Evelyn Hugo

Art by ColourAnomaly @colouranomaly on Instagram.

**Evelyn Hugo** is the protagonist and primary narrator of the novel *The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo* by Taylor Jenkins Reid. A world-renowned and Oscar-award winning actress known as an icon of Old Hollywood and pop Commerce, as well as a sex symbol and household name, Evelyn Hugo's years of activity in her career spanned from 1954 to the late 1980's before retiring. She was and is considered one of the most famous actresses of all time. Described as "preternaturally beautiful and a paragon of glamour and daring sexuality." She is best known for starring in films *Father and Daughter* (1956), *Next Door* (1957), *One More Day* (1958), *Little Women* (1959), *Boute-en-Train* (1961), *Anna Karenina* (1962), *Carolina Sunset* (1965), *Jade Diamond* (1970), *Three A.M.* (1975), *All For Us* (1981), and *Theresa's Wisdom* (1988). She is known to have been married seven times to seven different husbands.

## Biography

Evelyn Hugo was an actress in the 50s. She made many films, and among her long career, she married seven times and had one daughter with her fifth husband, Harry Cameron. Among her list of husbands are: Don Adler, Mick Riva, Rex North, Harry Cameron, Max Girard, and Robert Jamison. With such a great career, Evelyn was nominated 4 times for an Oscar, winning only one, in 1984 for the film *All For Us*.

## Personality

“Bombshell” Evelyn Hugo was a highly complex and nuanced character, with her controversial yet convincing attributes being both the reasons for her buoyant uprisings and successes as well as her tumultuous downfalls. Such attributes can be described as cunning, ambitious, driven, determined, fierce, sharp, critical, sexual, devious, intimidating, resourceful, clever, cold, perceptive, quick-witted, astute, strong, blunt, serious, level-headed, manipulative, and confident—sometimes even arrogant.

With a strong sense of self-worth, Evelyn utilized such assets to defend herself from various forces of offense (abusers, manipulators, degraders, gossipers, etc.), uphold her image, hold her ground, and to stand up firmly for what she believed in. Conversely, this sense of self-worth and confidence often clashed with her relationships, as it was foundational to her inherit hunger to fend for herself by protecting and expanding her career. This was oftentimes at the expense of others, and it sometimes overpowered the love she had for those close to her and was confused as greed and arrogance, ultimately driving those she loved away.

She was extremely intelligent and skilled socially. Her ability to read others was incomparable. Evelyn's high social intelligence and skill were her primary assets to getting her way, manipulating others, and lying—but also to protect and love others. Evelyn credits her high sexual appeal and beauty as her most powerful social devices.

Evelyn's immensely rational and level-headed way of thinking was the tactic responsible for all of her insurmountable success, but it also brought itself to a fault—her expression of her reasoning was often seen as blunt or cold, even when she does not mean it to be so. She mostly made her decisions and guided her thinking in a form that was detached from emotions—though that did not mean she was in any way heartless. The wisdom such analytical and conclusive thinking brought about in telling her life story ultimately made her insight priceless.

Evelyn's principle and feelings towards others largely centered around feeling uncaring towards using others for her own personal gain, and remorseless for "act[ing] so cavalier about things that are sacred to other people". In turn, she made clear that she did not like to be played, deceived, or pushed around. She noted that she "never claimed that [she] wasn’t a hypocrite".

In her later years, Evelyn became more reclusive and closed-off.

Evelyn did not see herself as a good person. She did not want to be thought to have ever claimed to be good, and she acknowledged the fact that she had done a lot of things that hurt a lot of people, and that she would do it again. In her later life, she was unafraid for the people to know such after she died. Through a life that was all seemingly a ruse to the public eye, her final life's act displayed a pure sense of honesty, though such truths were only to be released to the public after her death.

