Being a big fan of musicals, when I originally went to see the film Evita, I didn't know what to expect. I had not been familiar with the score, it was one of those original cast compact discs that I had never purchased (surprising I missed this one, since I have almost 400 original cast albums). I spent the entire time in the theater in awe of the work that was done on this film and also the score. This was a film that was well-planned and shot and edited beautifully. I became an even bigger fan of Alan Parker, and also gained more respect for Madonna and Antonio Banderes. How sad that Webber and Rice would never write another musical together, because personally I think that Joseph, Superstar and Evita are among Webber's best works.
Since then I have had the chance to listen to original cast albums from the U.K. and the U.S.. What an improvement the musical geniuses behind this film made. The orchestrations are so full and perfected, and the fact that shooting was done on location where these events took place only adds to the excitement. I have owned the original Criterion special edition laserdisc and another laserdisc release which had DTS audio, and even for that period, the recording of this score is amazing. But with an new master (confirmed by Disney), this disc should absolutely rock! But you don't need to be a big fan of musicals to appreciate Evita. Though most of it is sung, the story alone and the performances are excellent. So, here is a look at not only behind the scenes of the film, but also some history of the story and of the famous Eva Duarte Peron and her rise to popularity.
Eva Durate Peron History
Eva Peron was born Maria Eva Ibarguren, the youngest illegitimate daughter of Juan Duarte, a middle-class estancia manager, and a domestic servant, Juana Ibarguren, on May 7, 1919, in Los Toldos, in the vast Pampas two hundred miles west of Buenos Aires. Seven years later, Juan Duarte died in a car accident and his Ibarguren family was prevented from attending the funeral by Duarte's legal wife, Dona Estela Grisolia. (The painful rejection that young Eva and her mother suffered here stayed with her all of her life. She would often refer to it, and the event formed the basis of her often fanatical hatred of Argentina's middle and upper classes.) Dona Juana later moved her family to the nearby town of Junin, where she opened a boarding house. It was here, at the age of fifteen, that Eva met Agustin Magaldi, the dubiously talented tango singer whom she persuaded to take her back to Buenos Aires. She bounced from lover to lover in an indisputably male-dominated society, prior to her minor celebrity as a film and radio actress.
Early modeling photo of Eva Duarte
Eva first met Colonel Juan Peron on January 22, 1944, at a charity concert organized to aid victims of the San Juan earthquake. Soon openly living with Peron as his mistress, she attracted the displeasure of both the oligarchy—the ruling class—and Peron's military cohorts. Disturbed by his growing public popularity, the ruling junta subsequently arrested Peron and incarcerated him at Martin Garcia Island prison. The populist insurrection that followed on October 17, 1945, led to his release and free elections the following year, which Peron won comfortably, becoming the 29th president of Argentina.
Original dresses worn by Eva Peron on display in Argentina.
Eva threw herself into life as Argentina's first lady with a media blitz common now but unheard of then. She visited Spain, Italy and. France as part of her "Rainbow Tour" of Europe, and her movie-star style and populist charisma propelled her to worldwide celebrity. The global media exposure established her as one of the most famous women in the world and, certainly, the most famous woman ever to come out of South America.
Photos of Eva Duarte Peron
Returning to Argentina from Europe, Eva created her own charitable organization, La Fundacion Ayuda Social Maria Eva Duarte de Peron, and proceeded to work sixteen-hour days righting the wrongs, as she saw them, in Argentina's unequal society. She oversaw the opening of twelve new hospitals and a thousand new schools (all named after her), clinics, medical centers, homes for the aged, homes for single girls, convalescent centers and shelters for the homeless. She even built an entire miniature children's city, La Ciudad Infantil, many years before Walt Disney came up with the idea. She gave away 200,000 cooking pots to the poor, 400,000 pairs of shoes, 500,000 sewing machines and so much more.
General Peron and his wife Eva, who at this time was becoming ill.
In a stroke of bravado, she even sent medical supplies and clothing to help the poor of the United States. Her generosity and demagoguery knew no end, except for the final bill. The country was slowly becoming bankrupt. Whether due to Eva's extravagant beneficence or her husband's shaky, autocratic economic policies, or because the Perons were just plain stealing, the truth is lost in Borges' cigar smoke and the contradictions of many historians. When asked by an American journalist why she didn't keep books for her charitable efforts, Eva replied, "Keeping books on charity is capitalist nonsense. I just use money for the poor. I can't stop to count it."
Oil painting that hangs in the Casa Rosada
The Casa Rosada, where permission was finally granted to film.
Eva's celebrity and political clout were consolidated in the creation of the Peronist Women's Party (Eva campaigned for women's right to vote and it had become law in 1947). As her popular support grew, so did the dissident voices. Her ruthlessness and despotic fanaticism toward achieving her goals made her many enemies, not least of all within Peron's military. The nervous generals at the Campo de Mayo garrison saw her aspirations to the vice-presidency as nothing short of heresy. Eva was put forward as the vice-presidential candidate by the five-million-strong General Confederation of Labor (CGT), which organized the mammoth rally of August 22, 1951, that filled the Avenida p de Julio with a million supporters. The CGT had erected a giant, five-story-high scaffolding edifice to house the speaking platform. A massive arch framed the podium, declaring "Peron-Eva Peron, La Formula de la Fatria," and the huge crowd clamored for her to accept the vice-presidential nomination.
Photographs of Eva Duarte Peron. In the lower photograph, Eva is accompanied by the Bishop of Madrid and Alcala, Bishop Eijo and Garay, entering the cathedral of San Francisco el Grande.
But their efforts were all for nothing. Nine days later, everything changed. Eva made an emotional, tearful radio broadcast renouncing all of her political ambitions. What caused this sudden reversal is not clear. Whether it was pressure on Peron from the military, or whether the medical diagnosis of her uterine cancer had finally been made clears to her, or perhaps some other factor. For eleven months, Argentina witnessed Eva's slow and public dying. In the elections of November, 1951, a special ballot box was brought to her bedside for her to cast her vote (and for her to be photographed for the Peronist media machine). For Peron's second term inaugural motorcade in June of 1952, emaciated and heavily sedated, she had to be propped up by a steel cage which was hidden from the crowds by her ample fur coat. At 8:25 PM on July 26, 1952, Eva died.
