Celebrity biographies

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16.08.14 09:51

Her contribution to world culture cannot be overestimated: she is a living legend, evidence that perseverance and hard work can move mountains. The biography of Madonna can be published as an excellent guide for those who dream of ascending to the heights of glory.

Biography of Madonna

First loss

Residents of the provincial Bay City, which nestled on the shores of the luxurious Lake Huron, did not suspect that in 1958 (namely, on August 16), a girl would be born in the family of the radiographer and design engineer Ciccone, who would glorify her town and be called the queen of pop music.

The mother of the family, Madonna Louise, had French roots - her great-grandfathers came to conquer America from Europe, her husband Silvio was proud of his Italian ancestors. After two boys, God finally gave them a daughter. And to celebrate, they named her after her mother.

It is likely that the profession, with its constant danger of radiation, was the reason that the mother fell ill with cancer (then she was pregnant for the 6th time, so she refused treatment). Time has been lost. And six children were orphaned. Madonna Sr. was only 30. The future singer could not forgive the heavens for this loss. How she could not understand her father either - he got married after 2 years of widowhood, it was difficult for him to raise such a horde alone. The stepmother, Joan, turned out to be a real despot, she gave birth to two more children, and all the love was directed to them. So Madonna's childhood was not easy. She was offended by brothers who were addicted to drugs. Having seen all sorts of horrors, she herself vowed to ever succumb to this pernicious passion.

Difficulties of growing up

Catholic schools changed for a secular girl, where for the first time she was able to try herself in student performances (her mother sang well and knew how to play the piano, Madonna, who looked like her, inherited a pleasant voice).

The father did not like the young Madonna's classes in ballet, he wanted a profession for her, bringing a guaranteed piece of bread. With her excellent grades (they say that the schoolgirl's aikyu was 140 - an incredibly high figure!) she could have entered any educational institution, but decided to act in her own way.

After school, the girl studied dancing at the University of Michigan. Then she left for New York. Fate continued to test the future star. Part-time work in choreographic groups brought pennies, Madonna lived from hand to mouth, huddled in closets, but did not give up.

Talent plus perseverance

In 1982, young Madonna became a member of the group "Breakfast Club" (she played percussion instruments). Ambitions took their toll: she wrote songs, performed them herself, mastered the guitar and showed herself as a leader. In general, "pulled the blanket over myself." A contract with a producer became a great happiness for the beginning soloist, and in 1983 she was able to release her first album.

That disc, "Madonna", did not become a very bright event in music world, but after the release of "Like a Virgin" they started talking about her as a new star. The compositions topped the charts, they were played on the radio, they were sung along, listened to countless times. 26 million copies of the album were sold. So she stepped on the first step of her fame, since then the biography of Madonna is like an endless bright music video.

The disc "True Blue", born in 1986, consolidated the unexpected resounding success of the singer. The audience was looking forward to new works, rushing to concerts, where the performer gave all her best - to the point of exhaustion.

Some argue that at first the star was outrageous - she exploited sexual images, "flirted" with religious symbols. But talent, incredible perseverance and a constant desire for self-improvement did their job.

Ups and downs

Were in creative biography Madonnas their ups and downs. The Golden Raspberry anti-award called her the worst actress of the century (failures were the tapes “Who is this girl”, “Body as evidence”, they spoke unflatteringly about her role in the Bond movie “Die Another Day”, her last work was terrible on screen - "Gone"). However, the musical tape about the second wife of the Argentine president, who did a lot for the country and died sadly early from cancer - "Evita" - has become a real phenomenon in culture. Madonna's song for the comic book Dick Tracy won an Oscar.

Madonna's personal life

First marriage, first daughter

The passionate feelings experienced by our heroine for Sean Penn were overshadowed by scandals, reaching fights. Madonna's personal life turned out to be an eternal "action movie". The young husband was not ready for a life together, and when two such hot temperaments collided, “scraps along the back streets” literally flew. The singer did not endure the beatings for a long time. Having married in 1985, after 4 years she divorced the actor.

On the set of Dick Tracy, the director and performer became interested in her leading role, Hollywood legend Warren Beatty, but Madonna limited herself to a novel, she did not marry the artist.

