Eva Perón is considered an international pop culture icon… And, now the people of her native Argentina may soon be able to cash in on the former First Lady’s popularity.
Several members of Argentina’s Congress have introduced bills to put the likeness of Evita—who was just 33 at the time of her death—on Argentine money to commemorate the 60th anniversary of her death, according to the press.
The new bills are being inspired by the 5-peso bill designed in 1952 after Evita’s death but later scrapped by the dictatorship that took power in 1955, government spokesmen told the Clarin newspaper.
Evita was the second wife of three-time President Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974), who was president of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and again from 1973 to 1974.
The face of Evita—who died from cancer on July 26, 1952, and is hailed as a champion of the poor—appeared on limited coin issues in 1997 and 2002.
She’s buried at Recoleta Cemetery, the most elegant burial ground in Buenos Aires.
Evita’s body was removed from Argentina in 1957 on the orders of the military officers who overthrew Peron. After spending 14 years in a Milan tomb under another name, Evita’s remains were turned over to her husband. Gen. Peron kept the embalmed body in his home in Madrid’s Puerta de Hierro neighborhood for three years and the remains were finally returned to Buenos Aires in 1974.
Evita, who was wildly popular among Argentina’s lower classes, is known to people around the world thanks to the hit musical Evita, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, which was made into a film in 1994 by Alan Parker, with Madonna as the larger-than-life first lady. The Broadway musical made a triumphant return to the stage earlier this year with Elena Rogers, Michael Cerveris and Ricky Martin in the key roles.
