any were the women that left an indelible track in Carlos Gardel's lifetime; however none was able to light the flame of a stirred up passion.

César Tiempo ("Así quería Gardel". Bs. As. 1955) wrote about this: "He never had passions –that what is known as passion- with women of the show business. It was neither because he scorned them, nor because he regarded himself as an exceptional being in the milieu, but because he aspired to keep wide apart heartwood from sapwood, not to allow being cheated by a feeling that brought in disguise a hidden intention of climbing and to be launched taking advantage of his prestige”.

With no literary meticulousness or maybe without the due discretion, Roberto Maida (Revista Así, Bs. As. 1965) coincided with Tiempo's statements: "a girlfriend, a lover or simply a woman that permanently accompanied him was never known, and whoever says something different must be kind of lying".

However the presence of Isabel del Valle -with whom Gardel had a curious and long relationship- is known by everybody. When they met for the first time she scarcely was fourteen years old.

It was back in 1921. "Carlos was 20 years older but I already had the body of a woman. By the way, who cares about a difference of 20 years? I confess that I never cared about those details. I crazily fell in love with Carlos... And I know that he loved me too, that I was the only love of his life even though people thought he had a lot of love affairs".

This is not Francisco García Jiménez's opinion ("Tiempo de Gardel". Corregidor, 1987) for whom "his dear women were his songs". Once Isabel del Valle objected with similar reasoning: "Carlos was only married to singing".

What would Gardel think? A sign of an answer we can find on the June 18, 1935 issue of El Nacional of Bogotá. Six days before the tragedy, this was the dialogue he held with a chronicler:

«Who was your first love?
«-I have loved many times in my life and I keep of that very pleasant memories, because in all my love affairs I have been happy. In all them I have loved in a different way according to the girl's temper, the circumstances and the environment. However, every time I fall in love I think this is the time when I have really loved.

«-Which is the kind of woman that you prefer?
«-I prefer Latin women, undoubtedly, because they are of my same race and consequently they better understand my nature, but I like all the attractive and intelligent women.

«-Are you for divorce?
«-Due to my career I am not fond of marriage.»

César Ratti –a renowned actor of the national theater whom Gardel, when teen-ager, used to visit at his dressing room- has a confirmatory opinion. During an interview that appeared on the Sintonía magazine signed by Silvestre Otazú, Ratti stated that Gardel «was not a man of love affairs. He was rather bothered by women. He was too much of a man to waste his male energy in adventures that he was able to have as many as he wanted. He liked the company of men. Among us he felt at ease. And it was among men, for certain, where he spent the most intimately happy hours of his life. Somewhere it has been rumored a story about Gardel´s loving incapacity. It's false. The women unable to conquer him as a Don Juan is conquered were those who widespread the story». And he immediately added that Gardel «is an anti-Don Juan. That is to say the antithesis of the mythical hero to whom his loving incapacity and his sentimental and passionate circumstance, build in him a carnal whim of feminine kind. He's not a man of love affairs. In love he has caution, a bashfulness of deep masculinity... but when there were women, he played by himself».

His prolonged relationship with Isabel del Valle maybe is an evidence of that caution. Gardel never made public this romance and only a few close friends knew about it.

However today, under the light of the research made and the known documents, this relationship does not seem to have the romantic-sentimental features that many authors have seen. On the contrary, there are more than enough presumptions so as to assume that Gardel was forced to the formal appearance of this engagement by reasons quite different from love.

One year before that interview in Bogota, Gardel wrote to Defino: «Affair Isabel: I have already told you that for me this is a finished business, definitively finished and so you have to consider it. I sent her a splitting letter that I hope will be the last. If they want to keep me as a friend it's all right, otherwise I cut her breathing by not sending anything any more. So you have to tell her, especially to her family. I tell you once more that I want that you consider this matter absolutely finished and that you explain my way of thinking to this people. Don't let them think that I have a contract with them for all my lifetime. If they keep on bothering me they shall get neither bread nor half a loaf, they've better choose». And at the postscript of this letter dated on April 23, 1934, he added: "See Francisco (Maschio) for persuading the overbearing Isabel to leave me alone, that I have done enough and I'm still doing by giving her a house and by supporting her, of course until she is settled, I don't want to play the fool." (Revista Tanguera, Bs. As. 1965).

