WEDDING DAY GIFT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 11

WEDDING DAY GIFT

NOTED COMEDIAN’S 120.000. EVERYTHING TO THE BRIDE “TEN YEARS OF BLISS.” Beautiful Norah Emerald—the woman Will Evans fell madly in love with when he saw her for the first time a girl of sixteen on the stage of the Empress Theatre, Brixton, and wai'ed twenty-five years to marry—has Icfended the dead comedian’s n.enury against a cruel slander that he ha I ft her destitute. Will Evans made two fortunes out of his fun-making. One he spent on a former wife, the second he left absolutely to the woman who was his 'levoted companion during the last ten years of his life. It was not of her own ordeal during the last days of the comedian’s life—for more than a week she never left her husband’s bedside —that Mrs ill Evans spoke when an interviewer called to see her in April. The talk was ot Will Evans off the stage—teh other sid« of the life of this great comedian whic i the public never knew. The widow and the visitor sat in the breakfast room. It was Will Evans’ favourite room. The walls wore covered with beautiful watercolours —the comedian’s own work. On the top of a bookease were lifelike models of his fellow ‘‘stars”—Robey, Shir wig, R. G. Knowles. Nellie Wallace. T. E. Ducville—which he made out of sticks of firewood. Will Evans was u genius in a hundred different ways! The writer looked through the window out on the garden where he had left his last unfinished task. He was making a pagoda when paralysis of the brain struck him down, and closed for ever the voice which had made millions laugh. No one knew or recognised Will Evans off the stage. He was as handsome without his mike-up as he wa» grotesque in his stage parts. Money meant nothing to him. He was a great spender. He bought beautiful pictures, I magnificent silverware and antiques. He adorned his home with the works of Turner. Van Dyck and other great, painters. His greatest Joy in life wa* to give. I The day that Mr Evans marrie t Norah Emerald ho gave her everything —the house he lived in. the freehold property ho owned, his furniture, his motor-ear. His wedding fift to his wif« was worth £20,00. He died without making a will. He had no need to—ho had given all ho possessed to his wife. The day Will Evans became ill Iho play “Tons of Money,” of which ho was part-author, was made into a italkie. The royalties from this go likewise to the woman in the silent house close to Brixton’s parish church. | Will Evans’ dying words are on little scraps of paper in a bureau. He used a pencil when his death-agony robbed [him of the powe- of speech. Tho>e [scraps of paper are richer in the eyes |of the tired-looking woman of Brixton illill tQ-<lay than the Turner pictures, the silverware, the house property and the royalties that he gave to his wit’?. Mrs Evans reverently picked up nn ;off-the- stage portrait of the comedian. “Ten years of perfect bliss,” she murmured. “It is not as a husband I mis* him. It is as a companion.. He went anywhere without me. We were not onlv husband and wife—we were pals. How I miss him!” The caller loft tho widow alone in. her sorrow, staring at her husband’s picturea woman whom grief had changed almost out of recognition inone short week. fll