Robert Evans, producer of 'Chinatown' who saved Paramount Pictures, dies at 89

Robert Evans, the producer of the film classic "Chinatown" and a former Paramount Pictures production head who helped save the studio with hits such as "Love Story" and "The Godfather" and whose over-the-top life was as cinematic as the movies he presided over, has died. He was 89.

Evans died Saturday, his publicist Monique Moss said. No further details were provided.

Described by former Times film columnist Patrick Goldstein as "one of the great self-invented characters of our age," Evans reached meteoric heights during his reign as production chief of Paramount in the late 1960s and early '70s.

As head of production at Paramount, Evans presided over blockbuster hits that revived the ailing studio's fortunes, and he became a noted independent producer.

But he fell from grace in the 1980s when he was involved in a drug scandal and later linked to a high-profile murder case - unexpected true-life plot twists that, as Evans put it, turned him from "legend to leper."

Over the years, he has