The grave sight of Eva.
A dictatorship took power in Argentina. The new dictatorship took Evita's body from display and its whereabouts were not known for 16 years. From 1955 to 1971, the military dictatorship of Argentina issued a ban on Peronism. It was illegal to own pictures of Juan and Eva Perón even in one's home, but no one was allowed to speak their names. In 1971 the military revealed that the body was buried in a crypt in Milan, Italy, under the name "María Maggi." In 1971, Evita's body was discovered and flown to Spain, where Juan Perón kept the corpse in his home. Juan and his third wife decided to keep the corpse in their dining room on a coffin near the table. In 1973, Juan Perón came out of exile and went back to Argentina, and became president for the third time. Perón died in office in 1974. It was Isabel (his third wife) who had Evita's body returned to Argentina and displayed beside Juan Peron's. The body was later buried in the Duarte family tomb in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires. Major measures were taken by the Argentine government to keep Evita's tomb secure. There is a trapdoor in the tomb's floor, and that leads to a compartment that contains two coffins. Under the first compartment is another trap-door and a second compartment. That is where Evita's coffin rests. This cemetery, which is located in the northern part of barrio Recoleta, holds the remains of illustrious military generals, presidents, poets,scientists, and other affluent Argentinians.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber is a native Londoner, born in South Kensington in 1948. His father was a composer, William Lloyd Webber, his mother was the pianist and educator Jean Johnstone Lloyd Webber, and his younger brother the world-renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. He started composing at 6 years old and published his first piece at 9. He was a Queen's Scholar in history at Magdalen College, Oxford, but his studies soon were sidetracked by his passion: He was still in his teens when he met Tim Rice, then a 21-year-old law student, and the two invented rock opera and were transforming musical theater with Joseph… and then with the international hit "Jesus Christ Superstar." What followed, with the prolific Rice as well as with several other collaborators, was the stuff of musical history.
Tim Rice and (right) Andrew Lloyd Webber work on the Evita concept album.
No one, including Webber, could have predicted that his writing would move from the life of Jesus to the travails of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves, or that these would lead to the bite of Evita. No one ever seriously considered T. S. Eliot's Book of Practical Cats a possible subject for a popular musical-but it was a childhood favorite of Lloyd Webber and it, too, was transformed and made musical history. The monumental design of "The Phantom of the Opera" itself from the surprising source of a long-forgotten Gaston Leroux novel, did not prepare musical lovers for the intimate adult pleasures of Aspects of Love, a chamber opera that happens to work as a musical. I had a chance to see "Aspects of Love" on it's U.S. Tour and fell in love with the romantic musical with a tremendous score, and recorded beautifully with a full orchestra on a 2-CD set starring Michael Ball.
Webber has composed over 13 musicals, including "Cats," The Phantom of the Opera, "Evita" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," several of which have run for more than a decade both in London's West End and on Broadway. He also wrote the scores to other musicals including "Starlight Express," "Aspects of Love," "Sunset Boulevard," "By Jeeves" and "Whistle Down the Wind." He has been given numerous honors, including a Knighthood (in 1992), seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, seven Olivier Awards and a Golden Globe ... His company, The Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theater operators in London ... His personal fortune was estimated at £797 million by the 2011 Sunday Times Rich List making him Britain's 52nd richest man. He divorced from singer Sarah Brightman and re-married in 1991 the former British international three-day-event rider, Madeleine Gurdon. They have three children, Alastair, William and Isabella.
Original Broadway poster for Evita.
With help from his wife, Webber founded Watership Down Stud at his home in Hampshire in 1992 ... Purchased Kiltinan Castle Stud in County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1995 ... He enjoyed his first big race success in 2000 when Crystal Music won the Fillies' Mile at Ascot ... His wife also is very interested in steeple chasing and her silks were carried to victory by Bacchanal in the Stayers' Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2000. Simon Marsh is his racing manager.
Most recently, not only did he write a sequel to his biggest hit, The Phantom of the Opera, titled Love Never Dies, but introduced a series of reality shows for the BBC to find stars for musical revivals on the west end (after he was knighted in 1992 and bought the Palace Theater in 1983 and now owns and has restored seven London theaters including the Palladium and the Theater Royal Drury Lane) very loosely based on the American Idol format, with host Graham Norton. Broadcast talent shows were produced for Oliver (titled "I'd Do Anything)," "The Sound of Music" (titled "How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria"), "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (titled "Any Dream Will Do"), and "The Wizard of Oz" (titled "Over the Rainbow.") This allowed the public to make the final choice of who would be cast in the main part of the revival, as well as interest the national audience into seeing the musical live. It worked well. Seating for all four shows was sold out for many months and the BBC ratings for these shows topped the British television charts.
Japanese poster
Tim Rice, Lyricist
Rice was born November 1944 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. His father, Hugh Gordon Rice, served with the Eighth Army and attained the rank of major during World War II, while his mother, Joan Odette served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a photographic interpreter. He was educated at Aldwickbury school, St Albans School and Lancing College and went on to study in France for a year at the Sorbonne. He joined EMI Records as a trainee in 1966 and when the producer left to set up his own organization in 1968, Rice joined him as an assistant producer. Along with his brother Jo and radio presenters Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini, he co-founded the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and served as an editor from 1977 to 1996. He has also been a frequent guest panelist for many years on the radio panel games Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match. He released his autobiography Oh What a Circus: The Autobiography of Tim Rice in 1998, which covered his childhood and early adult life until the opening of the original London production of Evita in 1978. In September 1981, Rice, along with Colin Webb and Michael Parkinson, co-founded Pavilion Books with a publishing focus on music and the arts.
Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, photo taken in 2009.
