EVISON, PAT (1924– ). Pat Evison began her acting career in 1975 on television, and her feature film career began with a Paul Maunder film, Landfall in 1977. This drama/thriller costarred Denise Maunder, John Anderson, Sam Neill, and Gael Anderson, and tells of two men and two women who live a kind of urban hippie existence, but the ideal relationships gradually disintegrate. Evison then appeared in Donald Crombie’s Australian film Caddie (1976) as Mrs. Norris, alongside Helen Morse, Takis Emmanuel, *Jack Thompson, and Jacki Weaver. Her next feature film was Tim (1979), starring *Mel Gibson, Alwyn Kurts, and Piper Laurie, and was adapted from Colleen McCullough’s novel of the same name, which tells the story of the developing relationship between an intellectually handicapped young man and a middle-aged American woman who both teaches him to write and is attracted to him. In 1983, Evison was nominated for an *Australian Film Institute award for best supporting actress for The Clinic (1982), a David Stevens’ *comedy about the comings and goings in one day of a venereal disease clinic. She also appeared in My Grandfather Is a Vampire (1991) playing Leah. Also called Grampire, this David Blyth film is a children’s comedy about an 11-year-old Lonny who discovers that his nice, friendly grandfather might be a vampire. Evison’s failing eyesight forced her to retire from the stage and screen soon after. She has been an effective character actor who focused her film activity in Australia and New Zealand.
Other films include The Earthling (1980), Bad Blood (1981), Starstruck (1982), The Silent One (1984), A Street to Die (1985), and What the Moon Saw (1990).