Eva was
just one more provincial to arrive in the great city during the
'30's. More and more people with brown skin and provincial accents
were coming into greater Buenos Aires. Just as in the Creek
theater, Buenos Aires presented two masks, one comic, the other
tragic.
These
were times of misery, unemployment, and hunger in a country which
was one of the major producers of food in the world. These times
were captured in the lyrics of the tango "Yira"...
"when you split your shoes looking for some money so you can
buy food," sang Gardel.
The
industrialization process which began during the early part of the
decade absorbed the workers pushed by the crisis to flee the
interior and come to Buenos Aires. The upper and middle classes
regarded these dark-skinned workers with horror. Buenos Aires had
been a city of white skins and European architecture. Its
inhabitants were not used to slums and "yesterday's mate [
herbal tea] drying in the sun" so it could be used again. The
owners of the palaces on Avenida Alvear, the oligarchs, members of
the landowing aristocracy, were used to traveling to Europe. They
were not used to the slap-in-the-face reality of tenements and
slums on their own doorstep.
Immersed
in this reality, Eva Duarte dedicated ten years to her
"passion for the arts." In 1945, having achieved the
right to be considered a "star," she said in an
interview for the movie magazine Radiolandia, "I am
not an adventuress, although some (those who never forgive a young
woman for succeeding) make me out to be one. I have spent more
than five years dedicated to what is in me a firmly-rooted
vocation: the arts. These have been five years of troubles, of
noble struggles when I've known the uncertainty of adversity as
well as the gratification of success" (Radiolandia,
April 7, 1945).
Soon
after arriving in Buenos Aires, Eva joined the Argentine Comedy
Company (Compañía Argentina de Comedias), headed by Eva France,
a front line actress on the Argentine stage. On March 28, 1935,
she debuted with a small part in the vaudeville production,
"La Señora de los Perez." The critic Augusto Guibourg
wrote in his review, "Eva Duarte was very good in her small
part" Crítica, March 29, 1935). She would not always
be fortunate enough to be mentioned but she stayed with the
Company until January of 1936, always playing in bit parts in
"Cada casa es un mundo" , "Mme. San Gene" and
in "La Dama, el Caballero, y el Ladrón.
In May of
1936 she went on tour with the Company belonging to Pepita Muñoz,
José Franco and Eloy Alvarez, and in December she joined the
Company of Pablo Suero in a new play, "Los Inocentes."
In the early months of 1937 she was still with Suero's company
when they performed for a few days in Montevideo.
When she
returned to Buenos Aires she joined the company of Armando Discépolo,
considered to be one of the best directors of those times. On
March 5, 1937, "La Nueva Colonia," written by L.
Pirandello, opened in the Teatro Politeama. In spite of the good
reviews, the play was a failure at the box office. Augusto
Guibourg noted that, "Juanita Sujo, Eva Duarte, Anita Jordan
and Jordana Fain acted gracefully together in scenes that were
skillfully directed" (Crítica, May 5, 1937).
In August
Eva appeared for the first time on the big screen. She had
obtained a small contract to act in the film, "Segundos
Afuera." At the same time Radio Belgrano offered her a
contract to participate in the radio theater drama, "Oro
Blanco.
In the
following years she would act simultaneously in the theater, in
the movies and on the radio. As was customary among actresses, she
made incursions into the areas of publicity and graphic arts. From
1938 to 1940 Eva appeared on the Buenos Aires stage as part of the
companies of Pierina Dealissi, Camila Quiroga, and Leopoldo Tomás
Simari.
Her
appearances in the movies were less frequent. She was in "La
Carga de los Valientes," "El más infeliz del
pueblo" and "Una novia en apuros." She had to wait
until 1944 to have a more important role in "La Cabalgata del
Circo." She was the star of the movie "La Pródiga"
in 1945, but it was never released to the public.
In his
book, Días de Radio (Radio Days), Cesar Ulanovsky
affirms, "By the beginning of the 1940's very few people
doubted the sentiments and the effects that radio was capable of
producing. Behind the polished walnut or mahogany cabinets were
hidden the national identity documents of the era: multitudes of
dreams, unleashed imagination, talented people trained in all the
different kinds of entertainment ranging from drama to humor.
Radio dictated the limits of possibility where fiction and reality
mingled and singing voices raised or lowered the volume of
people's lives as if illusion or disillusion were a sort of
resounding destiny" (Ulanovsky, César: Días de Radio,
ed. Espasa-Calpe, Buenos Aires, 1995, p. 121).
Eva
Duarte had climbed up that stage early on and would continue to
affirm her right to be there. In 1939 she and Pascual Pelliciotta
headed the Company of the Theater of the Air, first in Radio
Mitre, then in Radio Prieto. On May 1, 1939, the soap opera
"Los Jasmines del '80" was broadcast for the first time.
Eva's radio programs appeared on the Radio Argentina, El Mundo,
and, finally, in 1943, on Radio Belgrano when she began a series
which would continue until 1945, "The Biographies of
Illustrious Women," among them Elizabeth I of England, Sarah
Bernhard, Margarita Well de Pat, Isadora Duncan, Mme. Chiang Kai
Shek, Catherine the Great.
"I
was lucky," she said in the Radiolandia interview,
"to go from one microphone to the next until I came to the
one which for me is the best radio has to offer. In Radio Belgrano
I found people who believed in my possibilities. Here I have
reached the height of my career, a very rewarding career which
began modestly but grew as I dedicated myself to my work, as I
strove to perfect myself and to assimilate the very valuable
lessons I received.
When Eva
Duarte actress leaves the radio stage Eva Perón will take her
place. Her voice will continue to reach each home, not as the
incarnation of another woman's but as her own. By then she will
have made a commitment to a cause and to a man, to Colonel Juan
Domingo Perón.