He wrote the book and lyrics for five musicals that have played in the West End and around the world: "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Evita" (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber), "Blondel" (music by Stephen Oliver), and "Chess" (music by ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson). He then adapted the French-Canadian musical "Starmania" for English. He first joined forces with Alan Menken to write three songs for Disney's "Aladdin," including the 1993 Academy Award-winner "A Whole New World." He wrote the lyrics for all of the songs in the following Disney animated feature The Lion King, from which came his second Oscar®- winning song, "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" (1995), with music by Elton John. He has completed work with Menken on a contemporary opera based on the life of King David, which was performed as a concert in Caesarea, Israel, in September 1996.
Poster for the soundtrack album for music stores and promotion.
Rice wrote for three other stage musicals, "Aida" and "The Lion King" (adding new musical numbers), both for Broadway with Elton John and Disney, and "Heathcliff," starring Cliff Richard, with music by John Farrar, which opened a national tour of the U.K. in October 1996. He was chairman of the U. K's Foundation for Sport and the Arts, an organization that distributed around 60 million pounds annually to sporting and artistic causes in the United Kingdom. He stepped into the late Howard Ashman's shoes once again in order to expand the Menken/Ashman Beauty and the Beast movie score for theatrical presentation. In 1994, he was knighted for his services to sport and the arts.
Evita comes to the United States stage. Webber and Rice were at the premiere.
Recently in 2012, Andrew Lloyd Webber announced a new reality series, "Superstar" which was to be like his former reality musical shows. Tim Rice wrote Sir Andrew a letter and asked him not to do the show, calling it "downsizing" their musical. Tim wrote, "I've had several meetings with Andrew and said that I don't want this done but now it appears it's been signed and sealed. Andrew wants to rehash things all the time but I don't think Superstar needs that tasteless reality television treatment. Those shows are relentlessly downmarket which is fine if the show is a lightweight bit of fluff. They can't cast the show without my approval. I have the right to veto casting. So if Andrew casts it on TV and I didn't like the person, I could say so." About not working together after Evita, Tim Rice has stated he was the one that wanted to be on his own. "When Phantom was at its peak," said Rice, "and "Chess" was having problems, I thought probably it was a big mistake from my point of view. And people quite understandably were going to think our success is all down to Andrew. I suppose being vain and human I got a bit pissed off at that point. Not with Andrew particularly but with myself, that I should have stuck with him.
Poster from the release in Argentina.
From Concept Album to Stage to Film
In 1972, Robert Stigwood proposed that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice develop a new musical version of "Peter Pan," but they abandoned the project.
What intrigued Rice about Eva was a brief radio play he had heard while driving his car, but more importantly, the TV film Queen of Hearts by Argentine film director Carlos Pasini Hansen which had aired in the UK on 24 October 1972. The more Rice looked into the life of Eva Perón, including travel to Buenos Aires to research her life, the more fascinated he became by her; he even named his first daughter after her. The idea of writing a score with Latin flavours intrigued Lloyd Webber, but he ultimately rejected the idea. Lloyd Webber decided instead to collaborate with Alan Ayckbourn on "Jeeves," a traditional Rodgers and Hart-style musical based on the P.G.Wodehouse character, which proved to be a critical and commercial failure. Lloyd Webber and conductor Anthony Bowles presented the musical at the Sydmonton Festival before making the recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Prior to its release, they played it for Harold Prince and asked him to become involved with the staging. Prince agreed, saying, famously, "Any opera that begins with a funeral can't be all bad", but he advised them that I can't take on any new commitments for the next two years. In Britain, Australia, South Africa, South America, and various parts of Europe, sales of the concept album exceeded those of "Jesus Christ Superstar."
The Evita concept album was released in November 1976. The record went straight to the top of the British charts, an unprecedented occurrence for an un-produced musical, with the single release of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" sung by Julie Covington soaring to number one a month earlier. Jesus Christ Superstar, written earlier, was also a concept album but did not hit the charts as high as Evita did. When Alan Parker first heard the original concept album he immediately inquired as to the possibility of a film adaptation. "'Evita' is an old passion of mine," Parker said. "Eva Peron was fin extraordinarily complex, fascinating and charismatic woman and to tell the truth about her, in a balanced, contemporary cinematic way, entirely as an opera, is a great challenge to any filmmaker."
(clockwise) Original concept album, Original London Cast, Original Broadway Cast, Movie Soundtrack
Parker subsequently dropped the idea of making the film, at the time, because Robert Stigwood, spurred on by the success of the record, decided to produce "Evita" for the London stage first, with Elaine Paige in the title role and Harold Prince directing. "Evita," which opened at the Prince Edward Theater on June 21, 1978, was one of the greatest musical theater hits ever seen in London. By the time it closed, it had played 2,900 performances in the West End. It transferred to Broadway in 1979 starring Patti LuPone, and walked off with the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and seven Tony Awards at the end of its first season. Robert Stigwood invited Alan Parker to the Broadway opening of "Evita" in 1979 and asked him if he would like to direct a film version. Parker, who was shooting "Fame" in New York, promised to give him his answer once he had finished that film. Eventually, Parker decided not to direct the film of Evita because he was loath to attempt another musical immediately after finishing "Fame."
For fifteen years, Alan Parker often regretted his reply to Robert Stigwood as he read about the proposed stars and directors planning to make Evita including: Elaine Paige, Patti LuPone, Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Raul Julia and Michelle Pfeiffer. Directors announced over the years were Ken Russell, Herb Ross, Alan Pakula, Hector Babenco, Francis Coppola, Franco Zeffirelli, Michael Cimino, Richard Attenborough, Glenn Gordon Caron and Oliver Stone. When Andy Vajna, whose company Cinergi was producing the film, offered him the project again at the end of 1994, he said he was glad that everything had come full circle.
Poster from Denmark
As Parker began to work on the film's script in 1994, he was dogged by the same questions that Tim Rice faced when he originally researched into Eva Peron's life in 1976. At that time, there was little written about her and theatrical performances of "Evita" and the importation of the records were banned by Argentina's military dictatorship. Parker found that even as the film was made, in Argentina, Eva Peron is still thought of as either a saint or a sinner so his extensive research had to discover the real truth behind this woman whose image has been used as propaganda by both left-wing guerrillas and right-wing extremists. In writing the screenplay, Parker decided to overlook the stage play completely, as Harold Prince's stage directions were irrelevant for the cinematic version, and returned to the original concept album's score and lyrics but also his own research. Armed with all the available research material in existence from documentary footage made on Eva Peron, every possible book in English on the Perons and Argentina and old newspaper clippings, Parker was determined to write a film version of Evita as close to Eva Peron's own story as possible, and that story is the one he has told in his film.
