Differences

Although Madonna told reporters — such as one for Cosmopolitan — that she didn’t want to “belittle the relationship by talking about it,” she was intrigued enough about what was going on with Warren Beatty to want to discuss it with close friends. When the two finally made love, Madonna had confided, it wasn’t the kind of passionate experience she had known with Sean Penn. Nothing could compare to what she had with Sean, she had to admit. However, Warren was much more generous as a lover than Sean had been. Warren politely apologized for the brevity of his performance in bed, and then made sure that she, too, was completely pleasured. He sought out her needs, her preferences, her desires. “He knows a woman’s body better than most women,” Madonna said. “He can pinpoint the day of your cycle.

“He’s into all aspects of sexuality. This is why he’s so perfect for me,” she added. “He has no restrictions. He says to me, ‘If you misbehave, I’ll just have to spank you.’ I love that. Everything to him is living out his sexual fantasies.”

“I don’t know that he’s ever slept with a man,” she later said to a reporter for the gay magazine the Advocate. “But he’s certainly not homophobic. I asked him once, ‘Would you ever sleep with a man?’ and he said he was sorry that he hadn’t but that now because of AIDS he felt it was an unsafe thing to start experimenting with.”

After she felt she knew him well enough to do so, Madonna suggested that Warren retrieve his former trim and youthful shape by exercising with her. When he told her that he wasn’t interested, she was perplexed as to why a person would not want to “better himself.” Rather than let it go, she pushed on, suggesting liposuction. He was either hurt or insulted — only he would know which. The two then became embroiled in a heated debate about whether she had a right to have an opinion about his body, the matter playing out in front of friends at the Los Angeles nightclub, the Club Nouveau.

“You’re the one who is always telling people that they shouldn’t judge others by outside appearances,” Warren said to her. “How dare you judge me? It works both ways, you know?”

“Oh, please,” Madonna said as she sipped a cocktail, looking terrific in velvet hot pants. “You older guys are too sensitive,” she said, taking a drag from a cigarette. “I’m just being helpful. If you want to be fat and flabby, Warren, fine with me. Go right ahead.”

To whom did she think she was talking? Sean Penn? It was as if Madonna hadn’t learned much from her experiences with her former husband, at least in terms of diplomacy, discretion and sensitivity. It now seemed to observers that she was being purposely cruel to Warren, maybe continuing an explosive theme in her relationships, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Warren’s eyes turned as cold as granite. He began to say something, but stopped himself. Typical of him — he was not Sean Penn — he probably didn’t want to make a scene in front of so many witnesses. Instead, he sniffed his brandy as if a connoisseur before quickly downing it. Nodding pensively to himself, he then walked away, careful not to make eye contact with any observers. “Now what was that about?” Madonna asked no one in particular. “I hate it when he does that to me. That is so like my father. He is so like my father!” She then began biting on her knuckles, as if suddenly nervous or fearful.

The argument may have continued the next day in a Hollywood restaurant. “Keep your stupid remarks to yourself,” Madonna said to Warren in front of other diners.

“Oh, Christ! Grow up!” Warren countered, this time visibly exasperated.

“No. You grow up,” Madonna said, petulantly. She then reached into her bag and pulled out a Snickers candy bar, which she threw at Warren’s chest. Both were apparently unaware that their display had stopped all conversation around them. Finally, hockey star Wayne Gretzky charged over to them, “Hey, you two,” he said, “knock it off, will ya?”

After five minutes, Warren began cutting Madonna’s fillet of sole into little pieces, and then delicately placing each into her mouth with his fork. (Though Madonna was said to have been on a strict vegan diet at this time, which prohibited fish, she did indulge now and then.)

Madonna declared to a reporter, again for Cosmopolitan, “What I’m doing this time is starting out being good friends with somebody.” She loved Beatty’s self-confidence, she said. “I used to want to be president,” Warren told her. “But Hollywood is better than Washington. Here, I have more power, and I don’t have to put up with the bureaucracy. I’m the president of Hollywood.”

Madonna also enjoyed the manner in which Warren continued to pamper her. For instance, on the set of Dick Tracy he paid for a masseuse to wait on her at all times. He sent her flowers every day of shooting. One night after a tough day of filming, Warren took Madonna out to dinner to an expensive Italian restaurant. Wearing a sheer black-and-red polka-dot blouse, black bra, black hot pants and a red bowler hat — and chewing on a wad of gum — she sat down and promptly demanded a Diet Pepsi, a drink not on the menu. Diet Coke, yes. Diet Pepsi, no. “Well, we’re leaving,” Madonna decided. Warren then asked the waiter to go to a convenience store and purchase a can of Diet Pepsi.

When the waiter returned, Warren peeled off five $100 bills from a wad and handed them to him. He then waved toward the Diet Pepsi as if he had just conjured it up out of thin air. “There you go, my dear,” he said to Madonna, “the most expensive soda in the world, and it’s all yours.” As Madonna laughed gaily, the waiter popped open a can and poured its contents into a glass of ice. After dinner, Warren and Madonna held hands under the table. Later, Beatty would say, “Because she’s surrounded by so much stuff, I don’t think people quite realize how much fun Madonna is. She’s an enormous amount of fun to be around and certainly to work with.”