The Cuban boyfriend Carlos Leon became the father of her daughter in 1996 (the diva will part with him six months later). Madonna's daughter was named Lourdes, she has already celebrated her 19th birthday, and she has a joint business with her mother - her own clothing line.

It was during that period that an acquaintance with Buddhism, yoga, and Kabbalah took place (since then, Madonna has been an adherent of this teaching).

New albums, earned millions, finally won by the Grammy gave strength to the performer.

With and without Richie

In mid-1998, together with then-friend Andy Bird, the singer attended a party with Sting. There was a meeting with director Guy Ritchie - a British man who would later become her husband and change Madonna's personal life, and very much!

In 2000, Madonna moved in with her lover, and the couple's son Rocco was born in August of the same year. She was carried away by British life, got acquainted with the traditions of a new country for herself with pleasure, but did not forget about her work - in 2001, a world tour took place, which gathered a full house.

Alas, the second marriage did not become a union “to the grave” (although, in addition to Rocco, an adopted black son, David, also appeared in the family): in the fall of 2008, it became known about the breakup of the couple. Soon the star adopted a girl from Malawi, Chifundo Mercy, and her British husband was replaced by her Brazilian boyfriend Jesus Luz. In 2010, Madonna began dating dancer Brahim Zeiba. And at the beginning of 2017, the media started talking about the fact that Madonna and Sean Penn are seeing each other more often. Maybe they decided to restore a marriage that collapsed many years ago?

Her fortune is estimated at almost $ 1 billion, she has her own network of fitness clubs. Film We. We believe in love, ”which the singer put, was scolded to smithereens, but she still has so many new ideas! The world will be surprised more than once by the phenomenon named Madonna!

singer Madonna (Madonna)

Madonna Louise Ciccone (Madonna Louise Ciccone). She was born on August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan, USA. American singer, songwriter, producer, dancer, writer, actress, film director, screenwriter, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Madonna is considered the most commercially successful performer in history according to the Guinness Book of Records. with 300 million confirmed licensed sales. Time included the singer in the list of "25 women of the last century with the most power", assessing her influence on contemporary music.

Madonna is the best-selling rock artist of the 20th century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the second-best-selling female artist in the United States with 64.5 million certified album sales.

Billboard recognized the singer as the most successful artist in the history of recording among solo singers and singers.

Madonna became famous for constantly "reinventing" her music and images. She became one of the first female musicians to have a successful career on a major label without losing creative or financial control. The singer's videos are an integral part of MTV, adding new themes of texts or images of video clips to the mainstream.

Madonna's songs generally receive positive reviews from music critics, despite the controversy often caused in the media regarding the topics covered in them - racism, gender discrimination, religion, politics, sex and violence. Madonna's debut album of the same name was released in 1983 on the Sire label and became the first in a series of successful albums by the author/singer.

Madonna has a record 20 MTV Video Music Awards and 7 Grammy Awards., including in prestigious nominations for the albums Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), as well as 2 Golden Globes.

The singer has many chart records and hits that reached number one on the major music charts, among which the most successful songs were "Like a Virgin" (1984), "La Isla Bonita" (1986), "Like a Prayer" (1989), "Vogue "(1990), "Frozen" (1998), "Music" (2000), "Hung Up" (2005) and "4 Minutes" (2008).

According to Forbes in 2016, Madonna is the richest female musician in the world with a fortune of $560 million.

The singer's 2008-09 concert tour, the Sticky & Sweet Tour, is the highest-grossing solo artist of all time. Madonna's recognition in music and cinema is known - since the late 80s, the media have called her the "Queen of Pop", and in 2000, the Golden Raspberry anti-prize called her the worst actress of the 20th century.

Madonna's films as director and screenwriter Filth and Wisdom and WE. We Believe in Love" were critically acclaimed and received limited theatrical release.

Madonna was born on August 16, 1958 in a town on the shores of Lake Huron, Michigan, USA. The singer's mother and namesake, Madonna Louise Ciccone, was French-Canadian and worked as an X-ray technician. Father, Silvio Ciccone, an Italian-American, worked as a design engineer for the Chrysler/General Motors defense design bureau.