Story conception by Alan Parker for the film:
Maria Eva Ibarguren (Eva Peron) was born on May 7, 1919, in Los Toldos, a tiny town two hundred miles west of Buenos Aires. Eva was the youngest, illegitimate daughter of Juan Duarte, a middle-class estancia manager, and a domestic servant, Juana Ibarguren. The family was very poor, and Eva was only 7 when her father was killed in a car crash. Very cruelly, the family was prevented from attending his funeral, and it is this memory which led to Eva's lifelong hatred of Argentina's middle-class. Later her mother opened a boarding house in Junin, a nearby town, and from where Eva escaped, at age 15, by cajoling Agustin Magaldi, a small-time tango singer, to take her with him to Buenos Aires. Her early years in 'the Big Apple' are vague as she climbed the social ladder in her desperate, search for acceptance, eventually becoming a film and radio actress and gaining some celebrity.
Materials used by Alan Parker to create a thoroughly detailed true story.
At a charity concert in aid of victims of the San Juan earthquake on January 22, 1944, Eva first met Goloneh Juan Peron and became his mistress, much to the chagrin of both the ruling class and Peron's military colleagues. Concerned about Peron's rising popularity with the labor unions, President Farrell had Peron arrested and imprisoned at Martin Garcia Island prison, unaware that such a move against a popular figure would lead to the insurrection of October 17, 1945. Peron was consequently released, and, in the free elections the following year, he became the 29th president of Argentina. Eva became very visible as the country's first lady and on her visit to Spain, Italy and France, as part of her "Rainbow Tour" of Europe, she received so much press attention that she easily became the most famous woman in the world. Upon her return to Argentina, and smarting from the West's image of her frivolous lifestyle and her husband's questionable politics, Eva immersed herself in "good works." Eva founded her own charitable organization "La Fundacion Ayuda Social Maria Eva Duarte de Peron") and during her regular sixteen-hour working days she began to put right what she thought was wrong with Argentina's unequal society. Her building of new hospitals; clinics; medical centers; homes for the aged, for single girls and for the homeless; a thousand new schools all named after her; an entire miniature children's city ("La Ciudad Infantil") and the giving away of thousands of cooking pots, shoes, sewing machines, etc. to the poor, was driving the country into bankruptcy. When asked by an American journalist why she didn't keep books for her charitable efforts, Eva replied, "Keeping books on charity is capitalist nonsense. I just use money for the poor. I can't stop to count it."
The birthplace of Eva Duarte has been debated. There could be two possible locations, shown here.
At the height of her power, Eva created the Peronist Women's Party and succeeded in campaigning for women to vote, which became law in 1947. Her ruthlessness to achieve her goals, however, brought her many enemies, particularly within Peron's military, who dissented against her becoming vice president when she was nominated by the five-million-strong General Confederation of Labor (CGT) at a giant rally on August 22, 1951. In spite of the people's efforts, nine days later in an emotional radio broadcast, Eva relinquished all her political aspirations. Her decision, whether because of pressure on Peron from the military, or whether her uterine cancer had been diagnosed, has never been fully explained. Eva Peron's public dying over the next eleven months was painful to witness. She cast her vote in the elections of November 1951, in a special ballot box brought to her bedside which was made into a photo opportunity for the Peronist media machine. For the inaugural motorcade celebrating Peron's second term in June 1952, heavily drugged and skeletal in appearance, Eva was kept upright by a steel cage hidden from view by her generous fur coat. At 8:25 p.m. on July 26, 1952, Eva Peron died at the age of 33 years old. Argentina went into a deep and frenzied mourning.
Spanish poster
Production
Parker submitted his first draft of the script to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in May, 1995 with 146 changes to the original score and lyrics. Finally after much negotiating by Parker, as it is well known that Lloyd Webber and Rice no longer work together out of choice, the three men met at Lloyd Webber's house in the South of France and successfully addressed all Parker's changes. One of the many alterations he had made was to rearrange the order of most of the last act, calling for new scoring from Lloyd Webber, and more importantly a new song to be written by the two of them. "For obvious reasons, Andrew doesn't give his melodies away too hastily," Parker said. "The possibility of these two gentlemen ever collaborating again was, I was told by many who knew them well, an idealistic but not overly practical, if not impossible notion." Parker wanted the film to retain a slightly soft image for the first two thirds and then get slightly sharper toward the last half hour to express the reality of what was happening to the country and to Eva.
Setting up a shot for Evita.
Ever optimistic, Alan Parker left the new songs in the hands of Lloyd Webber and Rice, while he involved himself with the difficult task of casting his film. Michelle Pfeiffer had waited so long to star as Evita that by the time Alan Parker began working on the film she was already the mother of two small children, and the travel involved had now become impossible for her. Madonna, whom he had worked with developing a remake of "The Blue Angel" a few years earlier, wrote him a passionate and sincere handwritten, four-page letter while he was spending Christmas in England in 1994. She said she desperately wanted the part and that she would be prepared to give all her time and effort, over a very long period of time, to make the film. "Madonna has never ever once gone back on her word," Parker says. "She is extraordinarily accomplished and has given everything to make this film. I find it hard now to even conceive of anybody playing the part as well as she has done it."
Cinematographer Darius Khondji (left) discusses a shot with Alan Parker.
Antonio Banderas was the favorite to play Che after Parker saw an audition tape he had made. When they met in a Miami restaurant to discuss the part, Banderas serenaded the director with a word-perfect rendition of all the songs from "Evita," in full view of surprised diners. Jonathan Pryce was also Parker's choice for Peron. He had long admired the brilliant, classically-trained British actor, who had created the lead role of The Engineer in the stage musical "Miss Saigon," for which Pryce won a Tony, and Parker had seen Pryce's bravura role as Lytton Strachey in the film "Carrington," winning the Best Actor prize at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.
