TV Guide Online's Announcement
Fans of NBC's soap opera Passions are in mourning this week. On Monday night, popular actor Josh Ryan Evans died in a San Diego hospital of a congenital heart condition. The 3-foot, 2-inch soap star — who played heroic Timmy — was only 20. In a shocking parallel, Evans's character also died of heart failure in the hospital on Monday's episode.
"This could be a first for all of showbiz, not even soaps," says TV Guide soap columnist Michael Logan. "It's like being onstage in a death scene and dying while you're doing it. I can't think of anybody ever having that happen."
In actuality, Timmy's death scene was taped last month, just before Evans took a six-week leave. Passions had planned to bring Timmy back from the dead at the end of this summer. (Never mind that Timmy's heart is being donated to the show's heroine, Charity, who is played by Molly Stanton. But hey, it's a soap.)
Is there any chance that Timmy was written off the show in anticipation of Evans's passing? "Absolutely not," exec producer Lisa Hesser tells TV Guide Online. "Josh's death came as a complete surprise to all of us. We were aware that Josh had a heart condition, however his hiatus from the show was purely storyline driven. We had every intention of bringing the character back to the show."
Hesser adds that "no decisions have been made as to how and if the direction of the show will be changed" — though it's most likely they'll chuck the resurrection plotline, leaving Timmy at rest. For the sake of good taste, she says future episodes of Passions are being edited to cut any scenes involving Evans's character. "I'm sure this is hitting them very deeply," Logan says. "I trust they'll do the right thing."
Evans played many other parts, including the young Grinch in Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas. While he never realized his dream of getting cast in a Star Wars prequel, Evans once told TV Guide Online how George Lucas's space odyssey inspired his career:
"The bottom line is that the movies made me feel like I was a different person... like I could run around the Death Star and battle with lightsabers and feel good," he said. "When I wasn't feeling good, I thought, 'If I could do that for one person — make them laugh when they were having a really hard time and didn't feel like laughing at all, then it's worth it.' I think the entertainment business has the ability to do that." So did our lad Timmy. We'll miss him.