Madonna is the third child in the family, there were six children in total. The first girl in the family was named after her mother Madonna Louise, this name has never been officially changed. The name "Veronica" was chosen by Madonna Louise Ciccone at the age of 12 for the traditional Catholic sacrament of chrismation and is not official.

Madonna's mother came from the descendants of the Jansenists from among the first French settlers and her piety bordered on fanaticism. Mother played the piano and sang beautifully, but never aspired to perform in public.

During her sixth pregnancy, Madonna Ciccone (senior) was diagnosed with breast cancer. Mother adhered to the ideas of the pre-Vatican period, which still recognized sex as an immoral act, and abortion as murder under any conditions. She refused treatment until the end of her pregnancy, and a few months after the birth of her sixth child, she died at the age of 30.

Madonna's (younger) rejection of the fact that God could allow the death of her mother became an important aspect of the life and work of the singer. Two years later, the widowed father of the family remarried the maid Joan Gustafson - a simple woman and the complete opposite of the first. The couple's first joint child died, but soon they had two more children. The stepmother took care mainly of her own children, but the father forced all the children to call the woman "mother", which Madonna never did, considering her father a traitor to the memory of her mother.

The family was quite wealthy, but Gustafson brought the Protestant spirit of total savings on clothing and food to the family - the family ate exclusively semi-finished products and the children almost did not wear purchased clothes. Joan's upbringing methods were like a sergeant major, which further inflamed the atmosphere in the family. Madonna evoked in her stepmother a sense of female competition due to the strong external resemblance of the singer to her late mother. Madonna was subjected to severe bullying by two older drug addict brothers who fought with her for the attention of her father, which, according to biographers, early laid in her a hostile attitude towards drugs.

The Ciccone family lived in suburban Detroit, where Madonna attended St. Frederick and St. Andrew Catholic Schools, and West was a cheerleader for the basketball team. The singer graduated from high school at the Rochester Adams secular school, where she participated in theater productions and school musicals.

Ciccone studied "excellently", and the teachers took on the role of a mother in her upbringing. The singer called the teacher of philosophy and Russian history Marilyn Fallows one of two the most important people of his childhood. Despite the grades, Ciccone was considered by her peers to be a “with regards” girl, she was disliked for her brilliant academic performance and the position of the teachers’ pet, and the guys were afraid to invite her on a date.

At the age of 14, Madonna was influenced as a pop lyricist by her friendship with the future recognized poet Win Cooper, who studied with her at the same school a class older. According to Cooper, the girl was shy and a little distant, shunned society, dressed modestly, and was particularly fond of Aldous Huxley's books and Lady Chatterley's Lover.

The key event of Madonna's childhood is considered to be the performance at the evening of West's school talents at the age of 14. It is covered with green and pink paint the artist in a top and shorts shocked the audience by dancing to the famous song "Baba O" Riley" by The Who. The reputation of an exemplary excellent student was hopelessly damaged, the performance was discussed for a long time in the city, and her father put her daughter under house arrest. "Heroine of the day", brothers and sisters began to tease: "Madonna is a whore" although it had nothing to do with sex.

From the age of four, Madonna Ciccone imitated the dances of Shirley Temple, but took up ballet at almost 15, which was acceptable for modern jazz choreography. Choreographer Christopher Flynn was her biggest influence. Flynn gave her time and took her to classical concerts, exhibitions and, to broaden her horizons, to gay clubs. Flynn was gay 30 years older, so the student's love remained unrequited, but, according to the singer's recollections, this was the only person who understood her. Appearance an excellent student has changed towards a sloppy bohemian look that scares others.

Biographers Andersen, Taraborelli and Lucy O'Brien point out that although At 14, Madonna had a reputation for being a slut, but only at the age of 15 did she get her first sexual experience with 17-year-old Russell Long, which the whole school and father learned about at the suggestion of Ciccone. According to Lucy O'Brien, the struggle against the stereotypical attitude towards women according to the criterion of "virgin / whore" and the desire to tell others about her love experiences have become the main themes of the singer's work.