In less than a month –on June 19-, he writes to Defino again to tell him how difficult is shooting honorable movies without elements in New York, but he slipped out a new paragraph very eloquent of his worry for the "Affair Isabel": «I haven't got a letter from Doña Braulia yet, I'm waiting to see what happens. My decision of finishing is firm and I don't want you to have any kind of coddling with that people. See if it is convenient for us to come to an agreement about the house soon to free ourselves of this nuisance forever...».

The breaking up of his relationship with Isabel del Valle was one of the most conflicting issues in Gardel's late years. Already in 1927, from Barcelona, he asked Razzano to discourage that engagement, among other things because «I'll soon be 40 years old and furthermore I still feel like wandering around».

Five years later in a letter with no date written in Barcelona on paper with heading of the Regina Hotel(5), he wrote to Razzano: «Look José, by now tell Manuel that I don´t want him to go to my place any more... please ask Glusmann, on my behalf, that he may find some work for him as usher at some cinema so as not to leave him unemployed and I'll help the family, I mean Isabel, until they find something and if she wants to work or needs any recommendation for a job, with so many connections that we have, try to do it, you do that little by little and especially persuading her mother or her sister, because if these bitches try to do a dirty trick to my mother then my good will shall be ended and I´ll do something awful. OK, old pal, settle this issue as better as you can.»

The letter goes on mentioning other subjects, but ends with a firm insistence: «Please especially take care of the Isabel affair».

In spite of the threats and the brusque remarks made by Gardel, the break up was impossible. On October 16, 1934, in a very long letter to Defino, he evidenced the same deep worry: «Affair Isabel. I received four lines with love complaints and other foolish things. But my decision is unbreakable. Let her know that my intention is to stay away from Argentina many years (that is for her) and that she has to give up any hope about me... All that you know remains, all monthly financial helps are over and under no circumstance must you pay her a cent any more. As for the house, we shall be paying it little by little so that it won't be so hard for us in order not to lose what we have already paid and to return courtesies for base actions. And nothing else. Do me a favor, try to gradually keep yourself apart from this people and don't listen to commentaries or pleas... I am prepared to not doing foolish things again. That of Isabel and Co. shall be the last one. Let's clean the slate and forget about it. Try to personally pay the installments and don't let them pay until we are able to pay all in cash so that we won't have anything to do with all that people any more. Please avoid her brother, if you can find something for him, is better, if not, that he manages by himself, like everybody. It is necessary that we stay away from all that family...» (Revista Tanguera).

Many authors have thought that between lines an extortion by del Valle's family was hinted. Cristino Tapia –guitar player, composer and singer from Córdoba, a man with a close friendship with Gardel- holds this opinion. In an interview made by "Así" magazine in 1971, he said he knew Isabel's brothers were urging Gardel to marry her. Let us remember that the relationship began when she was a minor and that, eventually, Gardel could have commited some of the assumptions covered by article 119 and those following in the Penal Code.

Tapia holds that the wedding was celebrated privately at an apartment located on Corrientes and Callao streets, that he was witness of the ceremony together with Mariano Alcalde, who by that time was Gardel's butler. And he added that the del Valle brothers got a considerable sum of money that helped them to put up a butcher's shop at the Mercado Central.

I personally do not believe in the legal formalization of that union that, having taken place, would have made Isabel the universal heir of all Gardel's estate. However there is no demand or injunction filed by her in the proceedings for settling the estate.

Instead I realize that there are many reasons to hold the del Valle family lived at the expense of Gardel for many years. The not understandable thing is that the latter never faced the issue of a breaking-up personally and with decision. On the contrary, he always made negotiations through third parties and when he was abroad. In like manner he behaved at the time of splitting with Razzano.

This lack of courage is repeated on many other circumstances of his life. Maida has always insisted that Gardel «was a man with a very withdrawn nature, almost shy, that was very lonely». Terig Tucci gave us a similar image ("Gardel en Nueva York". 1967) but categorically holding that «our artist was a male in all its meaning».

nother of the women sentimentally linked with Gardel was Mona Maris. It cannot be held conclusively that some romance had existed between them. The little we know comes from sayings of the actress herself made many years after Medellín and never in an explicit way.

In 1990, Pedro Urquiza made this interview be known at a special publication titled “Ser Gardel”.

«What was the Gardel you knew at that time like?

«-A charming being and a very good looking fellow. He had achieved a great intellectual maturity and refinement in his habits... I was very attracted by his personality and I think he was impressed by mine. We had something in common: we were both born as a consequence of love.

