The story begins in a dusty village lost in the Argentine pampas, where a girl, born out of wedlock, scrambles her way to the capital city by the time she is fifteen. It ends with the embalmed corpse of Eva Per├Án being hidden away by nervous politicians for fear that if the working people of Argentina knew where it was buried, it would inspire them to revolution.

In between, she became first the actress Eva Duarte, then the mistress of colonel Per├Án, before becoming in October 1945--after the 'shirtless ones' had swept Per├Án into office--the president's wife. In the colorful, tumultuous setting of postwar Argentina, she wielded a power, spiritual and practical, that has few parallels outside of hereditary monarchy. She was literally idolized by millions but was hated and feared by many as well once she became Evita, the legend.