EVANS, MURIEL

(1910–2000)

   Born Muriel Adele Evanson, Muriel Evans—sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette—played opposite Buck Jones, Tex Ritter, and John Wayne, but is perhaps best known for her roles as the passive yet virtuous love interest to Jimmy Ellison in William Boyd Hopalong Cassidy films. In Three on the Trail (1936), for example, she played an out-of-work schoolteacher hired by a rogue to be the bookkeeper for the Bar 20 ranch. This rogue seeks to take advantage of her as he accompanies her to the ranch, and the Bar 20 cowboys must rescue her twice from the clutches of evil men.