STREAMLINED CINDERELLA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 431, 26 September 1947, Page 30

STREAMLINED CINDERELLA

‘7 SEs is nothing essentially new in the story of Eva Peron, save the speed with which she has risen from obscurity to notoriety; nor is there anything novel about the methods which she has used to attain power, unless it be that she has used radio to reinforce her personal attractions. But a good deal of nonsense has been written about her in the last few months. This profile (which appeared first in the London "Observer") may- help to correct false impressions.

¢ UR century will not be () known as the century of the world wars, not even as the century of atomic energy, but as the century’ of triumphant feminism." Thus Eva Peron in a recent broadcast from Madrid during | her more than regal progress through Spain and on to the Vatican. What an outing it was, of a lavishness and panache altogether unheard of in our drab days. And who was the heroine of Frarico’s. somewhat hectic version of a royal reception? A young woman of humble origin who had risen from almost nothing to the dizziest heights of world-wide publicity in little more than a couple of years. It is of course-her own triumph that is meant when she proclaims the century

of "triumphant feminism." In her ringing voice there is pride, challenge, victorious boast, quivering ambition. But she seldom actually speaks of herself. This extravagantly dressed young woman uses the language of a story-book revolutionary, invariably. addressing herself to the poor, as if her triumph somehow avenged their poverty. > Senora Peron’s career is usually discussed by the knowing in terms of anecdotes and piquant rumours: they say she is the éminence rose of Argentina. Looks, charm, audacity-of course, they are all there. But they are not unique to her and do not explain her popular success in her country, which is authentic. There are dozens of provincianitas, poor but lovely young girls from farms and villages who make their way to Buenos Aires every year in pursuit of adventure and happiness. A few make bourgeois

matriages, some a living on’ the stage, but most end in the hospital for poor people. Maria Eva Duarte, the daughter of a poor: farm labourer, arrived in the capital of Argentina not many years ago, scarcely knowing a soul. But this was no ordinary provincianita. It was a girl of boundless self-confidence and vitality who cared for more than a stage career or even a bourgeois marriage. * Ea a 1OR did the ambitious politician Peron pick her up by chance and make her famous. She was already famous in Argentina when they met. First she had tried the stage and screen and become a minor star, but her artistry was not great and her personality too direct for acting. Then she went to the radio and there, where it is not a matter of looks, she succeeded. Her personality-warm, vibrant, witty, and emotionally generous -got across and home to the masses who listen in. For, millions of Argentinos she became "Senorita Radio." And so it was that she was one of the persons of nation-wide popularity on whom Colonel Peron, not yet in full power, called in 1942 when he wanted to make a sensational appeal for a national fund

for earthquake victims, That was how they met, as two sincere and successful exponents of glamour demagogy. * 3k By ERON is famous for his many romantic affairs. Why should this particular friendship have lasted and become formalised, where so many had faded and passed? The answer might just be feminine artfulness. But Senorita Duarte would surely not still have been single if to "catch her man" had been her main idea. Such a forceful, self-made young. woman must have turned down many marriage propositions which, from her origins, looked good enough. ‘No, the less scandalous truth is that when Evita met Peron it was a meeting of twin souls. Both were highly energetic and ambitious with a love of adventure, drama and success. But, above all, both adored popularity and had the same feeling as. to how it could be won. Sincerely possessed, indeed infatuated by their idea, they set out to make the Argentinos happy by making themselves beloved of them. Their appeal was’ simply that they were against the very rich and the U.S.A., for the poor and Argentina. Their struggle, although short, was not entirely uneventful. In October, 1945, when Peron momentarily fell from power and Was arrested, it was (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) "Senorita Radio" who came to his rescue -rallying his adherents, agitating, plotting, arranging meetings, and, in the end, herself passing the order for that general strike which brought Peron smiling out of gaol and immensely helped him to be voted into his dictatorship. A female radio star who calls a general strike that changes a regime. What a fantastic successor to the women of the directoire, to Madame Tallien and Josephine Beauharnais! Yet this warmhearted and peroxided peasant’s daughter claims descent from these revolutionaries of more momentous ideas by always using the phrases of revolutionalthough she has since become the wife of General Peron and First Lady of one of the richest and most exuberant of countries in an impoverished world. Eva Peron-‘27 to her friends, 32 to her enemies," but in any case still young and in full flower-has arrived. Will she now change and settle down to the routine of political success and social eminence? So far, the indications are that she will not.. More highly dressed and’ tichly bejewelled than the most elegant ladies of Buenos Aires society, she yet refuses to become one of them. She prefers to remind them continually that she is of the people-and to hear the people’s still unabated applause. When asked to become the patron of a highly exclusive charitable society, she publicly refused and recommended them to invite her mother ihstead-a humble working woman from an obscure Pampas village. _-Wrapped in furs and sparkling with diamonds, she still addresses the workers of Buenos Aires as one of them: Nosotros los descamisados--We the Shirtless. And in Argentina, if not in’ Europe, she gets away with it. To her own people, those from whom she sprang, she is a dream come true, Cinderella become Queen. And just as a rather famous tyrant, recently deceased, continued when allpowerful to refer to himself as the simple soldier of the trenches, so Evita, although enthroned, still feels herself to

be the representative of all those who sweep the cinders. Her legend is factually the less untrue of the two. * * %* ANY comparison between the régime of Peron and the Fascist regimes of the Old World should take note of one important difference. Argentina is rich, whereas the countries of the former Axis were poor. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco came to power and ruled with violence in an atmosphere of tragedy, but Peron .... he smiles, laughs, calls for rejoicing and uses violence very spatingly. There are no deeply bitter hatreds in a country so affluent as Argentina. You only have to share out some of the proceeds of the immensely.lucrative beef trade to make your dictatorship a real success at the sole cost of annoying a few millionaires and, of course, of. nauseating the civilised and sincere democrats among the intelligentsia. And so Eva Peron may be excused for mistaking herself for the darling of the world. If to say in heartfelt tones that you are the friend of the shirtless, while possessing a wardrobe requiring a special plane to transport it, sounds to European ears naive, theatrical, and either offensive or pleasantly diverting, it is music to the millions’in Argentina. To us, the Fascist salute means a nightmare that happened. To Senora Peron, it evidently seems just a gesture in a great show, the theme of which is: "Poor Girl makes Good and is loved by one and all for ever and ever."