EVA PERóN Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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EVA PERóN

Name: Maria Eva Duarte de Perón                                                         
Born: 7 May 1919 Los Toldos, Argentina                                                   
Died: 26 July 1952 Buenos Aires, Argentina                                               
                                                                                         
María Eva Duarte de Perón (May 7, 1919 – July 26, 1952) was the second wife of       
Argentina President Juan Domingo Perón (1895–1974) and the First Lady of               
Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply         
Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita, which               
literally translates into English as "Little Eva".                                       
                                                                                         
Born out of wedlock in rural Argentina in 1919, at age 15 Eva Duarte made her           
way to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires where she pursued a career as a             
stage, radio, and film actress. Eva met Colonel Juan Perón in 1944 at a charity         
event in Buenos Aires. The two were married by the following year. In 1946 Juan         
Perón was elected President of Argentina, making Eva Perón First Lady of the             
nation. Over the course of the next six years, she became powerful within the           
Pro-Peronist trade unions, essentially for speaking on behalf of labor rights.           
She also founded the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, and the nation's first             
large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.                           
                                                                                         
In 1951, Eva Perón expressed a desire to run for the office of Vice-President of         
Argentina. In this bid she received great support from the Peronist political           
base, low-income and working class Argentines referred to as descamisados or "shirtless 
ones". However, opposition from the nation's military and elite, as well as her         
declining health, ultimately prevented Eva Perón's candidacy. In 1952, shortly           
before her death, Eva Perón was given the official title of "Spiritual Leader of         
the Nation."