Rumors, Rumors, Rumors

Eva Perón was, of course, a film actress herself. It is one of her lesser efforts which is shown on the screen at the beginning of Evita. Several Spanish-language TV channels and cable networks have unearthed a good print of La Prodiga, Eva’s last film (and showiest role) and televised it with great fanfare. Though Eva is hopelessly miscast as a middle-aged woman, she is vibrant and fascinating on the screen.

Eva Perón never really made it in films and until 1996, it looked like Evita wouldn’t either. There’s hardly a hit stage musical that has had a harder time making it to film (except perhaps, Phantom of the Opera, but it suffers from the same problem as A Chorus Line - its magic is in seeing it live as if you were there when the drama unfolds).

Since Evita’s premiere, there have been a number of Argentine films announced in various show business publications, but it’s impossible to confirm that any of these were actually made until the 1996 film Eva Peron: The True Story. There is also reportedly a porn film about Eva that’s been around for a number of years.

But one of the scariest ideas came from a press release to The Hollywood Reporter on August 9, 1974, which read: "Zsa Zsa Gabor has been signed by producer Michael Cohen to star in "Evita," a biographical feature based on the life and career of the late Eva Perón. Filming is scheduled for England and Spain next January. Final draft screenplay is now being completed by Roger Cordet."

The big question: would she have attempted a Spanish accent?

From the moment Evita opened at the Prince Edward, everybody thought this would be the show to break the jinx on movie musicals. But Evita’s journey from stage to screen has been nearly as long and just as bizarre as the odyssey of Eva Perón’s body after she died. Soon after the London opening in 1978, major and minor moguls from Warner Bros., M-G-M and Paramount were jockeying for house seats and visitors to the show included Cary Grant, Dustin Hoffman, Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson and Ingrid Bergman. No one dreamed for a second that the film would be in limbo for nearly two decades. Back then, the only question in everyone’s mind was (sing to the tune of "Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina") Who Will They Cast as Evita?

The rumors about Streisand began in the fall of 1978 when New York columnist Marilyn Beck wrote that Streisand wanted $3 million plus a percentage to do the part. She reportedly also wanted then-husband Elliot Gould to play Che. Robert Stigwood allegedly wanted one of his BeeGees--Barry Gibb--for Che. Another report suggested Stigwood preferred Meat Loaf. Rice and Lloyd Webber were supposed to be solidly behind Elaine Paige.

A gay magazine suggested likely and unlikely candidates and forecasted the changes each star would demand: Ann-Margaret would add chorus boys and motorcycles; Cher would add spangles and roller skates to the white balcony dress and ask that the three most difficult songs be cut; Jim Bailey would "present Evita as a fascist queen at war with the two other personalities inside her"; Miss Piggy would demand line changes; Barbra Streisand would "rewrite the script, take out all the drama, add a few acid-rock songs and manage to make Eva into a ‘cute’ character." The magazine also mentioned Liza Minnelli, Greta Garbo [as Perón!], Lucille Ball, Donna Summer and Dolly Parton.

Another publication brought up nearly every possible name, including (with tongue firmly in cheek) several suggestions which were not too far out, considering Hollywood’s habit of using non-singing film stars to replace musical stage stars: "Suzanne Somers with Marni Nixon doing the singing and Marni Nixon with Patti LuPone doing the singing."

Still, for many years the Streisand rumor was the only one generally believed. After the tryout in L.A. opened, Streisand further fueled the rumors when she showed up for a performance of Evita, but she left at intermission because she was so bothered by fans, she was afraid the commotion would ruin the performance. Stigwood says Jon Peters approached him at a party and told him he would guarantee Streisand if he could produce Evita. Stigwood reminded Peters that he was a producer and would produce the movie.

And that was that, but the rumors didn’t stop. After Patti LuPone left the Broadway Evita company in 1981, there were rumors that the box office had fallen off and Streisand would go into the show for a few months. Another newspaper reported the Streisand already owned the film rights to Evita. In fact, everyone on the inside knew she was not even under consideration. There were far bigger problems than who would play the lead.

The first challenge for Stigwood, Rice and Lloyd Webber was to find a director. Hal Prince had just directed the movie version of the Sondheim stage triumph, A Little Night Music, hated it, and said he didn’t want to direct films again. Also, since Hal had simulated so many cinematic devices on stage, he had shot his wad, so to speak, and the film needed a whole new concept or vision. There weren’t many musical directors to choose from in Hollywood, so others were considered.