«-Some historians even had doubts of his masculinity.
«Not at all. He was very respectful of women, not aggressive in the field of love, in spite of the fact that all the women were after him. Gardel was quite a man, I knew him enough so as to hold it.»

This ambiguity has a precedent. In 1939 being asked by the newspaper El Sol, Mona Maris said:« -We were very close friends, Carlos Gardel and I, but I owe him something greater than friendship... Carlos was essentially masculine, his virile attraction made him pleasant to the men in the north. Women were crazy for him and they even smothered him with their admiration.»

Isabel del Valle complained some time: «Mona Maris tired me with her statements considering herself Carlos´s love. She had been nothing else but an adventure... she had offered herself to him and Carlos was too much of a man and furthermore he was no fool. She had tempted him and Carlos had used her like any other man would have done.»

About the alleged lack of masculinity in Gardel many versions were conceived. One of them, whose author is Maida, tells us that his quarrel with Aguilar sprang up because «a girl was hovering around Carlos at the hotel where the latter was stopping in Spain. He seemed not to be willing to start a relationship with her and Aguilar told her that he was an effeminate guy, Carlos learnt about it and he kicked him out of the hotel...». Recently Virgilio Expósito, at an unhappy interview, updated these fibs.

But any shadow of a doubt about it is rubbed out by the many testimonies of his old spree partners. Irineo Leguisamo (op. cit.) tells us that he and Gardel used to visit La Ritana's place, owner of a dance hall where «uninterrupted dancing and heavy drinking was the rule... Fondled by women, Carlos Gardel gave out smiles and jokes of which he was much fond of».

«This woman that was called La Ritana or Madame Jeanne or Jeannete participated in important events during the singer's lifetime and was, for sure one of his most conflicting love affairs. Gardel met her for the first time on December 28, 1913. It was on that same evening that a man known as Pancho Teruel reunited Gardel and Razzano to sing before a group of socially and politically important people at the Perú café on Avenida de Mayo. The evening rendezvous continued at an elegant brothel, run by that woman whose true name would be Giovanna Ritana, placed on Viamonte street between Maipú and Esmeralda streets... it is quite likely that that sentimental relationship almost resulted in Gardel's death, when he was shot in December 1915, by assassins hired by her husband himself named Juan Garesio, as it was said» (Payssé González, op cit.), José Gobello mentions him as Amadeo Garesio.

Zinelli and Macaggi bring other data confirming that La Ritana was Garesio's woman, owner of the Chantecler on 440 Paraná street. «Precisely –so they say- it is with Garesio that appears the third party of a classic love triangle that would give rise to a violent conflict». According to those authors this was the true reason of that attempt on Gardel's life that took place in December 1915, the latter had to hire Juan Ruggiero, aka Ruggierito to «dissuade» Garesio from making new aggressions.

The presence of La Ritana in Gardel's life is confirmed by Isabel del Valle herself:

«-Were you ever jealous when thinking of some adventure?
«-Answering your question I'm going to tell you about the case of a woman that, as far as I know, had a relationship with Carlos. Her name was Ritana or so she was called. She run a boarding house downtown, so I decided to see her to verify what was true. The so-called Ritana was French and his mixed-up Spanish evidenced it. She admitted she was Carlos´s lover, but nothing else but an adventure.»

Gardel had met Isabel del Valle no sooner than the late 1920, so we can guess that his relationship with La Ritana, started around 1913, probably was the longest in his whole lifetime.

At the time of Gardel's death there was only one dissonant voice in the middle of all the eulogies. It was that of Monsignor Gustavo J. Franceschi (Section Commentaries of the magazine Criterios Nº 382, 27 June 1935)), Buenos Aires archbishop, who published a long article condemning so much public recognition, because of his pleasure-seeking and unsettled life.

Coincidentally many years later Blas Matamoro tried to outline the image of Gardel as a pimp: «An artist of the underworld environment and occasional or permanent petty thief, some had imagined Gardel close to pimping circles. His aspect of neat concern, the attention he paid in sprucing up and combing his hair, make us remember the image of the Buenos Aires classic pimp at the turn of the century, so detailed and tedious to dress in style as to spruce up»… The description is not so far from that José Sebastián Tallón makes of El Cívico in his important essay “El tango en su etapa de música prohibida” (Tango at its stage of banned music), even though Matamoro unjustly intends to discredit Gardel´s figure linking it to this sad occupation.

