Eva Perón: Another shoe drops

This post is written to accomplish three objectives.

1. I needed to satisfy myself that the actor known as “Eva Perón” was indeed one person, and not a composite. I went looking for twins and body doubles.
2. I needed to understand who the second “mother” was in the Ciccone family photographs. It took a second set of eyes, those of Richard once more, to solve that mystery.
3. I need to put this project to bed and get on with my life. Here’s hoping.

As to the use of names like “Eva Perón, “Silvio Ciccone,” “Madonna Fortin,” and of course, the singer known as “Madonna,” we have no idea who they are or what their real names are. I use those labels for convenience, nothing more. All the world’s a stage.

So off we go once more. You might be surprised, no, shocked, at Richard’s discovery.

First, the two-mother problem. In the 3-child photo we see one Madonna Fortin, and in the 5-child photo, another. Here they are for comparison.

 

 

Here is an overlay, the one on the right on top with opacity set so that we can see through her to the one on the left. I lined the eyes up and set them at common distance. If these are the same woman, that should work. Otherwise, it’s an unknown. I must say, however, that they eyes are very much alike, even as I cannot know real pupil distance.

The red arrows point to the longer face of the one on the left, and the green two mouths that do not line up. These are two different women, yet in the official “Ciccone” family photos, we are told they are the same woman. Fraud!

A few nights ago I was given a new photo, the 6-child one, for review.

Here again we see not just Silvio, but the exact same photo of Silvio as seen in the 3 and 5-child photos. See below.

We now know that photo exists somewhere in color and decent resolution, as it has been used now in three instances to construct the fake family photos of the Ciccone’s. The one on the left is of such poor quality because it is a photo of a photo that rests on a table.

The 6-child family photo is again a complete forgery. Both Madonna Fortin, Silvio, and the three boys in the foreground have been pasted in. It is of far greater interest to know whose faces were in the original photo, but that information is kept secret.  I can say, with relative certainty, that the Madonna Fortin in the photo above is the one from the 5-child photo, seen to the left here. Facial shape suggests that, as does the limited number of mothers used in these photos, two. She is definitely not the other mother, the short-faced one.

You might ask why they used such a crappy photo of her for this photo. I can only suggest that perhaps they had a limited quantity to work with in color. Why are the eyes closed?  It appears that this photo was taken from above looking down at her as she is in repose. Could it be that this is a remnant, one of the photos intended to be used of Evita after her fake death in 1952? She does look younger. Evita was a blond in public but had dark hair. This hair looks more like a shadow effect.

Here’s an odd photo. That is, again, “Madonna Fortin Ciccone,” this time in sepia. Those fingers on the wall on the left and  behind her, her weird positioning on the chair, the ghosting of the image (look at her left arm) all have an explanation. I do not know what it is. It looks like a crude composite, a photograph of images projected on a screen. [Of course! It is hanging on a wall and behind glass. (Hence the reflections.]

 

 

Finally, we have two more images. On the left is one taken from the Ciccone family collection. It is obviously cropped from another photo we are not allowed to see, so that what is not seen is far more valuable information than what is. On the right: Madonna, the pop signer, did a 2010 tribute video to her mother, supposedly 48 years after her death in 1952. In it is perhaps a two second clip of a home movie, and I grabbed this image from that. So we know a home movie exists that we are not allowed to see. Again, the information kept out of view in that movie would shed some light.

Silvio Ciccone worked in the auto industry as an engineer, we are told. This was the late 50s and early 60s. Most families of that era had cameras, and we know from the tribute video that the Ciccone’s had a movie camera. Obviously the family was not poor, but they did not seem to have a store of photos as most families of that era do, even my own.

Admittedly, that’s a small sample from which to draw large conclusions, but please refer back to this post about the necessity of considering all the evidence beyond photos.

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I am going back now to Argentina and Eva Perón, as I found a large body of photos at Getty Images. My first line of inquiry is this: How many Eva’s were there?

Fortunately, there are many profile shots of Eva from both the right and left side. Here are but a few, including one said to be taken of her corpse in repose. Relax. She is alive.

 

 

Notice we see both the rounded and pointed nose there, which has troubled me as well as commenters. In the past I have done fast-moving gif’s of facial overlays with lots of intermediate steps. Here I am going to do but a few steps and hold shots longer, hoping it is more demonstrative of the result.

I am using right-profile horizontal shots here.

 

 

That’s about as close as we can ever hope to get, and note that pointed and round are simply different views of the same nose, unless this is a set of twins. (I reject that idea, by the way.)

Below are two left-profile photos of (the living) Evita.

 

 

One the left I did the overlay but then backed it off so you could see the images side-by-side with angles aligned. These photos are, in my view, the same woman.