Madonna Ciccone graduated from high school in 1976 a few months before her final exams. She continued her dance education on a budget basis at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where Flynn received a professorship. The choice of a "frivolous" profession paved a crack in the singer's relationship with her father, who wanted to see her daughter as a doctor or lawyer. The father believed that the daughter could find a better use for her excellent certificate, successfully passed IQ test(according to biographers Christopher Andersen (1991) and Randy Taraborelli (2000) the result of the singer at the age of 17 showed 140 points) and brilliant recommendations from teachers. The right to receive a free higher education in the United States is given to a few, and Madonna moved to a university dormitory full of hope for her brilliant future. According to her teachers and colleagues, she had endurance, rare even for a dancer, which was further developed by her ballet skills, and subsequently allowed her to suffocate less during the performance of songs with a simultaneous dance.

According to choreographer Gaia Delang, the young Ciccone was "very slim and light, her dance was contagious." However, in technical terms, the budgetary Madonna was inferior to many ballerinas, causing their rejection and envy, and the impossibility of being absolutely the best caused protest and a desire to additionally stand out, as far as possible in the ballet class, with torn tights or unwashed short hair. In her free time, Madonna visited clubs in Detroit, in one of which she met black drummer Stephen Bray, her future co-author and co-producer.

After a year and a half at the University of Michigan, Madonna got to a master class with the famous New York choreographer Pearl Lang, and the dream was set on fire to get into her group. She dropped out of university and moved to New York in 1978, dreaming of one day opening her own dance studio.

After passing a tough casting, she entered the Lang group, but far from the first line-up, which did not allow her to pay rent. The dancer worked part-time at Dunkin' Donuts, where she burned down a donut oven by dancing behind the counter, and Burger King, where she also did not last, pouring jam on a rude visitor. She soon made her New York stage debut in Lang's "I Never Seen Another Butterfly Again" as a Jewish ghetto boy.

Soon, Madonna Ciccone began to weaken in class due to malnutrition, and Lang arranged for the dancer to work in the evenings for food. cloakroom attendant at the Russian Samovar restaurant. Then she worked as a model in an art studio and as a nude model for photographers. Madonna rented a room in a cheap, dangerous area of ​​New York, where she was once oral raped by a maniac armed with a knife. After a mental trauma, Madonna Ciccone became absent-minded in her classes and stopped believing in her dancing future, even with the Lang troupe, a student of the cult Martha Graham.

Due to a lack of funds to pay rent, Ciccone began auditioning for Broadway musicals and backing dancers. In 1979, at the casting for the world tour of the French disco singer Patrick Hernandez, the performance of Madonna Ciccone is liked by the Belgian producers of the singer Van Lie and Perrelin. Professionals cannot but pay attention to her plasticity and praise her pleasant voice, which sang the Christmas carol "Jingle Bells". To the complete surprise of Madonna, who had not previously considered herself a singer, she was invited to Paris, where they promised to make her "something like a dancing Edith Piaf."

The artist finally leaves the Lang troupe, her lover Dan Gilroy and spends six months with the Hernandez tour in France, Belgium and Tunisia. The producers convince her of the prospects of a career as a singer, but 20-year-old Madonna is passionate about punk rock, rebels against the Belgians and did not want to sing the proposed disco-pop material. Six months later, the singer falls ill with pneumonia and, after recovering, flies to New York, succumbing to the letters and persuasion of her boyfriend Gilroy, who was waiting for her in New York. Gilroy has a huge impact on the transformation of Madonna Ciccone from a dancer into a musician: he teaches how to play drums and electric guitar and the basics of composition. After daily drumming sessions to Elvis Costello's disc, Madonna becomes a pretty cool drummer and is accepted into Gilroy's Breakfast Club band. A few months later, the drummer begins to "pull the blanket over herself", offering her own material and leaves the team along with the joined guitarist.

In 1979, he starred in the amateur film "A Specific Victim" as a repentant sadomasochist who is raped in the toilet by a maniac. The unsuccessful amateur film was far from pornographic, but with the filing of the "sensational" press laid skepticism about Madonna Ciccone as a former porn star. According to biographers, this influenced her belated recognition as a musician. In 1980, together with Michael Monahan and Gary Burke, the singer gathered the quickly disbanded Madonna And The Sky group, and then created the rock group Emmy. Emmy - from Em, a diminutive of the first letter of the name Madonna (Madonna Ciccone signed and continues to sign her songs as M. Ciccone). The Emmys imitated the early Pretenders and Madonna played guitar and sang her own songs in the band. Ex-boyfriend singer Stephen Bray sits down on drums and with him the Emmy group continues to search for its own direction.