Original storyboards used by Alan Parker.
Madonna was adamant that she would sing the score as Andrew Lloyd Webber had written it, and early on she began working with top vocal coach Joan Lader in New York, and the film's musical supervisor, David Caddick, who is also Andrew Lloyd Webber's regular musical director. Within three months she had expanded her vocal range, using voice areas that she had never touched upon before. In September 1995, Madonna, Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Pryce and Jimmy Nail began rehearsals with Alan Parker in London. Even though all the dialogue was being sung rather than spoken, Parker wanted the dialogue to be as naturalistic as possible. He was convinced that the production of the film should be identical to how he made a normal dramatic film. The rehearsals went very successfully and by October 2, they were ready to begin recording the music in London. Over four months of working 7 day weeks, everyone involved put in over 400 recording hours preparing the 49 musical sections that were necessary for playback on set. It was a risky time for Alan Parker as he was constantly aware of the fact that decisions made in the recording studio would have to be adhered to on the film set.
As recording time moved on and Parker began to panic at the nonappearance of the new song, Lloyd Webber sat down at his piano one day and played the director the perfect melody. As with the original "Evita" score, the music always came first and then the lyrics, so now it was time to persuade Tim Rice to also come up with his customary magic. After many weeks, Rice came back with the beautiful song, "You Must Love Me," that Madonna sings to clarify Eva's relationship with her husband. Parker had also asked Rice to completely rewrite the song "The Lady's Got Potential," which Harold Prince had removed from the stage version, but which Parker had reclaimed, to explain the history of politics in Argentina pre-Peron.
"You Must Love Me" written for the film by Webber and Rice won the Academy Award that year as best original song. As Webber accepted the award during a year when The English Patient was winning nearly every award, Webber first said, "Thank God The English Patient didn't have a song."
As the recording proceeded, Parker also had to involve himself with preparing for shooting the film, which was already proving to be a logistical nightmare. He was always determined to shoot in Argentina and in June 1995 he had been granted an audience with President Carlos Menem. As soon as he received the word, he took the first plane to Buenos Aires, and surrounded by secret service agents met with the President at his private residence, Los Olivos. President Menem was sympathetic, but as a Peronist he wanted Eva Peron's memory to be respected - he had a huge portrait of Eva behind the desk in his office - and he was very wary of a film of Evita because of previous attempts to mount the production. Parker needed the President's help, and most importantly the use of the Casa Rosada, the official government house, which looms so large in the story.
"Every time I met one of his ministers over the next six months, the answer was the same no," Parker said. "They wanted to see the script and I said that, from a creative point of view, I needed the freedom to express myself as I saw fit. I did always promise them it would be a balanced film, and I felt to shoot part of it in Argentina would add to the honesty of the film. I had visited Eva's birthplace of Los Toldos, the town of Junin where she grew up, and Chivilcoy where her father's funeral took place. My plan was to at least shoot Eva's early years there." After visiting seven other countries, Parker decided to start the filming in Buenos Aires, then move to Budapest to replicate Buenos Aires as it was in the thirties and forties. The crew was principally English, with American, French, Scottish and Irish technicians. Most of Parker's crew had worked with him before, but it was the first time he had worked with the cinematographer, Darius Khondji, a Frenchman of Persian descent. Parker has said, "his continual brilliance (and shadows) and affable personality made the filming a constant delight, as he integrated perfectly with my usual camera crew."
Storyboard production camera drawings
They were a juggernaut "the last of the traveling circuses" was how David Lean described large film crews on the move-freighting 70 tons of equipment from England. By mid-January, 90 of the crew were lodged in Buenos Aires for filming to begin on February 8. Arriving at the airport was an indicator of what was to come throughout filming: a constant bombardment of journalists, photographers and TV cameras jostling them all at every turn. "On that first drive in," Parker remembers, "it was daunting to see the huge unwelcoming scrawled graffiti signs everywhere with Tuera (go home) Madonna,' Viva Evita,' and 'Chau Alan Parker and your English task force.'" ("Task Force" was the epithet given to the British troops during the Falklands War). The weeks leading up to filming are always an awesome time for any director, but as Parker and his crew finalized their many locations and he worked through the camera script and cast the smaller parts, he came to realize, with nervous anticipation, what a monster of a film this truly was. It wasn't simply the obvious components - the thousands of people involved and the dozens of locations in two very different countries - but also the security concerns, not made any easier by the paparazzi who went to any lengths, including using helicopters, to get the pictures they needed.
Rare teaser poster
Madonna, as the true professional that she is, arrived early in Buenos Aires to carry out her own research, meeting elderly Peronists and anti-Peronists alike, to fill in her own picture of Evita, and to complete final fittings on the over 80 costumes she would be wearing. It was upsetting for her to see the unwelcoming signs, and with fans and photographers stalking her every movement and keeping her awake at night, she had many difficulties with which to contend. Parker continued his pursuit of the Casa Rosada balcony for the important "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" scenes with the powers that be, emphasizing that the production designer, Brian Morris, had photographed every square inch of the building and that if they could not film there they would build the facade at Shepperton Studios.
Magazine cover created for use in the film.
As they forged ahead with the filming, with their 90 core crew and 150 Argentinean crew, they were attacked daily, in the newspapers, by unwelcoming journalists, who were completely unaware of exactly what they were doing. Their same stories were filed worldwide - the film that was not wanted there -- and they ran continuously the whole time the production was in Argentina. Eventually, the production became immune to all this negativity in their desire to make their film. There was no way that the production could keep the photographers away from the film being shot, because they were filming out in the open, recreating the world of 1936 when Eva was young, involving period vehicles, thousands of costumed extras, and entire streets dressed in the era. Not easy art direction in a busy city of ten million people. As the weeks went by, the opposition in all quarters ceased to trouble them as the public learned to get used to them being there.
