1919, May 7 – BIRTH OF EVA PERON
In an eleventh hour revelation Elisa Bonorino wrote to her daughter, “dad brought you from the hospital and said that we should put our names on your birth certificate, some time later he told me that you were his daughter and Evita’s”.…supposedly when actor Pedro Quatucci worked with aspiring actress Eva Duarte out of a brief affair a baby was born who today is Nilda Quartucci and who claims she is Evita’s daughter…many stories have sprung up around the mythical figure of Eva Peron…she was born the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy rancher but she grew up in poverty and shame…at the age of fifteen, without education, no money and no connections, she arrived in Buenos Aires to pursue her dream of being an actress…her first break came was a role in a popular soap opera on Radio El Mundo…by 1943 she was one of the highest paid actresses and live in the exclusive Recoleta…
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On January 22, 1944 at a charity at event for the victims of the San Juan earth quake she met labor secretary Juan Peron; they married the following year; he was forty-eight, she was twenty-two years old…The following year he was elected president of Argentina…it was announced that all performers had to join an entertainment union of which Evita was President… Peronism was a populist movement and tango was populist and therefore an ideal political tool but her heavy hand created friend and foe….singer Juanita Laurrauri for example would be criticized for giving up a promising career to devote herself to the Peronist cause…the legendary Enrique Santos Discepolo would die of a broken heart when he was ostracized by fellow musicians for his impassioned support of Peronism…when the great Libertad Lamarque found all doors to her closed she went to see Evita who had the power to decide who worked and who didn’t….Evita purportedly denied that she had any hand in her being ostrasized but nevertheless Libertad was forced to emigrate to Mexico…Evita died of cancer at the age of thirty-three but one thing is true, she worked tirelessly and selflessly on behalf of the poor and for this she will be immortal and in the eyes of many, a saint
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- CLICK HERE – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Spy3Nd2D6w to see a clip from the film “Evita” in which Madonna, who plays “Evita”, sings “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” which premiered in 1996