In the spring of 1981, Madonna Ciccone met the owner of the Gotham recording studio, Camilla Barbon. Soon, Barbon offers to become the singer's personal manager on the condition that she leaves the group, and Ciccone immediately agrees. Barbon decides that Madonna will perform without a guitar so that she can dance freely on stage.

Barbon proudly recalls that she was able to spot a potential star because she was one of the few female managers in the "male realm of show business." Before meeting the manager, the singer is in a desperate situation - speaking on stage in men's pajamas, asking for food from the guys she meets, she only rides a bicycle and lives illegally in a cheap studio.

At first, Madonna awakens only maternal feelings to the thirty-year-old lesbian Barbon: Camilla rents a house for her ward, assigns a salary of $ 100 a week and gives money as needed. Ciccone's band makes several demos and plays in small clubs and student parties.

Barbon unsuccessfully seeks a label contract for the singer, but major bosses don't want to risk it. Barbon sees the new Chrissie Hynde in the singer, but soon begins to abuse alcohol, be jealous of Madonna for everyone and make scenes.

African-American Bray, the drummer of Madonna's group, has been gravitating towards dance music and hip-hop since the days of Detroit and asks the singer to record something together. After the main rehearsal, they remain alone and compose four songs: "Everybody", "Ain't No Big Deal", "Stay" and "Burning Up". By that time, Barbon had been offering the singer to labels as a new rock star for a year and a half, and the ward decides to secretly distribute a dance cassette with a demo in the Dunsteria club in Manhattan, where representatives of labels and the press sometimes drop by.

The club's DJ, Marku Kaminsu, is impressed with Madonna's demo. He takes the cassette and arranges for them to meet with Island label chief Chris Blackwell. The meeting ends in failure - Madonna lives with Kamins in a room without hot water with milk crates instead of furniture and begins to sweat profusely due to excitement. Cummins is so annoyed by the failure and immediately, through his acquaintance Michael Rosenblatt, arranges for Ciccone to meet the founder of Sire Records, Seymour Stein, who immediately signs it, even while he is in the hospital with a heart attack. Ciccone becomes simply Madonna (Ciccone is often pronounced in English as Siccone), and Barbon cannot forgive the betrayal of his “baby” and for more than 20 years has not given permission to release the singer’s early songs.

Already in the 2000s, Barbon confesses to his then alcoholism and forgives Madonna the offense. Barbon highly appreciates her importance in the life of the singer, believing that thanks to her, Madonna "did not have to sleep with someone to get on stage", and "although at first there were rumors that someone was investing money in her, she was eventually started take it seriously".

All rights to Madonna's songs prior to this demo belong to Gotham Studios and Barbon, and the question arises of what to release as a trial single. All the songs on the cassette are co-written, but the friends trade the rights - Bray's 100% credit on "Ain't No Big Deal" in exchange for Madonna's full rights to "Everybody". Madonna likes "Everybody", but Stein wants to release Bray's "Ain't No Big Deal" and the flip side is supposed to be "Everybody".

While the release is being prepared, Bray manages to sell "Ain't No Big Deal" to another studio that is recording a new vocalist. There is no time for a new record and "Everybody", as Madonna wanted, is released as a single. With a zero budget for promotion, the singers decide not to put the photo on the cover so as not to scare off the colored audience of the "Negro disco-soul singer." "Everybody" climbs to number 3 on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart and then to number 107 overall, just short of the top 100 on Billboard's Hot 100. Management sees this as a great result given the zero PR cost and wants to make sure "Everybody" isn't random.

At Madonna's request, Kamins is replaced by a more experienced Warner Bros. staff arranger. Records Reggie Lucas. The second single "Burning Up" also reached number 3 on the dance hits chart, repeating the success of "Everybody", and after that Madonna was allowed to rent a studio to record her first album.