*“Nobody deserves anything, it’s simply a matter of who’s willing to go and take it for themselves... No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.”* - Evelyn Hugo

## Appearance

### Childhood/teen years

*“I was gorgeous, even at fourteen. Oh, I know the whole world prefers a woman who doesn’t know her power, but I’m sick of all that. I turned heads. Now, I take no pride in this. I didn’t make my own face. I didn’t give myself this body. But I’m also not going to sit here and say, ‘Aw, shucks. People really thought I was pretty?’ like some kind of prig.”* —Evelyn Hugo

As early as thirteen years old, Evelyn stood at five feet and eight inches tall. She had dark, shiny brown hair, light bronze skin, and “a chest that pulled at the buttons of my dresses.” Her early and fast breast development alienated her from her peers as well as attracted the attention of older men, and gave her a “sexuality in [her] body that [her] mind wasn’t ready for.”

### Young adulthood

*"I was the sort of beautiful that women knew they could never truly emulate. Men knew they would never even get close to a woman like me."* —Evelyn Hugo

In her late teens when she began her contract at Sunset Studios, she bleached her hair blonde, and cut her hair into a shoulder length bob. She met with a nutritionist who made her "lose six pounds exactly, mostly by taking up smoking and replacing some meals with cabbage soup." She is said to have "not been blessed with an hourglass figure,” and that her "ass [was] so flat you could hang a picture on it."

### Elder years

At 79 years old, Evelyn was described as “as breathtaking as any of her pictures,” with “the posture of a ballerina” and “just as thin as she ever was.” Having undergone plastic surgery on several instances in her middle-aged years to retain the youthful beauty of her younger self, the enhancements were said to hold up well, and  “the only way [to] know she’s had work done on her face is because no one her age can look like that without a doctor.”

Her skin was said to be “glowing,” and “just the littlest bit red, as if she’s been rubbed clean.” Her eyelashes appeared to be false eyelashes, unless she received extensions. Where her cheeks were once angular, they were by then a bit sunken, with a tint of soft rosiness to them. Her lips were a dark nude.

Her hair was past her shoulders, “a beautiful array of white, gray, and blond—with the lightest colors framing her face.” Her hair was assumed to be triple-processed, but “the effect is that of a gracefully aging woman who sat out in the sun.” Her signature dark, thick eyebrows in the shape of straight lines have thinned over the years, the same color as her hair in her elder years.

## Relationships

### The Seven Husbands

#### Ernie Diaz

Evelyn's first husband was a Mexican man named Ernie Diaz. Evelyn did not love Ernie, and had only married him because she was tired of her abusive father and wanted to fulfill the dreams her mother had instilled in her of going to Hollywood and becoming a movie star. She knew Ernie was going to Hollywood and the only way she could go with him was to become his wife. She also knew how men reacted to her body. She was 14 when she married him, but because she looked older, she had gotten him to believe she was 18 instead. Her plan worked, and when things started going for her, she divorced Ernie.

#### Don Adler

Don was the first man Evelyn married by heart, even though Sunset Studios had seen the two's chemistry and paired them together. They married in 1957, when Evelyn was 18. After two months of being husband and wife, Don began physically abusing her. His career was going downhill while Evelyn's was going in the opposite direction, and so he took it out on her. He also became controlling and demanding, even going as far as ordering Evelyn to stop filming movies because it was time for her to be a mother. When she refused, she was hit, and the tabloids soon came up with a story that Evelyn did not want to have children. Evelyn eventually came up with the plan to fake a miscarriage and make her maid, Paula, angry enough to blab it to the tabloids. Evelyn and Don divorced in 1959 after she caught him cheating on her at the after party for an awards ceremony. She had planned to divorce him first, though he beat her to it, something that nearly wrecked her career.

