Evita, Gardel Still Big in Buenos Aires

B U E N O S  A I R E S, Argentina, Nov. 25 -- A fresh, red carnation adorns thestone lapel of Carlos Gardel's life-size statue in the Chacaritascemetery, and a real cigarette dangles from his marble fingers.

Hand in pocket, his knee jauntily bent, wide grin upon his face,the man who helped make the tango famous looks almost alive, andcertainly as debonair as he was in life.

Elsewhere in Buenos Aires stands a monument to Evita Peron, aradio actress who became the most important woman in Argentinepolitical history — so famous that her name is synonymous withcultlike political power.

Gardel died in a plane crash in 1935; Peron died from cancer in1952. Yet decades later, their memories still permeate thisvibrant, hectic city of 3 million. Gardel and Evita have their ownmonuments, museums and eponymous streets. And now the twopersonalities are helping to fuel a tourism boom in a city thatbecame a bargain for visitors following the country's 2001 economiccollapse.

The Argentine peso lost two-thirds of its value in 2002. Thoughbad for Argentines, that drop has been good for tourists, who cannow find delectable $3 steaks and bargain hotel rooms in what wasonce the most expensive city in South America.

The Quintessential Argentine Male

Tourists looking for Gardel and Peron won't be disappointed.Gardel's Humphrey Bogart-like face peers out from café windows,music shops and even drugstores. A baritone, he performed his tangosongs and portrayed a fun-loving sophisticate in a dozen movies.Though most of the movies were made for Paramount Pictures, all butone were filmed in Spanish.

Gardel could not read music; assistants wrote the scores to thesongs he composed. Yet he was considered a genius, and many of hissongs remain classics 70 years later. His mythic status grew fromhis talent, charisma and tragic death at the peak of his career,said Ignacio Varchausky, creative director of the government-fundedTango Orchestra School.