Poster from Poland
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As far as the Casa Rosada balcony was concerned, it was Madonna who succeeded where the rest had failed for over a year. Through her research acquaintances she managed an unofficial, personal meeting with Menem. The call to meet him came in one of Parker and her regular script meetings and as she dashed out of the door he suggested she take her CD of "Don't Cry For Me" with her. Madonna met with the President for an hour. The following week Jonathan Pryce, Antonio Banderas, Madonna and Alan Parker were summoned to an official meeting with President Menem at Los Olivos. They sat nibbling the President's famous pizza, exchanging small talk and generally tip-toeing around the important question. "Let's cut to the chase here," Madonna suddenly said. "Do we have the balcony or don't we?" Menem smiled and nodded, "You can have the balcony."
Original costumes created for the film.
A few days later, as Madonna came out on to that balcony to sing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina," the 4,000 extras and the crew went wild. "On the second night of shooting there, as we filmed the reverses on the crowd, I stood with Madonna on the balcony," Parker says. "With all of the documentary footage imprinted in the back of our brains, it was impossible not to be moved when we were standing in the same spot where Eva stood looking down at a crowd of adoring thousands. Suddenly it wasn't just the illusion and replication of film. It was strangely real."
After six weeks Parker's army moved on to Hungary with several tons of equipment, costumes and props in tow, and were shooting within four days of arriving in Budapest. The director tried not to panic when he received a phone call from Madonna in New York to say that she was pregnant. Calculating wildly, the two of them tried to keep it a secret from the crew upon her return to the shooting, but the cloak-and-dagger conversations he began to have in trying to reschedule without giving the game away, led to David Wimbury, the line producer, and Dennis Maguire, the first assistant, realizing that Parker had finally gone over the edge. Madonna eventually had to make her announcement.
Original lobby cards
In Hungary, the biggest project was to prepare and film Eva Peron's state funeral. Parker and the crew had researched miles of documentary footage and wanted an exact replica of her cortege. The costume department, to be prepared for filming on the first shooting day, began fitting and dressing extras at 3:30 a.m. The call sheet read as follows: 4,000 crowd to include; 50 mounted police, plus horses; 200 soldiers; 50 army officers; 50 foot police; 60 sailors; 60 nurses; 300 working-class women; 100 upper-class women; 51 descamisados; 20 naval officers; 12 naval police; 300 working-class men; 15 palace guards; 8 pallbearers; 60 navy cadets; 60 army cadets; 300 middle-class women; 300 middle-class men; 100 Aristo men; 100 boys; 100 girls; 200Vnale background; 200 female background; 1,400 miscellaneous background; gun carriage; coffin; 4 army motorcycles; 2 police motorcycles; 6 Bren carriers; 2 half-track military vehicles; 2 fox tanks; 4 army trucks; CGT float, ete. etc. Miraculously, this giant procession was ready to film at 10:30 a.m., and the scene was shot for the next two days.
Antonio Banderes publicity shot
In London everyone was back to normal and the final part of the shoot went without mishap. The film finished shooting at 2 a.m. on the morning of May 30, having filmed for 84 days, shooting in 3 different countries, involving over 600 film crew. They had shot 299 scenes and 3,000 slated shots on 320,000 feet of film with 2 cameras. Penny Rose's costume department, with a staff of 72 in three different countries, had fitted 40,000 extras in period dress. Over 5,500 costumes were used from 20 different costume houses in London, Rome, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Budapest, including over 1,000 military uniforms. Madonna's wardrobe alone consisted of 85 changes, 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes and 56 pairs of earrings. Almost all of these were handmade in London. Martin Samuel, the chief hairstylist, created 42 different hair designs for Madonna. Brian Morris' art department created 320 different sets involving 24,000 different items of props.
These statistics are only an indicator of the massive nature of this film. "It's not easy making movies and it's certainly not glamorous," Alan Parker said on the set. "The manic, tormented hard work, the long, upside-down hours and being constantly ankle-deep in pig shit is the reality. But sometimes it's really worth it."
When the film was released, dozens of magazines featured Madonna on their covers.
Madonna
An artist with a history of making history, Madonna, in a performance of a lifetime, had made the role of Evita completely her own. A renaissance woman in the truest sense of the term - singer, composer, producer, actor, executive, humanitarian and mother - there was nothing, it seemed, that Madonna could not do. It is her passionate commitment to excellence, her complete involvement in every essential aspect of her art, her career and her life, which has made Madonna one of a handful of the most innovative, influential and inspiring artists of our time and it is these same qualities that Madonna has brought to bear in the film and the music of Evita. Madonna's history towers over the chronicles of popular culture comprising a list of First, Best, Fastest and Longest that stands as a monument to one woman's exceptional ability and extraordinary ambition. From 1982, when a cocky, confident and coolly self-assured 24-year-old Detroit native first stepped onto the stage to lip-synch her debut single "Everybody," at New York's Danceteria, it was clear that something wholly original had happened.
Madonna Evita publicity still
Madonna has broken every available radio, video, sales and box office record, racking up no less than 29 Top Ten singles, 11 of those reaching No. 1. Her chart topper, 1994's "Take A Bow" lodged in the top spot for seven consecutive weeks and beat the performance of her 1984 breakthrough, "Like A Virgin" (which had a six week run at the top). All told, Madonna's No. 1 and No. 2 singles have spent a total of 40 weeks at the top of the charts -- almost a solid year of uninterrupted hits. In one period in the late 1980s, she racked up six straight Top 5 singles, beating the Beatles' old record for back-to-back chart toppers. The single, "You Must Love Me," written especially for the film,Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice was one of the fastest rising singles in the history of Warner Bros. Records.
Madonna Evita publicity still
Of eleven Madonna albums made at the time, every one had reached the Top 15, all but one had made it into the Top 10, and seven attained Top 5 status. Every one of that eleven-album catalogue (Evita eventually made it an even dozen) had sold over a million copies, two have sold over three million and five have sold over four million. Madonna's international album sales are estimated at topping 100 million units. Pivotal as recorded music is to Madonna's unparalleled success, she has had more videos, played more often, than any other artist in the history of the MTV network. Multi-awarded for these videos, Madonna made a ground-breaking contribution to the video art form as she had to her unstoppable sell-out music tours which combined music, theatrics, spectacle and dazzling charisma which have packed stadiums globally for nearly three decades. Madonna's film roles began with instant success as wacky Susan in "Desperately Seeking Susan," leading to starring in "Dick Tracy," joining Woody Allen's exclusive repertory foreshadows and Fog" and Madonna's intriguing documentary performance in "Truth or Dare" was an in-your-face personal journey which intrigued audiences and critics alike and led to her debut at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.