A similar intention I see in Olga Orozco (La Nación, June 23, 1985) who calls him «well-paid» Carlitos, in reference to his relationship with the baroness Sally Wakefield. «She was who made possible Gardel´s change of situation, financed his early films in France and later made arrangements for his trip to the United States».

Certainly it was a somewhat equivocal relationship. Gardel was acquainted with the couple George Wakefield and Sadie Baron, who had an enormous fortune. Some stories say that she was strongly attracted by Gardel and that he solicitously served her in exchange of her generous financial aid.

Manuel Sofovich described her as «a great English lady who owned the Craven A.cigarettes company. She admired the singer and protected him in every sense. It was she who invited him to visit her in Paris and knowing he was not rich she paid all the expenses for him and his accompanists. Carlitos had many debts and Madame Bacfleld (sic) with selflessness and patronage love helped him to pay them ... ».

Perhaps that selflessness was not such, since it allowed her to appear in the Paris of the 30s with a young good looking man, that certainly put up with her company for personal convenience.

Chas de Cruz recalls that when Gardel arrived with the baroness, «a woman whose width overwhelmed her stature, with finger rings that inflated her already chubby fingers, surviving in gold, platinum and precious stones», he used to say by way of introduction: «Boys... here's the scarecrow». This evidences that no sentimental link could be seen in this relationship, even though every afternoon, at a precise hour, Gardel solicitously looked after the baroness.

Payssé González instead presents a much more credible theory connected with their mutual commercial interest, because the couple Wakefield-Baron integrated capital in the partnership Exito's Spanish Picture” in which Gardel was director, in that way having access to the growing movie business.

Gardel never publicly admitted any love affair, although one time he told Vicente Padula: «I never fell in love. All women are worthwhile to fall in love with, but to have a blind adherence to one is an offence to the others». Maybe for that reason all the names associated with his love life (Azucena Maizani, Trini Ramos, Rosita Moreno, Gloria Guzmán) were no other thing but passing fancies.

Imperio Argentina, instead, seems to have been one of the few women not conquered by Gardel «I worked very pleased with him. On one side he was a person quite simple and, on the other side, he was completely selfish... He was very handsome... easily infatuated and he tried to flirt with me, but I liked a different kind of man».

Terig Tucci (op. cit. page 59) says: «seated around a round table, in his apartment of Beaux Arts, Gardel and we, his collaborators, suggested and discussed about new material for the movies. Le Pera was looking after something more meaningful for Gardel. Maybe something referred to his own life, some sort of autobiography. We began to search into Carlos Gardel's life and we found it surprisingly lacking in any romantic interest. This man, in the world theater, was rather a spectator than an actor.»

Soon after and to avoid any doubt or wrong interpretation of his words, Tucci added: «Let us state here, that our artist was a man in its full meaning. He was attracted by the opposite sex with the intensity of his vigorous manliness, without circumlocutions and with the self-confidence that his graceful figure and his popularity of artist of the stardom assured him. But, as a very discreet gentleman, he never boasted of that.»

This opinion coincides with the impression picked up by Carlos Lagos on a long interview published in “Mundo Argentino” on November 12, 1930.

«And skirts, Gardel? Isn't there anything of this kind to tell us?»

«- «No, Mr. chronicler, nothing at all, nothing ever happened to me » says Gardel, but «his smile and the distant look in his eyes denied this statement, Carlitos discreet and a gentleman is contrary to even doubt a lady's reputation or the admired irrelevant gesture of more than three.».

With similar reticence he answered Angel Viegas Jaime (interview for the newspaper “El País” of Montevideo, August 1928. Cf. Pelusso and Visconti, op. cit.) «I do not have a girlfriend yet», in spite of the fact that since the late 1920 he kept up a well-known relationship with Isabel del Valle.

Related to his sentimental life there are other names, less sparkling or almost unknown, like the one of Carolina Angelini who, according to Avlis, was the love of his adolescence, or those rescued by Payseé González in his substantial research: Elena Fernández whom Gardel knew in Montevideo, Andrea Morand with whom he traveled to Paris; the Spanish actress Perlita Grecco; the dancer Alicia Coccia and the Parisian one who maybe was the deepest and perhaps unrequited feeling: Gaby Morlay.

«Gaby Morlay -the magazine “Ahora” says on a note reproduced by the magazine “Gente” in a special edition of 1977- was one of the movie actresses most well-paid at that time. Carlos Gardel began to accompany her, and they were seen together in many places in of Paris. A romance -that lasted nearly all the time that Carlitos lived in Paris- took place between the singer and the actress. However, he neither even in confidence told his close friends about those lovers nor he ever allowed himself to say any phrase that could make clear his true feelings».