In July 1983, the debut album called Madonna was released. At first it goes unnoticed, but within a year it reaches #8 on the Billboard 200 and #6 on the UK chart. The singles "Borderline" (written by the Lucas), "Lucky Star" (by Madonna and dedicated to the retired Kamins) and "Holiday" become hits. Madonna considers the disc rather mediocre and is not too happy with working with Lucas, but years later the disc becomes a post-disco classic.

According to O'Brien, her music on the album sounds like a cross between Pat Benatar and Tina Marie. Madonna is the author of most of the album's songs, but the main commercial success comes from third-party "Holiday", found by the singer's boyfriend, DJ John "Marmalade" Benitez. This influenced the skepticism about Madonna as an author capable of writing a hit. The singer has also been criticized for her "girlish" vocals and manner of performance. Billboard writer Paul Grain made the prediction: "Cindy Lauper is a long time, and Madonna in six months will be of no use to anyone".

The singer responded to criticism: “People think that if you are sexy, visually attractive and excite the audience with this, then you simply have nothing more to offer. This is just my image. It probably looks like this on the outside, and I fit the stereotype, but I do all this quite consciously. I keep everything under control and wait for this to be understood and confused. ”.

After recording the album, on the recommendation of Stein, Freddie Demann, who previously worked for, becomes her manager. Despite initial criticism, in 2013 Rolling Stone named this album one of the top 100 debut albums of all time. At the moment, Madonna's album sales are 10 million copies, but this was greatly facilitated by the popularity of her next disc.

The second album, Like a Virgin, was released in 1984 and for the first time in her career, the singer topped the US album chart. The single of the same name remains at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for 6 weeks, and the album sells 26 million copies worldwide. The hits are "Material Girl", "Dress You Up", "Angel" and "Over and Over". Radio hit name "Material Girl"(Russian material girl, mercantile girl) is fixed as the nickname of the singer.

In 1984, Madonna performs the "title track" at the first MTV Video Music Awards and, breaking her heel, gets out of the situation as follows - she starts kneeling and wallowing on stage in a wedding dress and belt with the inscription BOY TOY, which shocks the TV audience. The song talks about "metaphysical virginity", and the clip, filmed in Venice (the city of Venus), combines sacred and profane images: Lion - the symbol of the patron saint of the city, the Evangelist Mark and the zodiac sign of Madonna Ciccone, the Bride of Christ and a modern experienced girl in crosses and fennecs. "Like a Virgin" is one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 200 Iconic Songs of All Time..

In 1985, the singer starred in an episode of the film "Visual Search". The soundtrack of the picture contains Crazy For You, Madonna's second No. 1 single in the US. Later, Madonna appears in the film "Desperate Search for Susan" and this role was positively evaluated by critics. The song featured in the film is "Into The Groove", the singer's first UK No. 1 single, and was written by Madonna Ciccone (with Bray), giving her good English press. The first tour of the singer The Virgin Tour takes place in the United States in 1985 and the Beastie Boys act as the opening act. The performances reflect the surge in the singer's popularity at this time: concerts start from halls for 2,000 people, and after 3 months, 22,000 spectators gather in Madison Square Garden. Tour calls "Madonnomania": girls massively dress up "under Susan / Madonna" from the film and clips.

In July 1985, Penthouse and Playboy magazines published nude black-and-white photographs of the singer, taken in 1979 and subsequently sold by photographer Martin Schreiber. This causes the first scandal in Madonna Ciccone's just-beginning big career, threatening her career, which she handles with her own hands. In the midst of criticism charity concert Live Aid, while wearing several layers of old-fashioned clothes, the singer is seen screaming "Take off your clothes!" crowd. She says that she will not take off her jacket even in the wild heat, as in a few years it can be used against her.

The New York Times editorial headlined "Naked Photos. Madonna: 'So what?'" becomes the basis for a painting by a friend of the singer, Keith Haring. As soon as the scandal with photographs subsides, in early August, the Los Angeles Times disseminates information that the film "A Specific Victim" (1979) with the participation of the artist is pornographic, which is immediately picked up by other publications. In October, the newspaper will write a rebuttal that, to the "disappointment of the fans," this is not the case. In the summer of 1985, on her own birthday, Madonna marries actor Sean Penn. The wedding is accompanied by an invasion of journalists in helicopters during the pronunciation of marriage vows. In his diary, he called this day "the most exciting in my life", noting the guests - "a delightful mixture of celebrities and nonentities."