Original service agreement contract for Madonna.
Antonio Banderas
The narrator throughout, the sardonic Brechtian everyman, Che is played by Spanish actor, Antonio Banderas, who made his American film debut in "Mambo Kings." This was closely followed by a number of films including Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia," starring opposite Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington; Neil Jordan's "Interview with a Vampire," opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt; "Miami Rhapsody" with Sarah Jessica Parker; "The House of the Spirits," with Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons; starring in Robert Rodriquez' "Desperado" and "Four Rooms"; "Assassins" opposite Sylvester Stallone; "Never Talk to Strangers" and "Two Much," opposite Melanie Griffith and Daryl Hannah. Banderas, who worked with the Spanish National Theater for five years, began his career as the protege of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar in such classics as "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down," in which he received Spain's equivalent of an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown." His next project was to be "The Mask of Zorro" for director Martin Campbell.
Antonio Banderes publicity still
Jonathan Pryce
The role of President Juan Peron is played by Jonathan Pryce, one of Britain's leading actors, who won the 1995 Cannes Film Festival's Best Actor prize for his starring role as the Bloomsbury Group critic and biographer Lytton Strachey in Christopher Hampton's "Carrington," and was nominated as theater's Best Actor in a Musical for his starring role as Fagin in Lionel Bart's "Oliver." Pryce has won Best Actor Tony Awards for his Broadway performances as the skinhead stand-up in Trevor Griffiths' "The Comedians" and his best-known theatrical role as the star of "Miss Saigon," for which he was also awarded an Olivier for Outstanding Performance in a Musical. He won the prestigious SWET (Society for West End Theatres) Best Actor Award for his performance as Hamlet at the Royal Court Theater in 1980, having been nominated for the same award the previous year for his performance in "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His film credits at the time included Richard Eyre's "The Ploughman's Lunch," Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," James Foley's film of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," starring roles in TV films "Barbarians at the Gate" with James Garner for which he was nominated for Emmy and Golden Globe awards, and Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence." Alongside his theater and film career, Pryce has made many impressive television drama appearances including "Selling Hitler" for Channel 4 in the U.K. and "Mr. Wroe's Virgins" for the BBC.
Jonathan Pryce
Jimmy Nail
Agustfn Magaldi, the tango singer who first introduces the young Eva Peron to Buenos Aires is played by actor/singer/writer Jimmy Nail, who first came to prominence as Oz in British television's massively-successful BAFTA-nominated "Auf Wiedersehen Pet" in 1981, which boasted a 15 million viewership. Nail later created another popular character, the undercover detective Freddie Spender in the hit BBC series, "Spender," a series he wrote, executive produced and starred in, which ran on TV for four years and earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Series, as well as a Television and Radio Industries Award. The,series also led to his writing a best-selling Spender novel. The Nail, created smash hit TV series, "Crocodile Shoes," in which he starred as a low-rank country singer dreaming of the Big Time, won a BAFTA nomination for Best Television Music and an Ivor Novello nomination for Best Title Song. Nail's second series of "Crocodile Shoes" would be televised at the end of 1996. A successful recording artist, Nail's 1994 triple platinum album, Crocodile Shoes sold 900,000 copies in the UK alone and for which he completed his second sell-out UK tour. Jimmy Nail's film credits include "Wallenberg" and "Danny, The Champion of the World."
Jimmy Nail
Alan Parker
Director, writer, producer Alan Parker wrote and directed his first film, "Bugsy Malone" in 1975. The film was a musical pastiche of 1920s gangster films with an entire cast of children. The highly original film received eight British Academy Award nominations and five Awards. His second film was the controversial "Midnight Express" (1977) which won two Oscars and six Academy Award nominations, including one for Parker as Best Director. The film received six Golden Globe Awards and four awards from the British Film Academy. This was followed in 1979 by Parker's film "Fame," a celebration of youth and the arts, which won two Academy Awards, six nominations, four Golden Globe nominations and was later adapted into a successful television series.
Alan Parker on location for Evita
In 1981, Parker directed "Shoot The Moon" starring Diane Keaton and Albert Finney, his most personal film to date, and the powerful "Pink Floyd—The Wall," the feature film adaptation of the successful rock album which has become a classic of the genre. In 1984, Parker directed "Birdy," based on the William Wharton novel, starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine, which won the Grand Prix Special Du Jury at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. No stranger to controversy, his next film "Angel Heart," written and directed by Parker in 1986 and starring Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet, opened in the United States amidst a storm caused by the 'X' rating initially imposed on it by the MPAA. In 1988 Parker directed the Civil Rights drama, "Mississippi Burning" starring-Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards® including Best Director for Parker and winning for Best Cinematography. Parker was also awarded the D.W. Griffith Award by the National Board of Review for directing. The film was nominated for five British Academy Awards, winning three. It also won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Alan Parker in production, deep in thought.
In 1989 Parker wrote and directed "Come See The Paradise," a love story set against the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita. "The Commitments," made in 1990, a story of a young Irish working-class soul band, won Parker the Best Director prize at the Tokyo Film Festival and British Academy Awards for Editing, Screenplay, Director and Best Picture. In 1993, Parker wrote and directed "The Road to Wellville," based on the novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle and starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and Dana Carvey. In 1974, Alan Parker directed the BBC Television Film "The Evacuees," written by Jack Rosenthal, which won the International Emmy Award and a BAFTA Award for direction. In 1984, to celebrate "British Film Year," Parker wrote and directed the provocative documentary "A Turnip Head's Guide To The British Cinema" which underlined Parker's fiercely independent and outspoken views as he lambasted the British film establishment and film critics. It won the British Press Guild Award for the year's best documentary.
