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EVA Peron DIDN'T leave anything to chance, not even her own immortality. Lying on her deathbed in 1952, ravaged by cancer, Argentina's First Lady was thinking ahead: she arranged for a mausoleum as big as Napoleon's tomb and a manicure to make her corpse more presentable. The 33-year-old Evita, who by this time was more revered and feared than her husband, Gen. Juan Peron, said: "I want to live eternally with Peron and with my people." Her wish was fulfilled. When Peron was sacked in 1955, the new rulers were so terrified by the power of her embalmed body over the people that they tried to hide it. But ill fortune followed: one guardian went insane; another killed his wife. Exasperated, army leaders finally sent the casket to Milan, where it was buried under a false name.
But nothing could bury the many legends of Evita. In addition to Alan Parker's film of the musical, there are several new biographies, including Alicia Dujovne OrtIz's gossipy Eva Peron (St. Martin's. $24.95). A new Argentine film about Evita's final years is catching fire--and acclaim--in Buenos Aires. And In My Own Words (New Press. $8.95), an entertaining but largely apocryphal book of Evita's deathbed musings, is just out in English.
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Perhaps the brightest new offering is Santa Evita (Knopf. $23), a historical novel by Tomas Eloy Martinez that follows the peregrinations of Evita's corpse. Along the way, MartInez explains how the illegitimate peasant girl became such an enduring icon. Her acquisition of power and glamour, he writes, resonates with the myths of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Robin Hood. Immortality demanded only one more thing: an early, tragic death.
From the moment Evita drew her last breath, Argentines have fought for control over her myth and memory. In 1952 the Vatican received 40,000 letters asking for her canonization--even though she had attacked the Roman Catholic Church during her life. Her opponents, mostly the rich, spread rumors that the second-rate actress had slept her way to the top. They called her intolerant and corrupt. And they said her charity was only designed to win votes for Peron--and fur coats for Evita. But Evita's descamisados defended her. Such sentiments linger: Andrew Lloyd Webber's racy 1978 musical "Evita" was considered too blasphemous to appear in Argentina, and while the new film is not banned, it is being awaited with trepidation.
And Evita herself has gone home. Her coffin was found in 1971, when a note in a former president's will led police to the secret grave site in Italy. Evita's body was exhumed and sent to the exiled Peron in Madrid, where his third wife, Isabelita, stretched across the coffin in an effort to absorb Evita's soul. Three years later, when Peron--who had reclaimed the presidency--died, the body was returned to Argentina to be put on display alongside his. It now reposes in her family crypt, in a steel vault with triple locks.
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