Evita as she later became known was born Maria Eva Duarte on 7 May 1919 in the village of Los Toldos in the province of Buenos Aires. She was the fifth and youngest illegitimate child of Juan Duarte and his mistress Juana Ibarguren.

Eva’s Childhood
Juan Duarte was a businessman and estancia owner – though it’s not known for sure if he rented or owned La Union – as well as Deputy Justice of the Peace. Juana, his mistress and mother of five of his children, also played the role of cook when he threw lavish parties. Duarte was later ousted from his post of magistrate for misappropriating village funds, after which here turned to his legitimate children. Duarte’s first wife is thought to have died in 1922 when Evita would have been just three years old, which is why she produced a false birth certificate when she married Colonel Juan Peron. It was bad enough to be born out of wedlock but worse still to be born of adultery, something which would have prevented her marrying a military man. Abandoned, Juana and her five children moved from their small house in La Union to the village of Los Toldos where they rented a small red-brick house. Juana made a living working as a seamstress using her Singer sewing machine. She was also fortunate enough to be befriended by landowner Carlos Rosset who did much to help her and her family. In 1926 Juan Duarte was killed in a car crash. His funeral was attended by his two families, the first time the half-sisters and half-brother were to meet. Evita would have been just seven years old. They were reputedly snubbed and ignored.

Being an Actress
Later the family moved to the town of Junin. They were poor but not desperate as Juana, it seems, would always take care of the family somehow. She began cooking for three local gentlemen who talked politics in her little dining room. Two of them were later to become husbands to two of her daughters, Elisa and Blanca. Meanwhile Evita wanted something else before her mother found her a husband, too. Evita loved poetry, film and theatre and she was beautiful like her sisters. She wanted to be an actress; to do that she had to leave Junin. There are several different stories as to how she did this, one of which is depicted in the film Evita; that she left for Buenos Aires with actor Agustin Magaldi. Whatever the truth, it seems that Malgadi did indeed introduce Evita to his contacts in the theatre. She received her first contract in the play La Senora de Perez where she acted the maid and although other parts followed, she earned very little and worked very hard. In 1938 she met the editor of Sintonia magazine, Emilio Kartulowicz, a Chilean and a former race car driver turned journalist, an important man in her life. He published her photograph, which helped her career. Later, after they broke up, she started work for The Air Theater Company, broadcasting radio soaps. Her photo began to appear regularly in magazines and she was becoming well known.

Meeting Her Mentor
Whether or not Evita had met Peron before the 1944 San Juan earthquake can not be confirmed. Peron was 48, double Evita’s age. The Argentinean Radio Association, which Evita helped establish, was one of the aid committees to help victims of an earthquake that had completely destroyed the city, leaving 10,000 dead. Peron was then the Secretary of Labour and Social Affairs, immaculately attired in a gleaming white uniform, black cap and boots. It was at a fund-raising event that she was found herself beside the colonel, who is said to have become entranced from the moment their eyes met. In 1944 Peron was made Minister of War and by then Evita was his mistress. But she wanted marriage. In one of her tantrums or outbursts she threatened to divulge his secrets – be it fascist tendencies or his possible impotence and sterility. Soon after Evita won a part in La Cabalgata del Circo, for which she dyed her hair blonde, the colour it was to remain for the rest of short life. Meanwhile, Peron moved into the same apartment block, a comfortable arrangement for them both.

Marrying Peron
In October 1945 the couple married and moved into her Posadas Street apartment. Juan Peron stood as the Labour Party’s presidential candidate and was elected president in February the following year with 56 per cent of the vote. Evita slowly started making speeches to the people after which she established the Eva Peron Foundation which campaigned for women’s suffrage, though Evita very much believed in a woman’s responsibilities.