Third True Blue album with a dedication to Sean Penn comes out in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine will describe it as "sounding from the heart". The record becomes the production debut of Madonna (together with Patrick Leonard) and is the most "gingerbread" and commercially successful release of the singer. The singer also changes her image and for the first time appears in the Hollywood image of a seductive blue-eyed blonde. The album includes the ballad "Live to Tell", a landmark for the singer, written for the film "At Point". "Live to Tell" becomes Madonna's first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 as a songwriter.

Three songs from the album got to the first line of Billboard: "Live to Tell", "Papa Don't Preach", "Open Your Heart", and "True Blue" and "La Isla Bonita" entered the top five. That same year, Madonna/Bray's Nick Kamen's "Each Time You Break My Heart" topped the UK charts, earning Madonna the much coveted recognition as a successful songwriter.

Madonna - La Isla Bonita

In 1987, Madonna is taken to the hospital for an x-ray after being hit on the head with a baseball bat. The press is awaiting trial, but the singer is not suing for domestic violence, as her husband Sean Penn is already facing a two-month sentence for fighting and driving while intoxicated.

Because of the aggressive behavior of "Mr. Madonna" towards journalists and his wife, the press begins to call them "evil Penns" and S&M (Sean & Madonna) - a hint at the sadomasochistic relationship in the celebrity family. In the same year, the singer starred in the film "Who is this girl?", Which fails miserably. However, the success of the soundtrack for the film is great - the title track of the same name becomes a # 1 hit in the US and the UK. The New York Times Magazine named it the worst film of the year. In the same year, he goes on the Who's That Girl World Tour, which fully compensates for the negative effect of the failed film. Criticism praised the performances for being theatrical and "turning a rock concert into a multimedia spectacle".

Reviewers write that the concerts are like a circus, where the heroine skillfully demonstrates the skills of an entertainer, an acrobat and a clown. The stage projection of Tamara Lempicka's The Musician (1928) shows a heavily made-up woman with long nails, which holds the lyre against the backdrop of New York skyscrapers, and becomes a characteristic of Madonna's entire work for many years. According to the authoritative music critic Lucy O'Brien, Madonna is an urbanized mixture of high art with glamor and vulgarity, where she is both a muse, a creator, and a sexy woman. By August 1987, Penn was released early from prison, and in December Madonna for the first time files for divorce, but unexpectedly takes them two weeks later.

In 1988, the singer made her debut on Broadway in the production of "Move", with an obvious desire to improve the actor's reputation. The performance receives rave reviews, but Madonna herself receives negative comments from almost all critics and is disappointed in the benefits of her husband's recommendations for her acting career. During rehearsals, Madonna becomes friends with actress and openly lesbian Sandra Bernhard, causing public rumors.

The singer and Bernhard appear in identical clothes on the David Letterman show, which leads to publications about the singer's bisexuality. The final separation from her husband takes place in December 1988 after the severe beatings described in the official protocol of the detention of Sean Penn. The marriage of the singer and Penn officially ends in January 1989 and the singer takes her statement to the police, maintaining friendly relations with her husband due to his hereditary problems with alcohol. In 2003, Penn speaks about Madonna for the first time in an interview with Oprah Winfrey: “She became the biggest star. I just wanted to make a movie and not attract unnecessary attention to myself. I was an embittered young man, so many demons lived in me that I don’t even know who could tolerate me then..

In early 1989, Madonna signed a contract with Pepsi, according to which her new song "Like a Prayer" debuted in the company's commercials. The commercial is harmless and shows the singer's childhood, but the music video for the song contains an anti-racist storyline and many Catholic symbols, including stigmata and burning crosses. The ambiguous relationship between the heroine of the Madonna and the statue of a black saint who came to life shocks viewers and provokes public organizations. The company removes advertising from rotation and terminates the contract, but the singer receives the amount of five million dollars due to her. Vatican officials denounce the video, and some cardinals threaten Madonna with excommunication, but it remains a threat. The song was named the 3rd best in the history of pop music by the British weekly New Musical Express, VH1 ranked the video in 2nd place.