Parker is also a novelist and author of the best-selling book written from his own screenplay of "Bugsy Malone," and "Puddles In The Lane" which was published in 1977. A compendium of his satirical cartoons, "Hares In The Gate," was published in 1982. A founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain, Parker has lectured at film schools around the world. In 1985 he was honored by the British Academy with the prestigious Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema, and in November 1995 he was awarded with a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the British film industry.
Robert Stigwood
Producer Robert Stigwood was the first producer of the UK stage hit of "Evita" and his US theater production of the musical won the 1980 Tony Award for Best Musical. Alan Parker was always Stigwood's first choice to direct the film of Evita. Robert Stigwood was the producer of the hit film, "Grease," which began touring as a highly acclaimed stage musical featuring all of the film songs. His other UK stage production credits include "Hair," "Oh! Calcutta," "The Dirtiest Show in Town," "Pippin," "Jesus Christ Superstar" (also a hugely successful US Theatre production), "Sweeney Todd," "Sing a Rude Song," and "John Paul George Ringo and Bert." Stigwood has produced many films including Tommy, Saturday Night Fever, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Stayin' Alive" and "Gallipoli," together with the soundtracks to Fame and The Empire Strikes Back.
Andrew G. Vanja had been an important producer in Hollywood for the 20 years prior to the Evita film, first as co-founder of Carolco Pictures, producing such blockbuster films as the "Rambo" trilogy with Sylvester Stallone and "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since founding Cinergi Pictures Entertainment Inc., he has been responsible for "Die Hard With A Vengeance," starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, one of the biggest hit films of 1995, "Judge Dredd" with Sylvester Stallone, Oliver Stone's "Nixon," starring Anthony Hopkins and "The Scarlet Letter" starring Demi Moore. Vajna also produced Alan Parker's film "Angel Heart" starring Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro.
Line producer David Wimbury first met Alan Parker when he was producing commercials for Hugh Hudson. Wimbury later became Parker's assistant director on "Midnight Express," production manager on "Pink Floyd—The Wall" and Line Producer on "The Commitments." Wimbury first joined the film industry as a runner when he was 17 and became Assistant Director on many films including Blake Edwards' "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" and "The Revenge of the Pink Panther," Ridley Scott's "The Duellists" and Michael Apted's "Stardust." He produced Bruce Robinson's films "Withnail and I" and "How To Get Ahead In Advertising," and Dick Clement's films "Water" and "Bullshot" for HandMade Films, and was associate producer on Charles Sturridge's "A Handful of Dust" and Julien Temple's "Absolute Beginners," production manager on Terry Jones's "Monty Python's Meaning of Life." Wimbury has long been associated with Witzend Productions (Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais and Allan McKeown) working on numerous TV productions including "Porridge," "To Russia with Elton" and "Anyone for Dennis." Witzend Productions later became a subsidiary of SelecTV pic and Wimbury produced "Tracey Ullman Takes on New York," "Hearts and Minds" and "Pie in the Sky."
Release
Evita was filmed in 35mm Eastman in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio (the ratio Parker prfeferred having been a fan of Cinemascope films and also because of the framing that was needed for the elaborate scenes in the film). The final budget came in at $55 million. In the United States, the film would gross $50 million but overseas boxoffice proved to be excellent, especially in the United Kingdom and so a profit was made from the film, with an additional $17 million coming from its home video releases. Evita was released as a holiday release on December 14, 1996 (the date of its Los Angeles premiere).
Madonna at the film's premiere
Roger Ebert said in his review, "I very much enjoyed the film. Parker's visuals enliven the music, and Madonna and Banderas bring it passion. By the end of the film we feel like we've had our money's worth, and we're sure Evita has." Rolling Stone went on to say that "The hard-working diva brings star qualityto the working-class Eva Peron." From the San Francisco Chronicle: "The protracted, much-anticipated screen version of ``Evita'' turns out to have been worth the wait. Alan Parker's picture is epic, lavish and fascinating. It is not a perfect screen musical, but it is spectacular and it works." The New York Times declared, "The viewer is in for a tumultuous ride. The star looks stunning, breaks the Guinness world record for most costume changes in a single movie and shows off traffic-stopping screen presence in the process."
The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and won for best song ("You Must Love Me"). Evita won three Golden Globes including Best Picture (Comedy or Musical), Best Song, Best performance by an Actress in a Comedy/Musical. Antonio Banderas lost the Golden Globe to Tom Cruise. Other wins included three awards from the Satellite Awards (Best picture, Comedy or Musical, Best Costume Design and Outstanding original song). The National Board of Review listed the film in their top ten for 1996 and won the LAFCA (Los Angeles Film Critics Association) Award for Best Production Design (Brian Morris). The film was among the top 5 nominated in categories from over thirty other awards presenters that year. Following the success of the film, the government of Argentina released its own film biography of Perón, entitled Eva Perón, to correct alleged distortions in the Lloyd Webber account.
Evita lives on
In 1981, director Marvin J. Chomsky filmed a television movie titled "Evita Peron" for Zephyr Productions. Faye Dunaway would play the lead role. Playing General Juan Peron was James Ferentino. The film was shown on February 23, 1981 on NBC. The mini-series ran 200 minutes. In 2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber started to plan a major revival that would play on Broadway. This time, his star would be the character of "Che" played by Ricky Martin. The musical is playing to sold-out houses and has become a boxoffice success. Directed by Michael Grandage and choreographed by Rob Ashford, "CBS This Morning" called "The production of Evita that Broadway has been waiting for." Webber brought back two musicals currently playing on Broadway, "Evita" starring Ricky Martin and "Jesus Christ Superstar," both which received numerous Tony nominations and wins at the 2012 Tony Awards. One production number from each show was broadcast during the awards, and the next day several months worth of tickets were sold to make for sold out performances.
Faye Dunaway played Evita in a 1981 made-for-tv movie.
Ricky Martin currently starring on Broadway in the new Evita revival. Elena Roger plays Eva Peron.
Eva Duarte Peron's life is historic and few can compare to such a rise in popularity and politics and riches. Richly filmed by Alan Parker for Touchstone Pictures, Evita is now available in a remastered 15th Anniversary Edition, available for the first time on Blu-ray.
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