CULTURE-ARGENTINA: Evita’s Long-Lost Daughter

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 13 1998 (IPS) - All good Argentinians know Eva Peron, national heroine and second wife of former Argentine president Juan Peron, died childless of cancer at the age of 33 in 1952.

But now, nearly 50 years later an alleged long-lost daughter has come to light.

Eva, more commonly known as Evita (little Eva), was the most popular female public figure in Latin American history during her lifetime, building a cast iron reputation as a champion of the poor and underprivileged.

The long-lost daughter story broke in Buenos Aires in March, two years after the release of Alan Parker’s film biography “Evita,” with its controversial casting of the rock singer, Madonna, as a hard-nosed Eva.

Anything that touches on the Evita myth is an explosive issue here, for Eva Peron has maintained her saint-like status since her death, and the years have only served to consolidate the legend.

Eva spent most of her time as first lady fighting social battles, using her publicity to draw attention to the suffering of the poor.

On many occasions she was seen weeping as she embraced children, and some witnesses say she even proposed Peron and she adopt a child.

The woman, Nilda Argentina Quartucci, claims Evita was told she had died at birth.

This explanation which neatly avoids the heroine being cast as heartless for refusing to recognise her child – something which would be a blot on the copy book of the Evita mythology.

Nilda claims she was the fruit of a romance between Evita and a popular actor of the time, Pedro Quartucci, a married man and star of many films, television and radio programmes, where he played the part of a typical good husband and father.

According to her story, Quartucci, ashamed of having a daughter from an extramarital relationship, told his lover the child had died at birth.

Illegitimate children and controversial pregnancies were a common motif throughout Evita’s life. Her own mother had five children with Juan Duarte, the boss of the ‘estancia’ (country estate) where she worked as cook.

Eva was marked for life when her mother and siblings were refused entry to her father’s funeral by his legal offspring. Her animosity towards the rich is believed to have sprung from this moment of rejection.

And the image of Evita abandonned and disconsolate over the loss of her baby, only further reinforces her image as a victim of love.

At a time when a case is still being heard of a woman claiming to be Peron’s illegitimate daughter, this new claim has moved the nation although they find it hard to believe so long after the event.

Meanwhile, historians have accepted it as possible, for the pregnancy and birth correspond to the nebulous period of Eva’s life as a 20 year-old unknown actress before she moved to El Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires province.

Some were even aware of the affair between Eva and Quartucci – who died a few years ago – and have cited Eva’s confessor, Pedro Benitez, who said she had a secret few people knew about.

“Only she and I and perhaps a few others knew of it,” he told one historian enigmatically.

However, doctors who knew her medical history said it was highly improbable Eva had ever given birth, believing she may in fact have been hospitalised for the frequent haemorrhages caused by her cancer of the uterus.

The political leaders of the Justicialist (Peronist) Party have asked how the secret could have been kept throughout the virulent campaigns of the anti-Peron opposition, a group which particularly hated Evita and commonly used her past to represent her as an immoral woman, practically a prostitute.

One point in Nilda Quartucci’s favor is that she did not make her claim in public, but to a well-known studio of lawyers, led by former federal district attorney Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Nilda claims her father confessed the truth to her shortly before his death, and she took legal advice in order to become legally and financially recognised.

As Eva’s only child she would be due the inheritance which was divided between the sisters.

Nilda, who is reportedly the spitting image of Eva, says she was brought up by Quartucci and his wife as though she were a legal daughter.

Quartucci’s widow will appear before the courts once all the evidence has been gathered.

Genetic samples have been asked of Evita’s sisters in order to carry out the decisive tests, and then only time will tell the truth of the matter.