A short life, and a bizarre one

By MAX CRYER

Eva Peron had riches and fame for seven years - the only years she had a legitimate surname.

Born in 1919 in a remote shack near Los Toldos, Argentina, Maria Eva Ibarguren was one of five illegitimate children, all to the same father, a married neighbour. The children's father became a widower when Eva Maria was 3, and her mother defiantly announced her children would henceforth be known by her lover's name. Overnight, they illegally became Duarte.

It was a grim life, 300km from the glamour of Buenos Aires, but little Eva was determined to swap one for the other.

At 15 she met a touring singer called Jose Armani who seduced her to accompany him back to the big smoke. (The musical Evita replaces small-time Armani with the really famous Augustin Magaldi - the Frank Sinatra of Argentina - which didn't happen).

Buenos Aires was big smoke indeed. Nine million people, a daunting prospect for a country teenager ambitious for show business, with no training, no singing voice, bad grammar, childish writing and a harsh country accent, which was to stay with her all her life.

With her surname slightly re-arranged, Eva Durante worked in minor plays and model jobs, such as handing out lolly samples. And, although slim on talent, Eva seemed to attract "protectors".

But her country voice proved a novelty on radio and she found work in soap operas, whose listeners liked her because she sounded like them. From that came a couple of small film roles.

When Eva was 24, a radio station gave a reception for military leaders, and she met Juan Peron, a 48-year-old widower, often mentioned as a growing force in the Government.

The two clicked immediately, and Peron moved to an apartment adjacent to hers. Eva tirelessly supported Peron's political rise. A charismatic personality, she also had a sense of publicity, sought contacts and support for Peron, and took to speaking to crowds of workers effectively.

When Peron was arrested for inflaming political activism, Eva rallied everyone she could into threatening a general strike to secure his release.

They married, and so began her seven amazing years as Senora Peron.

Eva's warm-up appearances for Peron's campaign speeches soon became an integral part of his rise, and the crowds chanted for her, particularly the descamisados (the shirtless ones), who saw her as a heroine and called her by the affectionate diminutive Evita.

In 1946, Peron became President, and Eva was first lady of Argentina.

Support for her was never total. The Establishment regarded her as flashy, the Church wondered about her bare shoulders and glittering bosom, and Government officials who disagreed with her learned to remain silent or left the country.

Eva accepted bribes, and without any Government rank, avidly meddled in political affairs. People she liked were elevated beyond their wildest dreams.

The doorman of her apartment building became head of the Confederation of Labour, an actor who had once been kind to her was made an official in the Post Office, Eva's brother, a soap salesman, was appointed private secretary to the President, her sister to a senior post in education, her brother-in-law, a lift operator, became director of customs, and a glass-blower she liked was made head of the Labour Ministry.

Equally, people she didn't like were quietly relieved of Government posts.

And she spent up large. History might position her somewhere between Catherine the Great and Imelda Marcos.

The more dazzling she became, the more the poor people liked her. They regarded her as one of their own who had made it - swathed in azure-blue mink, and lavish haute couture from Paris and London.

But, aware of the volatile nature of Argentine political assemblies, she also sometimes carried a small bomb in her immaculate handbag.

To visit Europe in 1947, Eva took 200 changes of clothes in 60 suitcases. A crowd of 150,000 farewelled her from Buenos Aires, 40 planes flew out to meet her on arrival in Europe and 200,000 people welcomed her at the airport.

She was feted by many of the upper administrators, except England, whose royals wouldn't play ball. The King, she was told, would be in Scotland. Furious at the snub, Eva instantly changed her itinerary, cutting out England.

Her return to Buenos Aires was marked by crowds of shirtless ones throwing thousands of rose petals along the route of her car.

By now her early films had been withdrawn, her birth certificate discreetly doctored and all teenage model cheesecake photos found and destroyed.

Officials who crossed her were stripped of their posts and either imprisoned or made to emigrate. Men who did not tip their hats when passing any portrait of her were sent to prison.

Dressed by Balmain and Dior, loaded with furs and hung with diamonds, she would address the poor and say, "I take all this from the powerful only for you. One day you will inherit the treasures."


Four years into her reign, cancer began to claim Eva Peron. By 1950 she was doomed, dragging herself to public occasions, her beauty eaten away. Her last public appearance was in a wheelchair, and her last radio broadcast was from a hospital bed. She died in July 1952, aged 33.

No buses or trains ran for four days, cargo wasn't loaded and food wasn't sold. Because she died at 8.25pm, radio news bulletins, traditionally at 8.30, were moved back five minutes for the next three years, and newspapers ordered to use capitals when referring to Her or She. The Pope was petitioned to start her canonisation.

In death, Eva Peron began a saga even more incredible than her life. A Spanish doctor drained her body and pumped heated glycerine into it, restoring her cancer-wasted face and figure (she died weighing 33kg).

Hairdressers and cosmeticians repaired her beauty. A coffin was made with a thick crystal lid, and Eva was put on display for 15 days.

The preserved corpse was kept in a laboratory for several years while argument raged about the memorial proposed for it (on her death bed she asked modestly that it be higher than the Statue of Liberty).

To avoid desecration by anti-Peronists, the corpse and its coffin were smuggled to Germany in a box labelled "Radio Parts" and hidden in a warehouse. From there it was taken to Italy and kept for 14 years in a grave under a false name.

Following Eva's death, Peron's downfall had been riddled with the difficulties of unravelling the Eva-appointed Government officials, rampant inflation, and his scandalous lechery towards schoolgirls.

But when Peron's political fortunes seemed to rise again in 1974, it was time for Eva's body to return. It was secretly recovered from Italy and brought back to Argentina. With fresh gowns and frequent hairdressing, it stayed above ground for two more years.

In late 1976, after 24 years' walkabout, Eva Peron's body was finally buried.

Public fascination has never ceased. Sixteen biographies, one play, a musical and three movies have all fed public curiosity. The "biography" with the biggest publicity has undoubtedly been the Rice-Lloyd Webber musical.

And it is in keeping with the bizarre quality of her story that the musical Evita was first performed in mid-1974 - before she was buried.

On stage

* What: Evita

* Where and when: St James, previews tonight & tomorrow; then Aug 20-Sep 10