July 26, 1952: Eva Perón, the First Lady of Argentina, dies of cancer at age 33. As she dies, a legend is born. As was later said in a Jimmy Stewart movie, When the legend became the truth, they printed the legend.
María Eva Duarte was born on May 7, 1919, in Los Toldos, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Her father's family was French, her mother's Spanish, in both cases from the Basque Country. Her father was a bigamist, and left Eva and her mother for his legal family, leaving them in poverty, forcing them to move to nearby Junin.
Eva acted in school plays, and at age 15 she ran off to the national capital of Buenos Aires. With its wide boulevards, it was known as "The Paris of South America." She bleached her black hair blonde, and got some film roles, and a regular role on a radio show in 1942. In 1943, she was hired as a regular on the radio show Great Women of History, playing Queen Elizabeth I of England, Sarah Bernhardt, and Czarina Alexandra of Russia. This fed her interest in politics and power.
The city was struck by an earthquake in 1944, and she was one of the performers hired for a benefit by the country's Secretary of Labor, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón. He was 48 and a widower, she was 24 and, to put it politely, had gotten around. She founded the Argentine Radio Syndicate, and started a show titled For a Better Future, which promoted her new boyfriend. They married in 1945, and he was elected President in 1946.
The Peróns toured Europe in 1947, and were warmly received by Spain's fascist dictator Francisco Franco. They promised him food and money for infrastructure, for which he was desperate, as Spain had not yet recovered from the civil war he started and had won in 1939, and kept their word. Eva handed 100-peseta notes to poor people in the streets of Madrid, and this helped build her legend as a friend of the poor.
The Peróns also met with once-and-future President of France Charles de Gaulle and Pope Pius XII. But King George VI announced he would not meet Eva, only Juan, on their visit to Britain. Faced with this snub, the visit was canceled. Worse was to come in Switzerland, where tomatoes were thrown at her car.
Although a philosophy of nationalism, "Peronism" was not fascist in the traditional sense. Although Juan Perón admired Italy and Benito Mussolini, he didn't like German culture or Adolf Hitler, and actively engaged the Jewish community in Argentina rather than engage in anti-Semitism. International allegations of fascism and anti-Semitism against both Peróns were unfair. Accusations of totalitarianism and dictatorship, however, were very fair.
Eva convinced her husband to give Argentine women the right to vote, and took over the Society of Beneficence, and continued its image of charity. In fact, it became a means of embezzling money into Swiss bank accounts controlled by the Peróns and their allies. Still, thanks to her husband's cult of personality, she had unwittingly developed one of her own, and had come to be seen as a saint, even before the illness that took her life.
In 1950, she fainted in public, and was diagnosed with cervical cancer. At first, the public story was that she had an appendectomy. She had a hysterectomy in 1951, but the cancer had already spread. She was the 1st Argentine to undergo chemotherapy, but that didn't work, either. She died on July 26, 1952. During her funeral procession, people rushed toward the horse-drawn carriage carrying her coffin, and 8 of them were crushed to death. (This would also happen the next year at Joseph Stalin's funeral, except, instead of 8, it was hundreds.)
Juan Perón was overthrown in 1955, replaced by a military dictatorship, forcing him to flee the country, and to abandon plans for a grand memorial for his wife, a plan that included a statue taller than the Statue of Liberty. In 1973, Juan returned to power with his 3rd wife Isabel. He died in office in 1974, and Isabel Perón succeeded him as President. She had had enough of Eva's legend, and Eva's coffin was finally laid to rest in her family's tomb in Buenos Aires.
In 1978, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice produced the musical Evita in London's West End, starring Elaine Page as Eva and Joss Ackland as Juan. It premiered on Broadway the next year, with Patti LuPone and Bob Gunton. It was regarded as one of the best musicals of the era, but, as far as history goes, it was a puff piece, ignoring the excesses of the Peróns. It was filmed in 1996, with Madonna and Jonathan Pryce.
*
July 26, 1952 was a Saturday. The same day, Adlai Stevenson gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. I have a separate entry for that event.
These baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 10-6 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Mickey Mantle hit a grand slam in the 1st inning to give the Yankees a 4-0 lead, but starting pitcher Vic Raschi blew it. Despite that slam, and 3 hits each from Phil Rizzuto and Hank Bauer, the game went to extra innings, and Bobby Hogue gave up a walkoff grand slam to Bud Souchock in the 10th.
* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-2 at the Polo Grounds. Hank Thomspon hit a grand slam, and Dusty Rhodes also hit a home run. Willie Mays was serving in the Korean War, and was unavailable for the Giants.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Ebbets Field. Stan Musial had hurt the Dodgers so often that it led to his nickname: He became known as Stan the Man because Brooklyn fans would say, "That man is back in town." This time, he went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI. Jackie Robinson only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Braves, 6-4 at Braves Field in Boston.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.
* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-10 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Gil Coan went 4-for-5 with a home run and 5 RBIs for the Senators.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 9-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ted Williams was serving in the Korean War, and was unavailable for the Sox.
No comments:
Post a Comment