The first possibility mentioned in the media was Michael Cimino, who was then in post-production on the soon-to-be-infamous Heaven’s Gate. Names tossed into the ring at various times included Herbert Ross (who had just directed a ballet film, The Turning Point), Michael Apted (admired for his musical film Coal Miner’s Daughter) and John Frankenheimer.

The TV Movie

Then everything got even more confusing when an NBC-TV movie, Evita Perón, started shooting in Mexico with Faye Dunaway and James Farentino. A large segment of the press thought this was the Evita movie.

It wasn’t, and it wasn’t even close. This four-hour mini-series aired on February 23 and 24, 1981, and no one was fooled as to why it was made: "One has to conclude that the main reason NBC commissioned Evita Perón is that the hit musical play Evita and its original-cast album have made her a hot show biz subject." The structure of the teleplay is nearly identical to the musical, ending its first two hours in approximately the same place as Evita’s first act. Only the funeral at the beginning is different--it’s for Eva’s father.

All the actors playing men in Eva’s early life were cast quite old in this film, so it wouldn’t look like it was Faye Dunaway’s Eva who was interested in younger sex partners [that was Perón’s bag]. Jose Ferrer plays Agustín Magaldi as a lecherous old man and Michael Constantine is a slimy radio station manager. Unfortunately, the cinematography and lighting do nothing to disguise the fact that Dunaway was nowhere near her teens at the time and, despite Dunaway’s considerable acting talent, she’s never believable as the raunchy, low-class woman Eva was in the beginning. Farentino, as Perón, seems younger than Dunaway--a problem since he was actually 48 when they met, to Eva’s 24. Robert Mitchum was the producers’ first choice, and he would have been more credible. He was disappointed, too. "I’d rather like to have done it...I’m probably the only actor around who could make Faye Dunaway look nineteen."

Most critics noted the stereotypes and clichés. When Perón is arrested just before he seizes power back, Eva ends up on her face in the dirt and clenches her fist into the camera in a pale imitation of Vivien Leigh’s "As God is my witness..." scene in Gone With the Wind. The Christian Science Monitor said, "Dunaway declaims every line as if it were a historic tableau," called the long deathbed scene "obscene," and wondered whether the epilog, noting Eva was the same age as Jesus when she died, was "meant as satire, irony, or electronic canonization."

Oscar winner Rita Moreno plays an actress loosely modeled on Libertad LaMarque, Katy Jurado plays Eva’s mother and Pedro Armendariz plays union leader Cipriano Reyes. The mini-series was shot in Guadalajara, with a budget for extras that was so small the crowd scenes are laughable. That city’s Municipal Palace stood in for the Casa Rosada. Variety said, "As a work of art, Evita Perón is a failure, a slow-moving, cliché-saturated biographical melodrama." Another critic said, "If you think you can save yourself the stiff price of a seat at the Shubert to see the musical Evita by staying home tonight and catching Evita Perón--forget it."

Concurrently, Robert Stigwood was looking for a home for the film, and had been in negotiations for some time with EMI in London. He did sell the film rights, for $7.5 million, but that studio was in the middle of a bitter takeover by Thorn and Evita fell through the cracks.

The RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization) offices were at Paramount, where Stigwood had produced Grease and Saturday Night Fever. So it was logical when, two years after Patti LuPone first brought Eva Perón to Los Angeles, Paramount Pictures announced the film with a full-page ad in Variety. Production was supposed to start before the end of 1981, and the budget was to be under $20 million. Stigwood said a director would be chosen before any stars or writers.

The casting was not the central issue--vision was. Hal Prince's vision for the staged Evita was so perfect, the show is seldom done any other way.

Russell, Russell, Russell

By August, word got out that Stigwood was going after director Ken Russell and a month after that, it was official. Russell was working on a treatment for the film with Rice and Lloyd Webber. Streisand was in Czechoslovakia working on Yentl and David Land tried to dispel all the other rumors and was quoted as saying he and Stigwood would screen test "every woman who has played the lead role on stage and that British stars Elaine Paige and Stephanie Edwards [presumably a mis-print for Stephanie Lawrence, who had taken over in London after Marti Webb] will be tested here within the next two weeks."