In June 1947 Evita left for a tour of Europe, when Argentina was then one of the world’s wealthiest nations. Her trip, to last for some three months, was largely successful. Her chignon set at the nape of her neck was symbolic of her - she would wear this hairstyle up to her death. Upon her return from Europe she was to deliver a memorable speech from the balcony of the Casa Rosada informing Argentine women of their newly granted right to vote, of which Peron would be the first beneficiary. But Evita was by no means the first woman to advocate women’s suffrage although by this stage Evita was more popular with the people than her husband.

Meanwhile, reports of their stranglehold over the country’s independent newspapers and magazines were not unfounded it seems. They owned Haynes Publishers, which printed a list of newspapers and magazines, besides the fact that Evita also bought others including La Razon. The couple were supposedly responsible for shutting down other publications that disagreed with their politics, among them La Prensa. Their manipulation didn’t stop at the printed word, radio broadcasts were also reputedly pressured to toe the line or face the consequences - Peronism dictated that 50 per cent of the music broadcast had to be Argentine.

Eva Peron Foundation
It has been said however that Evita did the good bad and the bad very well. She was it seems determined to be generous to those who had very little. She would disappear at night to prepare Christmas boxes made up from an accumulation of all manner of things to then distribute to the poor under the Eva Peron Foundation. Later on it constructed housing, schools, old-people’s homes, young women’s homes and clinics throughout Argentina and aid was not just limited to her own beloved country. She received thousands of letters every day and each was read and filed by her various assistants. By 1951 Evita has reached a new high. Her autobiography My Mission in Life was published and she was presented as Peron’s running-mate for the forthcoming presidential election, vehemently opposed by the military, only to renounce her candidacy days later in a radio broadcast.

Argentina Cries
As it was, Evita was already suffering from uterine cancer. Initially, she had refused a hysterectomy which had she had it when first diagnosed may well have prolonged her life. Her last public appearance had been at the inauguration of her husband’s second presidential term – she was supported by a plaster and wire frame hidden beneath her coat. She struggled with the disease which finally killed her in July 1952 age 33. A radio broadcast her passing and national mourning was declared. Argentina cried hard. The story of Evita’s body is almost as theatrical as her short life. Dressed in a white shroud and the blue and white Argentine flag she was placed in a transparent casket which was transferred to the hallway of the Secretaria. The line of those who had come to pay their last respects stretched for block after and block in all directions. For days the country came to a halt. Restaurants and shops closed. Finally, on 9 August her casket was put atop a gun carriage and led through the streets of Buenos Aires to Congress.

Embalming Evita
Evita is supposed to have pleaded with her husband, that she should never be forgotten. So, he employed the renowned Spanish professor of anatomy, Doctor Pedro Ara, to preserve her body, a process which was to take more than a year to complete. He filled parts of her corpse with wax, pushed special preserving fluids through her circulatory system and finally covered her with a thin layer of wax. Meanwhile, Evita’s unfortunate death did little to bolster Peron’s waning popularity and he was ousted from power in 1955. A few months later, Evita’s embalmed body was removed from the Labour Confederation Headquarters in order to prevent any potential shrine to Peronism. Her cadaver was shifted from place to place under the directions of Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Eugenio Moori Koenig who became as obsessive about her as Doctor Ara had been a few years earlier. Upon his dismissal from the army, the body was shipped to Italy and interred in Milan under the name Maria Maggi. There she was to rest for 15 years before being exhumed on the orders of the then President General Alexandro Augustin Lanusse who had her transported to Juan Peron, then living across the border in Spain. Her body stayed there until 1973 when Peron returned to Argentina to become president with his third wife Isabelita as vice-president after 20 years in exile.

Evita Returns
But Evita was only returned after his death in 1974 on the orders of his wife, Maria Estela Martinez de Peron or Isabelita, the then president of Argentina. When she was deposed by General Videla in 1976, the cadaver was finally handed over to Evita’s remaining family, her two sisters Erminda and Blanca. She was transferred to the Arrieta vault in Recoleta cemetery where she lies some 15 feet below in a private armoured vault. It is rumored that she may well be moved once again to join the remains of her husband just outside Buenos Aires. For more details and further information visit Evita Peron.