Want some full frontal? It is here we see the Jekyll and Hyde nature of this woman.

 

 

These photos, all of them, line up with Madonna Peron, seen to the left again for comparison. I know how that strikes readers, as it strikes me the same way. It reminded me of the following film clip, thrown in here just for laughs. Skipping it is no big deal. It’s from the Seinfeld episode “Two Face Girlfriend.”

Eva Peron was a two-face, it seems. Here are a couple of overlays, just to make the point.

 

 

They do not look at all alike, but the face line up with great precision.

Here’s another, a prettier, more demure Eva, same result.

 

 

Keep in mind while this is a mechanical process, it takes some intuition too. Slight differences in facial angles can cause some distortion. But this same process works with every frontal photo of Evita matched with Madonna Fortin. Eva Perón was either pretty or pretty homely, depending on light, camera angle, and facial expression.

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I am going to move forward with the new information here. If that is all I had to say, I would not bother with this post. Eva was not a set of twins, and Madonna Fortin Ciccone was Eva Perón. But this story gets weirder by the minute.

María Estela Martínez Cartas was a professional dancer in Panama when Juan Perón, president-in-exile of Argentina, met her. Though 35 years her senior,  he married her. When he was restored to power in 1973, he made her his Vice President. He died in 1974, and Maria Estela, better known as Isabel Perón, became president. She lasted in power for 21 months before being removed by military junta. That is what we are given on the public stage.

Those of you who have been with me from the beginning will know that this is Richard at work again. We were stumped by the 3-child mother seen in the photo below.

This is a picture of a picture laying flat on a table. This is not the same woman as seen in the five and six-child photos. Based on one image, again, a large conclusion, but what coincidence! That has to factor in as well, the incredible odds of finding the matchup to follow in such a small cast of actors.

Since Isabel Perón came to power much later, in fact two decades after Evita, I had set her aside. Richard did not, and suggested I compare her with the 3-child mother. Again, I was floored, and yet, the circle was completed.

 

 

There are not too many photos of Isabel available, as she was not in power that long. I found only two for frontal comparison, but they are both dead ringers. Remember, photos of Isabel are taken 13 years or more after those of 3-child mother.

 

 

So it appears that the power structure in Argentina, while hidden away just like here in the U.S., draws on a line of individuals from certain families for its visible leaders. Eva and Isabel Perón were both said to be rags-to-riches, both married Juan Perón, both ended up in high circles of power, and both ended up on a couch in fake photos of the Ciccone family. That is significant.

What is their connection? I would guess due to close resemblance, they are sisters, perhaps ten years apart, but they could be cousins. And they come from powerful families, or one family.

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So then, what is up with the Ciccone family photos? Why are they forgeries, and such a mishmash to boot? Why do we not have any real photos of them?

One thing for sure is that Joan Gustafson Ciccone is not 3-child mother in the photos. I merely guessed at that comparison in an earlier post due to the age difference. Isabel Perón, now 87 years old, lives in Spain. Argentina attempted extradite her in 2006 in the matter of disappearances during her term of office, but Spain protected her. That sounds hokey, that is, Argentina had no real intent of investigating any crimes but needed to mollify certain elements of its population, so that whole thing was a stage production. But the point is, Isabel Perón, now 87, lives in Spain.

Silvio Ciccone might be an invented name matched to a random face, as only one photo of him was used in the fake photos. Is he the same man who today goes by that name, as seen to the right? It seems so, but given the age difference and facial expressions, the closed eyes and missing eyebrows, I cannot say. And if these are the same man, why not more than one photo of him when younger? He is said to be of Italian descent. Nice twist, mixing up the olives.

Who are the kids? There are eight of them total. Six are said to be Madonna Fortin’s by Silvio, and two more by Silvio and Joan. But Isabel sits with three of them.

I can only guess – the kids are all cousins, brats, orphans, siblings of smaller families. They were never all in the same place at the same time, as the five and six-child “family” photographs are paste-ups. It’s a modern family of mixed parentage, and a noble family with false names and biographies and fake photos and parentage. Madonna, the singer, just like “Eva Perón,” is a real person with a fake name and background, probably descended from Argentine or Spanish royalty. And that is why she rose to fame. Sure, growing up wealthy, she had time for voice and dance and acting training. But none of it took. It was lineage alone that brought her to fame. That’s an old story.

Finally, we know that Silvio and Madonna Fortin’s photo have been pasted over the heads of other people. The question is – who are those other people? I don’t know. Maybe an interested commenter will fill me in.

Richard is still working on this project, and if there is more to report, he will do the writing as a guest here. I look forward to the results.