A Favorite Falls

ARGENTINA A Favorite Falls

One hot summer night in 1945, a group of Argentine theater and radio people sat talking politics around a table at Buenos Aires' Radio Belgrano. A plump, blonde actress named Eva Duarte, then occupying the apartment next to that of Labor Minister Juan Peron, got into a hot argument with creamy-skinned Libertad Lamarque, then the country's top screen and radio actress. Libertad imperiously leaned across the table, gave Eva the last slap she was ever to receive in public, and stalked off with her own admirers. A moment later, according to the story, Tango Singer Hugo del Carril walked by to find Eva alone and in tears. He draped a friendly arm around her shoulder and said: "Don't rm'nd Liber. She has a screw loose. Let's have a cup of coffee."

Bucking the Trust. The 20 centavos that Hugo paid for Eva's coffee was the best investment he ever made. A street singer as a child, he had already risen to popularity as a crooning film star. But it was his good standing with Evita Peron that raised him to political power in film and radio circles as head of the actors' union, and enabled him to become the only independent film producer in Argen tina. With Evita's support, he was able to buck the powerful Argentine Film Producers' Association, even though its top men were her brother Juan Duarte, the President's private secretary, and Raul Apold, Peron's propaganda chief. Del Carril produced, directed and starred in two big hits, one a semi-documentary that won honorable mention at the Venice film fes tival and was probably the best movie ever made in Argentina.

After Evita's death, Apold and Duarte whetted the knife for Del Carril. First they cut off his film supply. Then, a fort night ago, Apold planted a story in the newspaper Critica that spelled the end of Del Carril's artistic career in Argentina.

Under the headline URUGUAYAN GOLD MEANT MORE TO HUGO DEL CARRIL THAN THE SORROW OF HIS PEOPLE, the scurrilous piece ironically invoked the memory of his patroness Evita to attack him: "Here in Buenos Aires the people trem bling with cold stood in endless columns in the streets, silently paying tribute to their departed benefactress. There in Montevideo Hugo del Carril expressed his indifference to the national pain and man ifested the crudest monetary greed by continuing to sing from July 27 to Au gust 8 ..." Hushing the Truck. The story was not true: Del Carril had returned to Buenos Aires, visited Evita's bier several times and stayed five days before going back to his Montevideo radio engagement. But the damage was done. No newspaper dared print a word of Del Carril's an guished denials. When the actors' union sent out a sound truck to tell his side of the story, police impounded it for "mo lesting public quiet." The cops also seized union leaflets. In desperation, Del Carril called to see Juan Duarte at the palace --and was coldly turned away. Last week, admitting defeat, Del Carril was liquidating his film company and preparing to go into exile in Italy.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.