Surprisingly, the actress who had the inside track [after Elaine Paige] was Derin Altay, the original alternate in the L. A. national company. Rice liked her, so did Lloyd Webber, and Stigwood made sure she was flown east to test for Russell. Though she (and all the other stage Evas) failed to bowl Russell over, Altay continued to receive special treatment. She was given the lead in New York and she got to do the first new commercial for the show since the original ones with Patti which had been playing all over the country. The campaign was not a success and after a multi-week run, the originals came back.

The studio, however, wanted a more bankable star, but it was a tough role to fill, given the extremely heavy vocal demands. Rice thought it was ridiculous that Elaine wasn’t given the role. "The Hollywood boys wanted an international film star, which I thought was generally narrow thinking, since so many films are hits without names." It could have been made the old way, with a Marni Nixon dubbing the vocals, but when that's all there is to the part, the actress playing the on-screen role would be essentially making a silent movie. The part of Che was not only very attractive to any actor, his vocal work would not suffer as much if reduced to semi-song, like Rex Harrison did in My Fair Lady or Richard Burton and Vanessa Redgrave did in Camelot.

A portent of the future came just one week later, when The Beethoven Secret, Russell’s current film with Anthony Hopkins, Charlotte Rampling, Jodie Foster and Glenda Jackson, was shut down due to lack of funding. Russell threw himself into Evita, and conventional wisdom had it that Elaine Paige was the front-runner. Then, in November, Russell started shooting screen tests at Elstree Studios and he said he’d found himself a star. David Land confirmed that Karla DeVito was "strongly favored for the part." Karla who? She was 28, had just released an album of rock songs and was married to actor Robbie Benson.

There was deafening silence for a couple of months, then Stigwood was in L.A. working on Grease 2 and was reported to be "deciding on a director for the screen version of Evita." Didn’t he already have a director? A month later, Stigwood’s reported problems included: "his firing of director Ken Russell." But evidently, nobody told Russell. In April, Russell insisted that "the movie is still very much on, the script has been completed and the budget is being put together." In June, Russell flew to New York and summoned Elaine Paige, Patti LuPone, Loni Ackerman, Valerie Perri, Derin Altay and Bob Gunton for screen tests. The only person ruled out at this point was Pia Zadora.

But it was Russell who was out. Though Stigwood had found him cooperative when the director filmed Tommy for him, Stigwood hadn’t realized just how much more idiosyncratic Russell had become. First, Russell had insisted on Karla DeVito, a choice certainly from left field. Then he insisted on Liza Minnelli. Stigwood (and Rice and Lloyd Webber) didn’t think she was right. Russell flew her to London and shot an elaborate screen test at enormous cost, but nobody changed their minds.

Then, Russell wrote a screenplay from the treatment he, Rice and Lloyd Webber put together some months before. This was a solo effort, and it was finished and distributed without Stigwood, Rice or Lloyd Webber’s knowledge or consent. And what a screenplay!

There is a brief prologue with the young Eva and her family getting thrown out of her father’s funeral because he had another legal family. The scene’s final line is Eva’s: "When I die, everyone can come," and we segue into the funeral. From there on, the film proceeds pretty much along the lines of the staged version. It is extremely montage-heavy, using a different scene for nearly every verse of every song. We get no closer to Eva, we just get to see her in dozens of costume changes as she flits from one end of Argentina to the other.

Russell’s description of Eva would fit Elaine Paige or possibly Liza Minnelli: "While never completely shaking off her abrasive manner and slightly tarty looks, she nonetheless becomes a sophisticated woman. She is a pocket dynamo, barely five feet tall (the real woman's height is in dispute but was probably around 5'6"), a neat but not full figure, sexily attractive, not conventionally beautiful, but a woman of great style whether doing well or not. She can look sullen, surly and has a dangerous temper with a low flashpoint; but is also capable of irresistible charm when she needs to turn it on."

Russell made the character of Che into a photo-journalist for La Prensa, and for the first three-fourths of the screenplay, his presence is strictly realistic. He is packing up, leaving Buenos Aires during the funeral, which allows him to sing "Oh What A Circus." The verse identifying him as Guevara is still included, though it makes no sense because he never becomes the real man.

Putting the character of Che in the same dimension as Eva has its disadvantages. He obviously can’t be there for the next scene, with Eva and Magaldi in bed. Russell leaves in Che’s acid commentary on Eva’s life but gives all the lines to her brother Juan. This is awkward because he is put in the position of criticizing his sister in song while supporting her in deed.

