Always ready to shock and surprise with each new venture, Madonna captivated the 1980s and 1990s.
Madonna has made a career as well as an art out of reinventing herself—as a rock diva, stage and screen star, video vixen, fashion icon, and cultural phenomenon. Her greatest achievement, according to Stephen Erlewine, “is how she manipulated the media and the public with her music, her videos, her publicity, and her sexuality.” Known as the “Material Girl,” Madonna parlayed her looks, talent, and business acumen into a showbiz empire that spawned a dozen No. 1 singles, best-selling albums, hit movies, and her own record label.
Born in Bay City, Michigan, on August 16, 1958, Madonna Louise Ciccone was the eldest daughter of an Italian father and French-Canadian mother (who died when Madonna was age six). Madonna took piano and ballet lessons, and studied dancing briefly at the University of Michigan. Leaving before graduating, she moved to New York in 1978, doing casual modelling jobs and working briefly with the Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham dance troupes. She then sang with small-time dance bands, until her 1982 demo single “Everybody” became a club-scene hit.
Madonna’s debut album went unnoticed outside dance clubs until some radio stations added the first single “Holiday” to their playlists. The follow-up singles “Lucky Star” and “Borderline” introduced Madonna to MTV’s audience. “Like a Virgin,” with its glamorous Marilyn Monroe-inspired video, rocketed the singer to superstardom in 1984. Her cameo appearance in the 1985 film Vision Quest yielded the hit “Crazy for You,” and she showed a real screen presence in Desperately Seeking Susan. The same year she married actor Sean Penn—a union that produced the flop 1986 film Shanghai Express and countless tabloid headlines, before ending in divorce in 1989.
Madonna entered the 1990s as one of pop’s best-selling artists, with hits such as “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Open Your Heart,” and “Vogue” each hitting No. 1 on the pop charts. She also inspired the wrath of the religious right with her 1989 “Like a Prayer” video, which showed the slip-clad singer dancing before a black Christ. Madonna continued to shock with the documentary film In Bed with Madonna (1990), and an X-rated book, Sex, to accompany the album Erotica (1992). That same year, Madonna signed a seven-year, $60 million deal with Time Warner that included her own record label, Maverick.
Always ready to shock and surprise with each new venture, Madonna captivated the 1980s and 1990s.
After briefly slipping out of the limelight, Madonna re-emerged in the mid-1990s as a film actress and mother. She won a Golden Globe award for her performance as Eva Peron in the 1996 film musical Evita. Madonna’s introspective Ray of Light album (1998) signalled her joy in motherhood and spirituality, yet another change of image for this artist who excels at reinventing herself.
Linnie Messina
SEE ALSO:
CHARTS; DANCE MUSIC; MUSICALS; POP MUSIC.
Celsi, Theresa. Madonna (London: Hale, 1994);
Rettenmund, M. Encyclopedia Madonnica (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995).
Like a Prayer; Like a Virgin; Madonna; Ray of Light; True Blue.