Warren thought that the fact that Madonna had tried to have her breasts insured for $12 million was “hilarious.” During the filming of the movie in late winter and into the spring of 1989, makeup artist John Cuglione literally had to glue Madonna into some of the skintight gowns. “I was terrified that she’d have an allergic reaction to the glue,” he recalls. “If I’d discolored a breast or inflicted permanent damage, she could sue me for a fortune. Worse yet, I’d be known as the schmuck who destroyed a national treasure.” When Madonna had the idea to have her breasts insured — interesting considering the history of breast cancer with her late mother — she asked Warren for the name and number of his agent. The agent told her that the amount she was asking for her figure to be insured was too high. “But I think each one is worth $6 million, don’t you?” she asked Warren. He had to agree.

Madonna tried to be realistic about the relationship with Warren. She said that she didn’t want to be swept away by the excitement of being with him. “Sometimes I’m cynical,” she said wistfully to one reporter, “and I think it will last as long as it lasts. Then I have moments when I’m really romantic and I think: My God, we’re just perfect together.” Indeed, hope does spring eternal . . .

Working with Warren as her director was not as difficult for Madonna as some thought it might be. Warren is known for directing his actors to film a scene twenty, sometimes thirty, times before he is finally satisfied. Many observers thought Madonna would be intolerant of such demands. “Even I thought it would be a problem,” Madonna observed at a press conference for Dick Tracy after the film was released. “Because of our close friendship, I thought there would be problems. But there weren’t. I respect him. He’s been in the business for so many years, how dare I question his judgment about anything?”

While there may have been harmony on the set of Dick Tracy, there were growing problems backstage as Madonna and Warren hit upon important differences in their personalities. For instance, while Madonna was the ultimate party girl, Warren was a “homebody.” One night in the spring of 1989, Madonna took Warren to a dance club in a seedy part of Los Angeles called the Catch One, a notoriously popular gay hustlers’ hangout in the ethnic South Central district. Woefully out of place in his tailored Versace three-piece suit, Warren declined to get up and dance with Madonna.

“Hey, Pussy Man, come on out here,” she shouted at him from the dance floor. Wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a blue denim jacket, shorts, boxers’ shoes and a leather cap, backward, she laughed, tossed her head back and beckoned to him. “Let’s have fun!”¹⁰

The author — observing Madonna for a feature about her — watched as Warren stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “No, I’m just fine,” he said with a weak smile. He then took a small bottle of allergy nasal spray from his jacket pocket and sprayed the medicine into his nose. “I can’t even breathe,” he complained, “let alone dance.”

“Oh my God,” Madonna hollered back at him. “Quit your whining, will you?”

Clearly exasperated by Warren’s conservative demeanor, she danced with a couple of shapely young women. Beatty sat on the sidelines, watching, wheezing and looking as though he was truly feeling his age.

“I shoulda’ come here with Rob Lowe,” Madonna shouted out at Warren, referring to the young actor she was also rumored to be dating at the time. “Now, he’s a guy who knows how to party hearty.” (The two were not in a serious relationship.)

Warren just shrugged.

The next morning, Madonna was at the Johnny Yuma Recording Studio in Los Angeles recording the vocals to the Stephen Sondheim songs that would appear on the album I’m Breathless (Music from and Inspired by the FilmDick Tracy). Wearing a low-cut, pink satin minidress over leggings, she stood in front of the microphone and sang the song beautifully while a roomful of people, including Warren, watched, apparently agog.

Recalled one studio technician, “Madonna and Warren were happy together, but mismatched just the same. I remember the night she recorded the vocals to ‘Hanky Panky’ — which is about Beatty’s favorite sport, spanking. The atmosphere was so charged and intimate, I felt like I was intruding on something private. She was flirtatious. He lapped it up. She definitely knows how to keep a man interested. Plus, she was proud to be there with Warren. She wore him like a badge of honor. Some people whispered that he was only using her to help promote his movie. That seemed possible to me. But she was definitely using him, as well.”

Later that day, in April 1989, Warren accompanied Madonna to an audition for the futuristic video of her song, “Express Yourself” (inspired by the 1926 Fritz Lang classic film, Metropolis). She had twenty dancers (some were only models who could also dance) in a lineup, finalists for the $1-million production (only Michael Jackson’s long-form “Thriller” cost more). Marching down the line, a gum-chewing drill sergeant, she sized up each candidate. To one long-haired fellow, she said, “Now, there’s no problem with cutting your hair, is there?” When he hesitated, she said, “Oh, give me a break. Yes or no!”

Then, on to the next dancer. “What’s with that posture?” she asked. “Stand up straight,” she ordered. “Do you want this job or not?”

Then, to the next one, “Oh my God,” she said. “Look at you.” She paused for a moment to scrutinize him. Then, she turned to Warren and said, “Look at the bulge in this guy’s tights. What’s that all about?”

Warren didn’t respond. Instead, he just looked on with a bemused expression. “Man, she’s rather a bitch, isn’t she?” Warren observed to one of the choreographers.

“Yeah, well . . .” answered the choreographer, his tone exhausted.

“Or maybe she’s just showing off for me?” Warren wondered aloud. Looking troubled, he took out a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Then he blew his nose.