episode #0936

But the daytime legend will now and forever be most fondly remembered for her work on One Life to Live. She was sexy, impetuous, reckless and [bleeping] delightful. As leading man John Loprieno recalled upon hearing of her death, “My finest memory of performing with Andrea was not standing in our bathing suits in the Iguazu Falls in Brazil but working on the Banner newspaper office set on rolling chairs in a playfully choreographed love scene… It was one of my earliest appearances on the show. The magic in the room was palpable, and it offered promises of the great fun that was to be created and enjoyed in the years that followed.

“We will all miss Andrea,” he added, “and her mischievous looks toward [the] camera at the end of the scene.” 

Amen to that. See what other castmates remember most vividly about Evans in the below photo gallery.

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