#### Mick Riva

Evelyn's marriage to Mick was a quick one, described by the tabloids as a "quickie marriage" instead of the original term, "quickie wedding." She had went to one of the singer's shows with Celia and Harry, and while there, she reached for Celia's hand. She noticed that a couple seated behind her had seen her and withdrew her hand too late. The damage had been done. Before her act of affection could spread too far, she stood and cheered as loud as she could for Mick, who had once said in a newspaper that he wanted to marry Evelyn. When the show was over, she had a discussion with Celia about a more permanent fix, and said she would elope with Mick to Las Vegas. Celia had first protested, but Evelyn reassured her that the marriage would be annulled the next day. So Evelyn convinced Mick to go to Vegas with her, where they very publicly displayed affection and lust for each other. Evelyn teased him with the promise of sex all night if only they would get married, as she believed she could not have sex outside of marriage (which was a lie, of course). Mick finally caved, and they got married and proceeded to sleep with each other. The next morning, after the excessive alcohol had burned from their systems, Mick expressed disappointment in Evelyn's "skills." She acted heartbroken when he suggested annulment, but inside, she was ecstatic that her plan had worked.

#### Rex North

One of the most honest and ambitious marriages Evelyn Hugo ever had. Both of them used each other, and knew what they wanted from each other. Hence they no issues to set boundaries for them—or, more realistically, Evelyn setting boundaries for the both of them. The rules were that they would have separate rooms, they wouldn't even share beds nor have any sexual intimacy. Rex could have physical relationships with anyone as long as he didn’t get caught. Their marriage was purely to hype their popularity and movies. Rex was baffled that he could have physical intimacy with anyone except for his own wife but the stakes were too high for both of them for him to care about that. They remained true to their ambitions and boundaries but right before their third and last movie with Paramount was about to release in a few months, Rex broke the news to Evelyn that he was in love with his mistress, Joy Nathan. He started to imagine what it would be to have mornings waking up beside someone. And whenever he thought of it, the image that his brain conjured was Joy. Evelyn was shocked but her instant risk management and public image fixing mode kicked in and she stared to make fake scenarios of the couple having trust issues laced with jealousy as the axe that finally broke their marriage. As they supposedly saw each other with their co-stars they were mad with jealousy to actually accepting they lost their passion as a reason to end the marriage. At this moment Rex further mentioned Joy being pregnant which thwarted the plan. But Evelyn managed to get the story set by adding Harry as her potential love interest during the time of her weakened marriage vows. Soon after, she and Rex divorced each other.

#### Harry Cameron

Life-long friend, Evelyn met Harry Cameron before fame while she was working as a waitress. She remembers him ordering steak. Harry noticed her potential and offered her a job at Sunset Studios**.** Their relationship blossomed from there. Years later, the two decided to marry in order to be each others' “beard” since Harry fell in love with football quarterback John, and Evelyn wanted to be with Celia. By Harry marrying Evelyn and Celia marrying John, the correct pairs would be able to see once another without it being cheating or being discovered by the public. Later, after Celia leaves Evelyn and John dies, Harry and Evelyn decide to divorce. Evelyn marries Max Girard but Harry and her remain friends. Together they take care of their biological daughter, Connor. Their friendship and love was so genuine that at some point it causes Monique to think the actual soulmates are Harry and Evelyn.

#### Max Girard

Evelyn first met French director Max Girard in 1961 after her divorce with Don Adler drove her career into the ground. She went to Paris with the intention to rebuild her career, and was casted in *Boute-en-Train* (literal meaning: butt of the train; colloquial meaning: life of the party). Max says that he was "trying to decide if this woman can be American. And I think she can." Evelyn feigns busyness for the sake of not appearing to be overly eager for the role. The two collaborate again on *Three A.M.* in 1975, and Max expresses his attraction to Evelyn after asking her out to get burgers. He leaves her a note, asking her to divorce Harry. Due to her splitting up with Celia recently to this, she finds herself desiring him, talks to Harry, then chooses to marry Max. Max's descriptor is “disappointing”— due to the fact that he “had no intention of even *trying* to love [Evelyn], that he was only capable of loving the *idea* of [her].” This references Max's love for “Evelyn Hugo” and not Evelyn herself. They divorced after Evelyn regained contact with Celia, sending and receiving letters which she hid in her closet. On the morning Evelyn was going to fly to L.A., Max found the letters and confronted Evelyn about them saying he doesn't “mind some infidelity, my dear. If it is respectfully done. And one does not leave evidence.” He accuses her of being a lesbian—going as far as calling her a slur, in fact—and completely ignores her protests of saying she loved him too. Evelyn leaves for L.A. after that, knowing Max would spread it to the tabloids. As a result, she stages an affair with a much younger man—a Congressman—to make Max look jealous, and a liar about her being a lesbian.