In a revised version of the screenplay, Russell even had the gall to write new lyrics. Included in the "Good Night and Thank You" montage as Eva becomes a radio star and soap sponsor spokesperson, is the following, sung to the melody of the "There is no one, no one at all" chorus of the song:

Perón and Eva still meet at the charity concert for earthquake victims, but it’s the President who has the speech, not Perón so we don’t see how popular he is. Perón gets to show off his bravery, though, pulling victims from a gas main explosion in the middle of the event. Eva and her brother are there with a mobile broadcasting van [!], and Che takes a photo as Eva and Juan meet for the first time.

After that, the screenplay follows the show’s narrative faithfully, breaking little new ground. Eva’s tears and triumphs are all recorded by Che’s camera. The only addition is after "She’s A Diamond," Russell added a verse for Che (music unspecified):

Then the workers throw the promises from "A New Argentina" back in her face (a different worker sings each line):

Che finishes it for them:

Then Russell takes the script into more surreal territory. First, Eva collapses on the steps of a cathedral and is rushed to a hospital while Che goes back to the newspaper offices. The building is firebombed and he, too, is taken to the hospital. They’re both semi-conscious and see a burning light in the sky, Che realizes someone is giving him water from a gourd and he finds himself cradled in the arms of Evita giving him succor. With a gesture of contempt he dashes the gourd to the ground where the precious water is immediately absorbed into the hot sand.

After the first verse of the "Waltz for Eva and Che": Suddenly they are no longer alone in the desert--giant ruined symbols of past civilizations and religions surround them--a fallen Swastika, a headless Buddha, a battered eagle from Imperial Rome, a rotting cross, a splintered Pharaoh and a rusty hammer and sickle encircle the two protagonists waltzing around, eyes flashing, bodies close but not touching...then the symbols of crumbling hopes and dreams vanish, to be replaced by more familiar concerns--polluting smoke, smashed cars, barbed wire and bleached bones.

Note that Russell has not come up with anything new in the way the scene is to be acted, he’s simply changed the backdrop. The number ends with the arrival of an armored personnel carrier. It whisks Che away, leaving Eva in the dust.

Russell takes us back to the hospital where Eva is dying while Che is recovering and the two pass each other in the wards. As Eva and Juan leave the hospital, there is unrest on the streets, fires and explosions. Juan takes Eva to the seashore and she sits in her wheelchair on the sand watching gunboats and airplanes on military maneuvers. Eva watches with delight because: "An enormous blow-up of her smiling face is being towed across the bay by a powerful motorboat. What a lovely surprise. Why does Perón look so grim? Eva is about to chide him for being so serious when a whole battery of guns suddenly open up. PAM! PAM! PAM! Eva’s portrait is riddled with holes. Then tracers set it afire. She screams, collapses, sobbing."

After this, Russell’s ending follows the show’s in most details.

Things fell apart fast. On July 16, word circulated that Liza was out and Elaine was back in. A week after that, Liza was said to be "relieved" since shooting was just "seven weeks" [!] off and she would have had to learn all that music very, very fast [none of the stage Evas had ever had that much time].

In fact, it was Russell who was out. Rice says he think some of Russell’s more eccentric actions were the result of Russell thinking Elaine Paige was being shoved down his throat because she was Tim’s mistress. The fact that nearly everyone else agreed on Paige didn’t faze Russell.

In September, Stigwood announced that Russell had been fired, and "Elaine Paige, David Essex and Rob Dunton" [they presumably meant the New York company’s Bob Gunton] had been signed for the film, which would start shooting in the spring. Rice reflects: "Russell was an insane choice and would have wrecked the film if he had gotten his hands on it. I was relieved when he got the boot."

A Rudderless Ship

Stigwood got Paramount to agree to casting Elaine in the lead, so he continued his search for a director. In October, he was talking to Herbert Ross (Funny Lady) and Paramount even sent a location scouting team to Mexico. Ross bowed out of contention when he began work on Footloose. Then Elliott Gould announced he and ex-wife Barbra Streisand would star in the film as Juan and Eva Perón. RSO remained silent on that one.

Stigwood asked Sir Richard Attenborough if he was interested, but he was unable to come up with a compelling concept for filming the show. Paramount put the property into turnaround--it was now available for any other studio to buy for Paramount’s costs to date. A copy of the Russell script was circulating for a time with a 20th Century Fox cover on it, which may mean they were considering it.

