Evita and her family gained respect from their town only because of her father's notable position in Los Toldos. None of the townspeople ever took the fact that Duarte left his wife and kids to be with his "other" family, and even if they did, having a mistress was as common as having a dog during that era, so the townspeople would have thought nothing of it. Her mother was always thought to be a whore and yet her father was still a respected citizen, when in reality it was the other way around. .
As Eva got older, she became a renowned actress, only to still be the center of all gossip. When she was at the height of her success, the rich still despised her because they were extremely jealous of her many accomplishments. They felt that Eva did not deserve the credit she was getting because she was not originally "one of them", and now people were treating her as though she was an oligarch. It was also around this time that the wide spread rumor of Eva being a prostitute began to unfold. "The predatory prostitute was, of course taken to be lower-class. This set of assumptions was readily applied to Evita, the more so because it seemed to validate the contempt and fear Peron inspired, particularly among the Argentine wealthy" (Fraser Navarro 46). Eva, nonetheless, took herself from being a disgrace to her entire town to being an unforgettable political figure to all of Argentina. When Peron married her, the rich did not think she was "right" for him because she was not an oligarch. The people who detested Eva could never get past her ethnicity or childhood background. The members of the oligarchy were so used to being in the limelight that felt that no one else deserved to be at their level. But Eva proved them all wrong and stole their limelight right out from underneath them without giving them the chance to appeal. By the time they realized what was going on it was too late, Eva was already a worldwide icon.