In an interesting book by Andrés Bufali titled “Secretos muy secretos de gente muy famosa” (Very Secret Secrets of People Very Famous)–of which I only have some chapters in photocopies-, I read: «I was Gardel's mistress, she, was only a little girlfriend». Under this title the author tells us his singular encounter with Peregrina Otero «a woman of regular stature, about eighty years old, very thin and with a bothering liveliness.» who was known by the artistic name of Loretta Dartés in the 20s.

According to the story told by this woman herself, she had arrived in Buenos Aires in 1911 from Portugal, her country, and began to work as a tightrope walker at the Frank Brown's famous circus. She as well said that she had been Barry Norton's fiancée -an Argentine boy that succeeded under this name in the North American cinema- and friend of Vicente Greco's, Ignacio Corsini's, Julio De Caro's, Pedro Laurenz's and other famous ones of then.

«- And what happened with Gardel? inquired Bufali –anxious to get a story.

«- One day I became his woman. Yes, Just like you hear it.

«- But, what was happening with Isabel del Valle?

«- She... –said Loretta with a mischievous smile-, was only his girlfriend, I was his woman.»

Subsequently she narrates her encounter with Gardel on Radio Belgrano, her love escapes to Montevideo on weekends and some other details, of all which, allegedly Horacio Pettorossi, Blas Buchieri -editor of the magazine “El Alma Que Canta”-, Raquel Notar and Julián Centeya, among others, might have had a thorough knowledge.

Loretta Dartés has not been the only woman that self-assigned romances with Gardel. In nearly all the places of his Latin American tour exist testimonies of local loves, unforgettable memories in the body and the soul of the pretended protagonists.

The Colombian writer Mario Sarmiento Vargas(4) mentions the confidential information Ivonne Guitry gave to Nicolás Díaz, an impresario of Cine Colombia S.A. whose circuit included many theaters where Gardel appeared during his last tour.

«... I am a woman of the high world... I was eighteen and lived alone in Paris, with no definite direction. The Paris of 1928. A Paris of orgies and champagne squandering... To smooth up my disgrace I fully devoted myself to pleasures... Cocaine, morphine, drugs... At that time a recently newcomer, a cabaret singer, was harvesting success and applause... He was Carlos Gardel... Gardel was interested in women, but I was not interested in anything else but cocaine and champagne... This man was conquering my soul. My luxurious but sad little floor was now full of light. My blue bedroom that knew all the blues of a stray soul, was now a true love nest. He was my first love».

The truth is that through Gardel´s life many –known and unknown- women passed, but nearly always hidden by that shade of discretion with which he surrounded his private life. It is much more what is guessed than what is really known.

«Many women felt a extraordinarily great passion for Gardel» says Francisco N. Bianco(5) although it seems, no one succeeded in lighting the flame of a deep lasting passion.

We cannot, after so many years, put forth any theory to explain it, even though when there are lots of «far-fetched interpretations which range from the Oedipal solution of emphasizing love towards the mother, to the concubinage with his own lyrics which he sang» (Tabaré J. di Paula).

But what must be made clear, is the falsehood of those who have tried to assign him an equivocal sexual behavior.

Instead, it is possible to intuitively perceive in his personality, some features that contradict that image of happy boy, that smiling winner molded in bronze. Gardel «was rather an introspective man, fond of deep reflections (with) an aura of sadness that was evidenced even in his smile and in his rather shy, almost reticent attitude». (Tucci).

He always fled from all obligations except his art. He even neither managed his career nor his estate. He always preferred losing to struggling, as is evidenced in his many letters to Razzano and to Defino about the “Isabel affair” or in the disagreements with his old duo partner. He was reluctant to personal confrontations and especially a man fearful of his own privacy.

Maybe all this explains his reluctance to make known his love affairs and to find a stable mate facing the happiness and the unhappiness of any relationship.

The same veil he used to conceal his life was displayed to hide his feelings. His love story is not much different from that of our heroes and founding fathers, in whose biographies, except a few cases, we neither find love stories nor flirts and, even less, the fire of some explosive passion.

This way of deciding his sentimental life, according to Horacio Salas, also helped to create a myth. Gardel is the everlasting lover, the ideal shared with nobody... and who appears turned into a blue prince in the lives of every woman who dreams of a virile model. (Cf. Horacio Salas, El Mito que sonríe).