A magazine said that Franco Zeffirelli was "considering accepting," and that he wanted Diane Keaton. Liz Smith jumped back in the sweepstakes with new cast rumors. She insisted Olivia Newton John and John Travolta were possible because Stigwood had been unable to get financing with no bankable stars. This particular rumor probably was based on the fact that Stigwood was doing some promotional things with them at the time Grease 2 was released. Meryl Streep was first mentioned in April, 1983, and Stigwood supposedly made an offer to Sylvester Stallone to play Che.

The rumor mill and grapevine were quiet for three years, then there was a flurry of activity when Madonna was touted for the part, thanks to her success on the pop charts and with critics and audiences in Desperately Seeking Susan. Paramount’s interest was rekindled and meetings were held. She brought Francis Ford Coppola into the project briefly, and there was talk of Alan J. Pakula directing. However, Madonna asked that the score be rewritten for her and refused to screen test and that was that...for a while. Argentine director Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spiderwoman) sniffed around the property, then bowed out due to prior commitments.

It is interesting to contemplate all the directors who were very interested, only to lose the assignment because of prior commitments. As the property dragged on into its tenth year as a homeless, director-less movie, why didn’t any of these directors come back on board?

Incidentally, a number of Argentine films about Ms. Perón have been announced over the years, including one endorsed by president Carlos Menem with local soap star Andrea del Boca as Eva and one from Macrocolor, Evita: Quien Quiera Oir Que Oiga, which claimed to be "una visión objetiva." Only the latter of these movies is known to have been made.

By 1988, Rice was sure the film would never be made. The show was ten years old, the movie of A Chorus Line was a critical and financial disaster, and the prime candidates were growing too old to play a woman who died when she was 33. The conventional wisdom was that screen musicals were dead [again].

Streep, Madonna and Oliver Stone

Suddenly, music business manager Jerry Weintraub formed a film company and bought the film rights. Oliver Stone was hired to direct and write the screenplay, and he was sent to Argentina to scout locations. According to Stigwood, Stone was the first director of all those consulted who actually had a vision of how to make Evita into a film. The dramatic political changes in Argentina meant that--for the first time since Eva Perón died--the movie could be made there. The sympathetic government offered cooperation and 100,000 extras.

This was important, since Stone envisioned a film along the lines of the grand old musicals: Technicolor, Cinemascope and a cast of thousands. After all, Hal Prince had already told this tale with your imagination filling in the crowds. The only reason to make the movie was to show you the real crowds. Stone met with Madonna, but they didn’t hit it off. Patti LuPone "made one last bid for the part. ‘She would have died to play that part,’ said a spokesman. ‘But Stone said she was too old. But isn’t it ironic: Patti is exactly the same age as Meryl Streep.’"

Meryl Streep swiftly emerged as the contender, even locking herself in a recording studio to turn out a demo to reassure everyone she could really sing. The results were "mind boggling," raved Stigwood. "She has a marvelous voice." This was no surprise to theatregoers, who knew Streep could sing [for that matter, so can Glenn Close]. The only negatives were her age; after all, Eva was only 33 when she died. But Patti, Elaine and nearly everyone else suggested for the part (except Madonna) were well past 33.

The budget was done ($29 million), and an early 1989 start was announced. Meryl was to begin pre-recording the songs in November, and Stigwood announced the picture would be in theatres by Christmas 1990.

Then the economy of Argentina fell apart, the Peronist government was in trouble and there were riots. Location scouts were sent to Brazil, Chile and Spain as alternatives to Argentina. Since Argentina is basically a European-influenced country, Spain was chosen. Madrid was built about the same time as Buenos Aires and the cities resemble each other, but when the budget was worked out, it came to a frightening $35 million. The Weintraub people, who had been thinking more along the lines of $16 million when they bought the rights, were stunned. It was a moot point anyway. Weintraub Entertainment Group had not yet had a hit film and so it didn’t matter if the budget was $16 or $35 million, the company had no production money left.