#### Robert Jamison

He was brother of Celia St. James who had his amount of fame in Wall Street. Celia was about to move to Spain to spend her last days with her brother who would take care of her. Her brother fully accepted who Celia was, including her sexuality and her love for Evelyn. For Evelyn to legally get the legacy and properties of Celia, she suggested that Evelyn marries Robert. They would be legally in-laws and it would make sense for them to move to Spain and have a Hollywood-free life. Another big reason was that Celia wanted to protect Connor from being taken away by ruthless homophobes of the time—in addition to hoping to help Connor to overcome her grief over Harry’s death. Robert played a huge role in the nurturing and upbringing of Connor after she lost her father. When she was confused and saddened by the loss of him, Robert was the hand she could hold onto. Robert was truly a father to her that made Evelyn, Celia, Connor, and Robert a true family in every sense and every rule in any book. Robert never romantically, physically or passionately loved Evelyn. What he had or what they both had for each other was familial love and gratitude. When Celia died, Robert and Evelyn wept together in each other's embrace. He had sex with multiple woman in Spain, though he always came back to the little home he had with Evelyn, Celia, and Connor. He wanted to fully have a familial life where he had to be committed to a wife to have a family. He wanted his freedom as a man. He wanted to have a kid, a true sense of family without commitment restrictions from your partner, without having a wife only the kid who he would be committed to. In the end, it worked out for the three of them.

### The Love of Her Life

#### Celia St. James

Hollywood's superstar who own Oscar three times. A young, 19-year-old naïve actress who stole the show from the lead, hot and happening Evelyn Hugo. Made everyone mesmerized with her, bagging an Oscar in her second film. She was naïve yet passionate, almost obsessed over Evelyn and her love for her. She truly loved Evelyn yet she would hurt her when she was herself hurt. She so wanted to come out of the closet without reading the future consequences that would follow as a domino effect. She and Evelyn went to hell and heaven in this earth just to be together with so many years of separation. So many years of being away from each other tormented their sould yet when they were together their love could break everyone's heart. Evelyn Hugo had seven husbands. Seven husbands yet her most passionate love was for her partner, her wife she married on a bed in Spain in their nightgowns. That was the love they had. It burned them yet it kept them alive. Celia's death was a huge emotional disrupture for strong hearted Evelyn. She barely could keep herself straight without bawling her eyes out. That was why she was clicked by the paparazzis bawling holding Harry's grave on the day of Celia's funeral. She cried over the days, months, years she lost because of their pride. She cried because she didn't have Harry's shoulder to cry. She cried for the struggle she faced all of her life just to stand produly and in the midst loosing herself. Yet the paparazzis named the shots as Evelyn crying for her ex-husband, Harry Cameron. This was a ride awakening for her, as she realized no one would know about her story and her passionate, heartbreakingly breathtakingly lovestory with Celia. Hence she formed the plan to ask Monique Grant to write up her biography. Every secrets she hid from the world inside her already stone turned heart in the absence of Celia.

### Family

#### Connor Cameron

The only child of Evelyn, Connor and Evelyn have an incredibly close relationship. She and her mother had decided to never bullshit each other and always tell the truth, especially after Harry Cameron passed away due to drunk driving. They believed in each other and had a strong trust. In 2015, Connor was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer at 39. Though she went through chemo therapy, it wasn't enough. She later passed at 41, leaving Evelyn absolutely shattered.

