Evita Peron Biography

Eva Per�n, or "Evita," as she liked to be called, had a profound influence on history. Her obituary in The New York Times (1952) described her as "ambitious, beautiful, ruthless," and it chronicled her life in one short phrase: "She began in obscurity and rose to the heights." Remarkably, she rose in only 12 years "from obscurity to fame, wealth and power on the unpredictable currents of Argentine political life" (The New York Times, 1952). Evita's important role in the government, her influence on the international scene, and her personal power as a woman left an indelible impact on history, and the story of how she rose to power is so compelling that it has already been told in musicals and film.

Evita was born the illegitimate child of Juan Duarte, a local Argentinian landowner who abandoned her mother when she was three years old (Navarro, 1977, p. 229). Growing up in a Buenos Aires province with her family, Evita was disinterested in school and after finishing her primary schooling in 1935, she went to Buenos Aires to become an actress at the age of 15 (Navarro, 1977, p. 230). She lived in "cheap and dirty pensiones" and suffered from hunger and cold in the winter as she made the rounds in the theater, but she "never [played] a better role than a maid or a silent character that disappeared too soon from the stage" (Navarro, 1977, p. 230). Likewise, she tried to break into films but could only garner meager roles (Navarro, 1977, p. 230). She fin

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to him except through her (Navarro, 1977, p. 237). She even performed some of his duties as well as keeping him abreast of the needs of the people (Navarro, 1977, p. 237). It has been noted that Evita's ability to captivate the hearts of her people was likely aided by her talent as an actress, "which proved to be an enormous asset in her work," as she "plunged into her life as First Lady as if it were a role" (Navarro, 1977, p. 237). Moreover, she restyled herself with bleached-blond hair, jewelry, and elegant hats and clothes, which the oligarchy criticized but the decamisados, or "shirtless" lower classes, appreciated (Navarro, 1977, p. 238). Navarro (1977, p. 238) states that her talent with public speaking and "the wildly enthusiastic responses it elicited, from 1946 to 1952 Evita acted as an indefatigable one-woman ministry of propaganda for Per�n." He was the leader and the propagator of doctrine, while she was "the rabble-rouser who whipped up emotions" (Navarrow, 1977, p. 238). From 1948 on, Evita's power was apparent, as she organized her Partido Peronista Femenino party in 1949 and ruled the Fundaci�n Eva Per�n in 1950, holding exclusive control of its funds and steering it to "complement th

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