Stone had a production deal with Carolco Pictures, and they stepped in and tried to salvage the Stone-Streep picture. Streep was working with choreographer Paula Abdul and taking vocal lessons while finishing work on She-Devil and Postcards From the Edge. Everything was ready to go, but then a report came out from the Screen Actors Guild that showed actresses were being paid significantly less than actors, particularly among the top stars. To make the point dramatically, Meryl Streep doubled her salary demands for all subsequent films to be equal with the male stars at her level. This effectively priced her out of Evita. But even so, all parties concerned and agreed to take cuts to ensure Meryl got what she wanted. But suddenly, she dropped out of the film, claiming exhaustion. Then, ten days later, she wanted back in, but by that time, Oliver Stone had laid off his key production people and begun work on The Doors. "If it had all been there, it would have been fun and fantastic," said Stone.

Since Weintraub had never made the final payments for the film rights, they reverted back to Robert Stigwood. Then Madonna took what was essentially a bit part in Disney’s Dick Tracy, sang two Sondheim songs and suddenly, in July 1990, the project was alive again.

Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenburg felt the picture could be brought in for $15 to $18 million, not the $35 million Weintraub and Oliver Stone had envisioned. They had just worked with Madonna, and the hype around Dick Tracy was extremely heavy. Ricardo Mestres would produce for Disney’s Hollywood Pictures.

This time, Madonna was more cooperative and, for over a year, the media contained report after report that the film was set, and so was Madonna. Lloyd Webber did some work with her and he and Rice went to one of her L.A. concerts. They both accepted her in the part, but this time, her dismal track record in films seemed to make her a liability rather than an asset, box office-wise. Would the people who went to the Civic Light Opera productions of Evita all over the country go to see the movie with the star of Truth or Dare and Shanghai Surprise? Then she and Stone had a parting of the ways.

Early in 1991, an internal 28-page studio manifesto by Disney’s Katzenburg had been leaked to the press. This document caused a great stir in the industry, and many believed it was always meant to be leaked, and after being faxed all over town, it was published in its entirety by Variety.

The memo was mainly concerned with the overspending prevalent at the studio and decried the inherent risks associated with big budget, star-driven films. At that time, Disney was in production on Dick Tracy and Newsies, both of which were way over budget. The word on the street was not good on the Warren Beatty film, and the relentless hype and heavy merchandising were starting to backfire. There had also been the very public battles on the Kim Bassinger/Alec Baldwin film, The Marrying Man, with its accompanying budget overruns.

Evita was put under the control of Disney subsidiary Hollywood Pictures. The studio had originally created Touchstone to release its adult fare, but Touchstone’s name had come to have a certain connotation and another releasing identity was the solution. In addition, this separated two Disney production chiefs, David Hoberman and Ricardo Mestres, who had been clashing over creative decisions. Mestres was in charge of Hollywood Pictures, and Evita landed in his lap. Despite Disney’s excess of cash, the first couple of pictures released under Mestres’ banner had been a disappointment, critically and financially. That, plus the industry-wide discussion of the Katzenburg memo really made it impossible for anyone at that studio to publicly endorse a big-budget movie.

Glenn Gordon Caron (Remington Steele, Moonlighting) had been signed on as director. As he, Stigwood and Madonna started planning the film, they realized the original $18 million would not make the kind of picture they wanted. The Katzenburg memo hung heavily over Evita project. In his memo, Katzenburg vowed the studio would not get involved in movies costing more than $20 million each. This film, which everyone agreed needed to be made on a large scale, had originally been budgeted at $25 million at Paramount in 1980. Even that much money would have bought much less in 1991.

Stigwood and Caron approached Disney management and said they could not make the film for less than $30 million. Disney clung fast to its latest offer: $25.7 million. Neither group would budge and Hollywood Pictures put the film into a strange sort of turnaround. Stigwood could take the movie to any other studio, provided they agreed to make it with Madonna and Caron. If he did not find a taker in three months, or if Madonna or Caron dropped out, the rights reverted back to Hollywood Pictures.

Despite trade predictions that other studios--including Paramount--would snatch up the picture, the 90 days came and went and Evita reverted to Hollywood Pictures in August, 1991. Part of the problem was that Japanese movie financing had suddenly dried up and Paramount was simply unable to raise the money for the film. The budget had also risen to $35 million. After several years of heavy capital outlay in the industry by Japanese mega-corporations, the worsening Japanese stock market and a world-wide economic slowdown cut off the pipeline.

Mestres announced the studio was still anxious to make Evita, but would scale it down. It was unclear whether Madonna would still be attached. She had made Dick Tracy for scale. It was very unlikely she would do the same with Evita.