#### Elena Herrera

Evelyn's mother was not named in the novel. Evelyn states that she was a "chorus girl off of Broadway." Her mother had emigrated from Cuba with Evelyn's father when she was 17. She had often said to Evelyn that she [the mother] dreamed of getting famous in Hollywood and getting them out of Hell's Kitchen, away from Evelyn's abusive father. Evelyn's mother died of pneumonia when Evelyn was 11, with the last thing she said to Evelyn before she died was "*Dile a tu padre que estaré en la cama." (*translation: *Tell your father I'll be in bed)*. Evelyn says that her mother never called her Evelyn, "only *'Mija'* which made [Evelyn] feel really special, like [Evelyn] was hers and she was [Evelyn’s]." Evelyn tells of how she wanted to be just like her mother—her undoubtable reason for becoming a Hollywood star.

#### Unnamed Father

Evelyn's father was abusive to her, and likely her mother. They lived in a small apartment, and were very poor. Evelyn talks about how they couldn't afford electricity, so she had to use the one plug socket on the neighbour's circuit to plug in a lamp to do her homework.

### Friends and other relationships

#### John Braverman

John was the fake husband of Celia St. James. In actuality, John was gay and dating Harry, even when Celia split from Evelyn, thus asking John for a divorce, he still stayed with Harry. Evelyn says he didn't smoke despite everyone else doing so, and describes him as a tall, football-playing man.

#### Monique Grant

Monique is Evelyn’s biographer who she forms a mentor-mentee type bond with after specifically choosing Monique to write Evelyn’s life story. Monique respects Evelyn and vice versa. As the story continues, Monique begins to not only idolize Evelyn, but gain an understanding of her that the general public doesn’t have. However, this admiration crumbles after Evelyn reveals the truth of what happened toMonique’s father. Monique sees Evelyn in a brand new light. Her once clear feelings of Evelyn become complex and layered. After Evelyn confesses the truth about her health, Monique chooses to honor Evelyn’s choice.

#### Jack Easton

A US Congressman who was significantly younger than Evelyn. She was never actually with him and had only had dinner with him. After things went sour with Max Girard, Evelyn had to make it look like she was straight since it was obvious that Max was going to try to tell everyone she was lesbian. Jack needed some positive publicity to gain some status with his government co-workers, and Evelyn needed to not be blacklisted, so the two made an arrangement. In the end, it all worked out.

#### Luisa

Luisa and Evelyn had a tricky relationship at first, not liking one another. Luisa calls her mother whilst working for Evelyn and speaks in Spanish to her calling Evelyn *"beautiful but crazy."* Evelyn (her parents being from Cuba and growing up speaking Spanish) turned around and told Luisa she could understand her, to which Luisa apologised and said that she didn't know that Evelyn spoke Spanish, which Evelyn did, her parents being from Cuba and all. Evelyn and Luisa ended up becoming friends and Evelyn spoke about how she *cared for her very much* and *was not going to move house without her.* Which her fourth husband, Rex North, accepted gently. She lived with Evelyn through her marriage to Harry Cameron, being helpful around the house and with Connor Cameron, taking turns watching her whilst Evelyn filmed Three A.M. She leaves Celia behind in 1990, after nearly 30 years of being together to move to Spain.

#### Grace

Grace is Evelyn's housekeeper whom she hires after her daughter Connor moves out of the house. Grace has seen Evelyn at her lowest, specifically after the passing away of Connor, and also at the very end of Evelyn’s life. Evelyn and Grace are shown to be somewhat close, as they spend the last years of Evelyn’s life together and Evelyn gives Grace a decent amount of money so Grace can successfully provide for her Family Friends Parents.

## Filmography

**Total films:** 22

**Total titled films:** 11

## Trivia

* *Anna Karenina* and *Little Women* are real stories and movies.
* Evelyn means desired, which is in fact what she was in her lifetime. She was desired by anyone who took enough time to look at her, she was flawless.
* Evelyn is based off of many real life figures such as Marilyn Monroe *(for her short blonde bobbed haircut)* she's also based off of British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor who had seven husbands *(eight marriages if you count Richard Burton, whom she married twice)* also Rita Hayworth who was originally Spanish but later changed herself to America *(born in Margarita Cansino to a Spanish Father and a Irish-American mother)*