Part II: On the Way to Success


Eva arrived in Buenos Aires (it is believed) in 1936. No one knows for sure how she survived once she first got to B.A. If she did, in fact, travel with Magaldi (and his wife?), she more than likely stayed with them. There's some speculation, however, that her brother, Juan, was living in B.A., and she stayed with him upon her arrival. However, though what happened immediately after her arrival is unknown, she made herself very known a short time after she got there.

Eva started out an aspiring actress. Most people who saw her, though, admitted readily that she couldn't act. This, as much as the chauvinism of Argentine men at the time, surely contributed to her way of using the "casting couch." It is widely known that Eva used her charm (and her body) to sustain herself until she could live on her own. Unfortunately for her, she began to use men who could only help her advance herself. In this manner, she landed a starring role in a once-weekly radio show based on the lives of famous women around the world. Little did she know, though she did dream, that she would one day be one of the most influential women of this century.

On January 22, 1944, Eva Duarte met the man who would change her life forever: Colonel Juan Peron. They met at a charity concert held to aid the victims of an earthquake in San Juan. The night they met, the rest of both of their lives began.

As soon as Eva and Peron became involved, Eva situated herself very securely in Peron's life. She became indespensible to him. And she had her sights set on one thing: marriage. He was opposed to this, presumably more than just slightly. One night, at a dinner amongst friends, casual conversation was floating around the table, and someone brought up a possible marriage between Eva and Peron. Peron's answer was non-committal. Eva responded with, "You are going to marry me, aren't you?" No one knows if she perhaps had something that she could have used as blackmail if he hadn't married her, or if she had simply become so much a part of his private and political life that he couldn't let her go, but whatever the case my be, on October 21, 1945, they were married...for better or for worse.

From this point on, Eva became as much a driving force for Peron as his own ambition was. She campaigned for him, gave speeches for him, and almost single-handedly catapulted him into the hearts of the descamisados, literally, the shirtless ones. The descamisados were Eva's people, and by bringing Peron to the hearts of her people, and her people to the heart of Peron, she was finally coming full circle. Eva's fiery speech


Campaigning for Peron Her work to get to the top wasn't done yet. There was still much campaigning to do, more speeches, whistle-stop tours, always, always working Peron and herself further into the hearts of the poor, poverty- stricken people, the very people who needed him, and indeed her, most. Eva was driven by not only her unyielding love for Peron, but also her own ambition to outrun her past, to make something up to the people that were so like she used to be, and to finally, finally, make it to the top.


And make it to the top, she did, when on February 24, 1946, Colonel Juan Peron was elected president of Argentina, and Eva stepped into the role of, as though it had been created for her, first lady of Argentina.

She was Eva Duarte de Peron, and she was where she'd always wanted to be.

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