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Madonna.
When the mother died the Ciccone family was torn apart. Madonna and her brothers and sisters were sent to live with various relatives until, after a couple of years to Madonna's horror, her father Tony married their housekeeper Joan Gustafson- a real disciplinarian. Her father insisted that the children have to call his new wife 'mother' but Madonna found that very hard to do. In fact, she never called Joan mother. Madonna was the oldest girl of eight children and that is the reason she caught most of the responsibility. Madonna remembers: "As the oldest girl in my family, I felt like all my adolescence was spent taking care of babies. I think that's when I really thought about how I wanted to get away from all that. I saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella." And about his father Madonna says: "If we didn't have school homework then father find us something do to around the house - he was very adamant about us being productive." And also, "If my father hadn't been so strict I wouldn't be who I am today."
Madonna was 12 years old, when she entered the local Catholic high school [Saint Andrews, Saint Fredericks, Academie Du Sacre Coeur]. It was oppressive and she recalls "they would hit you across the back with a stapler if you were disobedient". It was at this school though that she learnt a great deal from classes in tap, jazz dancing, Baton twirling and Gymnastics. It was here that she started to display the extrovert Madonna which hitherto only her family had experienced. "I wanted to do everything everybody told me I couldn't do, I couldn't wear make up, I couldn't wear nylons, I couldn't cut my hair, I couldn't go on dates, I couldn't even go to the movies with my friends". She craved attention by wearing odd socks, appearing in a friend's home movie with a fried egg on her stomach. She also appeared in a local talent contest where she danced to a record by 'The Who' wearing only a bikini and body paint. As said before, she wanted to do everything she was told she shouldn't or couldn't. She'd roll up her uniform skirt until it was short, She'd go into the bathroom and put make-up and nylon stockings on. She was incredibly flirtatious. Apart from being a flirtatious rebel, Madonna was very good at her schoolwork. Madonna remembers "I was really competitive in school with my grades and stuff coz my father used to give us rewards if we got "A" on our report cards. It wasn't so much that I was interested in learning.....my father gave us 25 cents for every "A" that we got so I wanted to earn the most amount of money." Not so surprisingly Madonna shone in the school's theatre department, where she was given the lead role in several of their productions. After Madonna left school she attended the University of Michigan on a dance scholarship, where she studied under ballet school owner, Chris Flynn. She recalls "I really loved him. He was my mentor, my father, my imaginary lover, everything."
I would take whatever I could in a taxi-cab to wherever I was going to next. I'd take a big breath, grit my teeth, blink back my tears and say, "I'm gonna do it- I have to do it because there's nowhere else for me to go". This was the start of hard times for Madonna. She lived in terrible house, cuz Madonna hadn't money for better. She remembers: "When my father first came to visit me, he was mortified. The place was crawling with cockroaches. There was winos in the hallways, and the entire place smelled like stale beer" Then she won a scholarship at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, where she spent two years working hard at her classes during the day and even harder at night, holding down a succession of part-time jobs in fast food restaurants to make a little extra money. Sometimes she also visited a club called the "Blue
Froggie", the bar where she first met Steve Bray. Who was a talented
musician but his relationship with Madonna was more on the physical
plane. After a while Madonna realized that the way to the top for her
was not going to be through pure modern dance. It wasn't the competition
that put her off but the lack of work opportunities. There were too
many people going after too few jobs. She started auditioning for Madonna returned to New York with a fiery determination to succeed in the music industry. She moved in again with Dan Gilroy, an old boyfriend. He and some friends that they had met while at dance school, had got a group together called 'The Breakfast Band' - they needed a drummer, so Madonna filled the gap. She then persuaded Dan to write some songs for her to sing as the group's lead singer. After she had been with them a few months she realized that they were getting nowhere and so went off alone to form her own band with herself as the lead singer. During the following few months they played a succession of dodgy New York clubs to establish a name for themselves on the music circuit. It wasn't easy. The band went through many changes of it's membership and name. At the time the clubs were more interested in Punk and New Wave stuff but Madonna plugged away at it. She was offered the occasional bit of modeling work and a part in a shortm(60 min) 'art' film called 'A Certain Sacrifice'. Madonna finally got a deal with Gotham Records, worth
one hundred dollars a week. Steve Bray went with her as drummer and
songwriter. She kept at it and eventually got a record deal with 'Sire
Records' for only $5000 and released her first single 'Everybody'. When
it was first played on the radio and in clubs, many fans mistook Madonna
for an Afro-American disco diva. Record company also didn't put Madonna's
picture on this single's cover, they wanted people think that she was
Afro-American, to sell more records. 'Everybody' sold over 250 000 Not only was Madonna setting the tone music wise, she was also creating a whole new fashion. In "Lucky Star" music video, she showcased her Boy Toy image. Madonna's style was so popular that world famous lingerie store 'Fredericks of Hollywood' reported a 40 % increase in sales, which they put down to the Material Girl's image. Never letting an opportunity to make a fast buck pass her by, Madonna set up her own "Wazoo" clothing label. Among other things, "Wazoo" manufactured rubber bracelets and Boy Toy belt buckles. It wasn't long before millions of girl fans the world over took on the raggy clothes of their number 1 pop heroine. But it wasn't just the clothes that were developing Madonna's raunchy reputation. Her music was about to take a new and controversial turn. The new album 'Like A Virgin' (1984) established Madonna as a popular artist and soon nearly everyone had a copy of this album. It gained 3X platina status in the US charts immediately!