After the endless announcements and pronouncements about the film of Evita, there was no more reason to believe the press items in 1993 than any of the others during the last dozen years. Madonna took her concert tour to Buenos Aires in November and finished with "Don’t Cry For Me, Angentina." The tumultuous reception encouraged her to pursue her dream of playing Eva. Oliver Stone was back in the picture too by then, and a large infusion of cash came from two new entities, Andy Vajna’s Cinergi Productions and Arnon Milchan’s New Regency, who pumped the budget up to $40 million. But Stone was going to do another movie first, Noriega, starring Al Pacino.

All the usual suspects’ names were bandied about in casting rumors, Streep, Streisand, Madonna, Midler, Elaine Paige, Patti LuPone, Mariah Carey and Gloria Estefan.

By May of the following year, Noriega was scrapped due to its escalating $40 million budget and the lack of success by Pacino’s last film, the similarly dark and brooding Carlito’s Way. Stone also cited the difficulty of telling Noriega’s complex story in two hours. As he turned back to Evita, Michelle Pfeiffer’s name floated to the top of the short list, along with Antonio Banderas as Che and Julio Iglesias or Raul Julia for Perón. But Pfeiffer was booked for other projects first, as well as being pregnant. Again, it would be a year before anything could begin.

Stone had made a number of trips to Buenos Aires and even had gotten permission from president Carlos Menem to film in the Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada in addition to the use of 100,000 members of the military for the crowd scenes. But Menem changed his mind within a week, calling Evita "total infamy." The budget by now had risen to $60 million and Stone abandoned the film in July.

The seeming impossibility of getting this movie started prompted Newsweek to publish a two-page spread of the musical’s torturous road to celluloid on August 1, 1994, calling it "the most famous movie never made."

Alan Parker Pulls it Off

In September, 1994, British director Alan Parker became interested in taking the helm of the movie. Parker was one of the better choices, having made critically-acclaimed films (Midnight Express, Birdy, Mississippi Burning), offbeat or risky films (Pink Floyd--The Wall, Shooting the Moon, Angel Heart) and, heaven help us, not one musical film but two (Fame, The Committments). He’d also done shorts, documentaries, commercials, TV and written children’s books and a memoir.

Of all the names bandied about over the years, most of those actresses were now much, much to old to play Eva from 15 to 33. Even Madonna had reached her mid-thirties. She also was the one who seemed to want it enough to keep herself in the game, year after year. And she got it.

She’d often lost out in the past presumably because most other scripts, including Russell’s, Stone’s, et al., had added scenes and dialogue and that’s never been Madonna’s strength. The vocal demands of the role had felled many Evita leading ladies, even those who claimed to have leather lungs, but she wouldn’t have to sing it all in one night and she spent months even before getting the part in intensive vocal training.

But the big difference this time, was the script--it added no dialogue, no scenes. It was the musical show, opened up, with only minor changes. Antonio Banderas played a slightly modified Che. A new song "You Must Love Me" was added for Madonna (and the Oscars), and she also staked her claim on "Another Suitcase in Another Hall," though it made no sense for the character of Eva. One song, "The Lady's Got Potential," was resurrected from the Concept Album, with new lyrics.

After waffling for months, Argentine president Menem agreed to let the crew shoot in the Plaza de Mayo and on the balcony of the Casa Rosada. He didn't provide 100,000 extras, but the crowd scenes don't look too sparse. But it was his insistance on changing the character of Juan Perón (played by Jonathan Pryce) that did the most harm to the film. Back in 1979, Bob Gunton said that portraying him as sympathetic and supportive when Eva was dying is too conventional and not interesting. He noted that these people were different from you and me and that's what makes drama. But the film turns sappy at the end, with Juan crying beside her bed. In Menem's Argentina, the truth wouldn't have gone down so well.

Disney rigidly controlled the publicity on the picture from day one, and Madonna, Parker and company came off professionally, won concessions from the government that seemed impossible and generally looked good, while staying in the news.

Visually, the film is stunning. Parker faithfully recreated the funeral and 1943 coup, which made those old black and white documentaries suddenly spring to life. Madonna is excellent - for Madonna. But she never ignites the role the way many actresses did in the theatre. And the final third of the movie does what Tim and Andrew were always accused of doing: it glorifies the dictator and his wife. It takes another viewing of the show to realize how hard the original really is on them.

Did this movie will spark the same kind of passionate reactions the show did? No.

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Text ©1996, 2001 by Sylvia Stoddard