Quick Facts
Biography
Agustín Magaldi (December 1, 1898 – September 8, 1938) was a tango and milonga singer. His nickname was "the sentimental voice of Buenos Aires." Magaldi took part in the opening broadcasts of Argentina's LOY Radio Nacional in July 1924.
Magaldi suffered from liver disease and was admitted to Sanatorium Otamendi early in September 1938. An operation by Dr. Pedro Valdez was successful, but the patient died 48 hours later. He was buried in the Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
Depiction of Magaldi's connection to Eva Perón
Agustín Magaldi is portrayed in the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice Broadway musical Evita. In the musical Magaldi is depicted as bringing Eva to Buenos Aires and is therefore referred to as "the first man to be of use to Eva Duarte".
There is some disagreement, however, about the role Magaldi played in Eva's life. For example, in the biography Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón biographers Marysa Navarro and Nicholas Fraser write that there are no records of Magaldi performing in Eva's hometown of Junín in the year that Eva is said to have met Magaldi.
"Most accounts of Evita's life say that she fell in love with the spotlight image of Magaldi or that she decided to seduce him and use him; but that, in either event, she was introduced to him, asked him to take her to Buenos Aires, and when he wavered, forced her way into his train compartment and rode with him to the city, thus leaving her family and becoming a married man's mistress. Yet there is no record of the tango singer's having come to Junín that year. Magaldi, a mild man who was devoted to his mother, used to bring his wife on tour, and it is hard to understand what he would have seen in small, skinny Eva María. If he did help her leave Junín, it is likely that his assistance was of the most innocuous kind. Evita's sister insists that doña Juana, prodded by don Pepe, accompanied Evita to the city. According to her account, mother and daughter kept visiting the radio stations until they found a programme for which a young girl was needed."
A major point that detracts from the credibility of the version of the story as presented in Evita is that in the stage (and film) versions, Magaldi is depicted as performing at a charity concert given in aid of the victims of an earthquake in San Juan, Argentina. The earthquake occurred on 15 January 1944, and the concert occurred on 22 January, where Eva almost certainly met Peron. However, Magaldi could not have performed there since he had died of peritonitis in Buenos Aires more than five years before.