Biography - Queen of Hearts: Evita Peron

In 1973 it won the Best Network International prize at the Chicago Film festival USA. This film was at the origins of the subsequent famous musical Evita by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and it was I who wrote and spoke the opening lines heard in the in its first recording of it as the actor in the film running in a cinema in Buenos Aires that gets interrupted by the announcement of Evas death. How did Rice and Webber become interested in Evita and how did they intend to portray her? With regard to the first question, apparently Rice had become intrigued with Eva Perón after hearing a radio program about her life. A mutual friend suggested that he meet the Argentine film director Carlos Pasini, who had completed a one-hour documentary for Thames Television in England.58 Pasinis film, Queen of Hearts, showed the life of Eva through old film footage of her acting career in the cinema, newsreels of the riots leading to Peróns presidency in 1946, clips of Evas speeches at political rallies, home movies shot by Evas brother during the Rainbow Tour, and documentary coverage of the mass mourning at her death. The documentary opened and closed with dramatized scenes conceived by Pasini in which Evas coffin was shown being smuggled out of Argentina to an anonymous grave where it lay undiscovered for seventeen years. A high-ranking official of Thames Television later attested that Rice and Webber had this documentary shown to them many, many times. One can see how certain scenes in the documentary must have influenced the makers of Evita: the mass rallies with tens of thousands of voices chanting Eeee-veee-TAH, Eeee-veee-TAH, the gestures, hairstyles, and clothes of Eva, the high-pitched tone of her voice when giving speeches. In the meantime, according to Pasini,Rice went to Buenos Aires to conduct research. Armed with a list from Pasini of people to meet, Rice retraced Pasinis steps, and he eventually included the Pasini format of opening and closing the portrayal of Evita with aspects of her death. Too, the projection of documentary photos onto a giant screen on stage seemed to resemble Pasinis approach.Made for Thames Television, London UK was filmed in Argentina and Italy between October 1971 and February 1972. First aired in the UK on October 24th 1972 and then in several other European countries and the USA.