Interesting is, that Madonna's first album 'Madonna'(1938) was still
doing pretty good at the charts when new album was released. The year
1985 was VERY busy for Madonna. The music video 'Material Girl' came
out on the 1st of February, the movie "Vision Quest" on February
15th and the movie "Desperately Seeking Susan" on March 29th.
Her role in "Desperately Seeking Susan" added a significant
It went from smaller venues to sold-out arenas in a matter of months. During "Material Girl" video shooting she met Sean Penn. And just after saying "I wouldn't wish being Mr. Madonna on anyone", she married with him. Madonna remembers "I was jumping up and down on my bed, performing one of my morning rituals and all of a sudden Sean gets this look in his eye and all of a sudden I knew what he was thinking. I said: whatever you`re thinking I`ll say yes to. That was his chance, so he popped it." On the 16th of August, 1985- they married in a Malibu media circus, 13 helicopters with paparazzi photographers were soaring in circles during the wedding ceremony, the groom Sean Penn tried to beat some paparazzi photographers, who were spying in the bushes. Madonna remembers: "I didn't think I was going to be married with 13 helicopters flying over my head, it turned into a circus. At first I was outraged but at the end I was laughing." Madonna's marriage to Sean Penn officially ended on 10th of January,1989 when Madonna - for the second time - filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. She did not get married again until just recently when she married Guy Ritchie. Since year 1985, Madonna is known as a person who can do anything: she is a singer, an actress, a composer, a producer and an executive. Madonna has success everywhere. She has broken every available radio, video, sales, and box-office record, racking up no fewer than 29 Top Ten singles, 11 of those reaching No. 1.It's world record! 1994's "Take A Bow," lodged in the top spot for seven consecutive weeks and beat the performance of her 1984 breakthrough, "Like A Virgin," which had a six-week run at the top. All told, Madonna's No. 1 and No. 2 singles have spent
a total of 40 weeks at the top of the charts -- almost a solid year
of uninterrupted hits! Every studio album she has released has reached
Top 15. All, but one has made it into the Top 10, and seven have attained
Top 5 status. Madonna's international album sales are estimated at topping
120 million units. Pivotal as recorded music is to Madonna's unparalleled
success, she has had more videos, played more often, than any other
artist in the history of the MTV network. Multi-awarded for these videos,
Madonna has made a ground-breaking contribution to the video art Those big heartbreakers mean of course big money and that's why (according to several business magazines) Madonna is the richest woman in the world followed closely by Oprah Winfrey. Madonna makes about 130 millions US$ for a year !!! Continuously released albums, singles, music- videos and movies hold Madonna's myth high. As if she wasn't busy enough already, Madonna dropped another bundle of joy into the world in September. No, not another child. This time, Madonna delivered Music, her first full-length album since the Grammy-winning Ray of Light. It was, of course, a huge hit, but much more than anyone could have expected. Music entered the album sales charts at No. 1, not just in the United States, but in 22 other countries, as well, including her new adopted home, England. Selling 420,000 copies in the first week in the U.S. alone, Music was Madonna's first album to hit the top slot in 11 years — not bad for a 42-year-old mother of two.
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