Biography of Linda Evans

Linda Evans is an American actress known primarily for her roles on television. In the 1960s she played Audra Barkley, the daughter of Victoria Barkley in the Western television series The Big Valley . She is best known for portraying Krystle Carrington in the 1980s ABC primetime soap opera Dynasty. A role she played from 1981 to 1989.

Evans, the second of three daughters, was born Linda Evenstad in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1942, to Arlene and Alba Evenstad , both of whom were professional dancers. "Evenstad" was the name of the small farm in Nes, Hedmark, in Norway from where her paternal great-grandmother emigrated to the United States in 1884 with her young son and a few relatives. When Evans was six months old, the family moved from Hartford to North Hollywood. She attended Hollywood High School, where she was a sorority sister of future actress Carole Wells. Her introduction to drama came through classes that she took "as a form of therapy, to cure her of her shyness." When she started her professional career, she changed her last name to "Evans".

In her late teens, Evans was engaged to Patrick Curtis, who later became a press agent and married Raquel Welch. Evans has been married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to actor, photographer, and film director John Derek. They started dating in 1965, married in 1968, and separated on Christmas day 1973, when Derek disclosed his affair with Bo Derek, who was 30 years his junior, and was 17 years old at the time. Evans' second marriage was to Stan Herman, a property executive, from 1975 to 1979. She then lived with restaurant owner George Santo Pietro, from 1980 to 1984. Evans also dated The Big Valley castmate Lee Majors for a brief period following her second divorce, as well as businessmen Richard Cohen and Dennis Stein during the mid-1980s. In 1989, Evans began a relationship with new-age musician Yanni, which lasted until 1998. Her best friends are her ex-stepdaughter, television writer Sean Catherine Derek, and Bunky Young, Evans' former assistant, whom she has known since the mid-1960s; both reside near her in Washington state. She is also close with John's Europe-based second wife, Ursula Andress, a sometime houseguest at her home in Beverly Hills.

After being diagnosed with idiopathic edema, Evans began investigating alternative healing, delving into Eastern philosophy and naturopathy. In 1985, she became involved with controversial metaphysical teacher J. Z. Knight and her Ramtha's School of Enlightenment and eventually moved to Yelm, Washington, to be closer to Knight and her school.

Evans appeared in Playboy magazine at the behest of her then-husband John Derek in 1971. As she gained tremendous fame on Dynasty, the photos were published a second time in 1982.

Evans was arrested in May 2014 for driving under the influence of a prescription.