The fourth album, Like a Prayer, was released at the end of 1989. and becomes a turning point in Madonna's career. Like a Prayer is written and produced in collaboration with Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray. The singer is producing her second album in a row and her desire to prove that True Blue's success was no accident is evident. Rolling Stone magazine described the album as "... as close to art as pop music can be" and included it in its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Leonard calls him "divorced" because of the singer's depression due to the painful breakup with Sean Penn. 'Express Yourself' becomes a feminist 'call to arms' with the "preaching of self-respect", representing the transition from reflection to action. Other songs are predictably themes of domestic violence ("Till Death Do Us Parts"), nostalgia for lost relationships with siblings ("Keep It Together"), dreams of a child ("Dear Jessie"). All the songs on the Like a Prayer album are written by Madonna, which makes the album the most personal, as previous discs featured one or two third-party songs.

Madonna

In 1990, the film with Madonna "Dick Tracy" and the soundtrack to it called I'm Breathless was released. The film was directed by Warren Beatty, who received a refusal from the singer to propose marriage after a year of relationship. I'm Breathless contains songs by renowned composer Stephen Sondheim and songwriting duo Madonna-Leonard. The singer enters the territory of jazz and the Broadway musical for the first time, which critics regard ambiguously. The most successful of I'm Breathless is "Vogue", which topped the major charts. Recitative “ladies with an attitude; fellows that were in the mood...” is written by Madonna on an airplane as an illustration of the 30s, but becomes a characteristic of the present. In Russia, he is known as the epigraph of the first chapter of the book "Duhless". The title of the book is a partial translation of Madonna's character's name from the film, "Breathless".

The Blond Ambition World Tour took place in 1990 in support of Like A Prayer and I'm breathless. Rolling Stone praises the tour for its innovative interweaving of theatre, ballet, film and concert at a stage level never seen before. The show's central idea of ​​juxtaposing masturbation and religious frenzy translates into a call for a boycott of the singer's performance in Rome.

Madonna tries to justify herself on the spot, delivering an excellent speech at the Leonardo Da Vinci airport: "My show is a theatrical play that invites the audience on an emotional journey ... I do not impose my idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhow to live on anyone, I simply describe my understanding of life to the audience, and let them evaluate everything for themselves." The singer avoids excommunication, but the concert is canceled due to low ticket sales. For the concert video of the tour, the singer receives her first Grammy, but she herself does not consider the award to be recognition of her work, since the nomination for the video is secondary.

In the same year, the singer once again shocked the public with a video for the song "Justify My Love". The video is banned from being shown on television due to the presence of erotic scenes. "Justify My Love" is the subject of several scandals, the first of which is related to plagiarism. Madonna uses the lyrics of a letter she saw from Ingrid Chavez, then girlfriend of the song's co-producer Lenny Kravitz, not wanting listeners to attribute it to another woman's fantasies. The Chicago Sun-Times stigmatizes the singer with words about the "unprecedented meanness" of stealing a song.

Madonna justifies herself and rewrites the song, replacing the lyrics with quotes from Revelation, but immediately receives accusations of anti-Semitism, which also have to be rejected. The unrhymed text of "Justify My Love" about the desire to make love and scandals affect the singer's pride and authorial vanity, making a qualitative leap in Madonna's creative search, for the first time bringing her into the territory of "adults".

In 1991, Sondheim's song "Sooner or Later" from "Dick Tracy" won an Academy Award and was performed by Madonna at the ceremony in character. It is from this moment that the singer is called the new Marilyn and begins to be compared with the deceased sex symbol, immediately predicting the same unenviable fate. A documentary film about the last tour is released in the same year and is called Madonna: Truth or Dare. A fragment with a joke/bravado “Madonna with a Bottle” outside the context of a party game (tell the truth or accept a challenge), reminiscent of forfeits, contributes to the perception of the singer in the context of pornography. Outside the USA and Canada (countries where the game was popular), distributors release the tape under a different name - "In Bed with Madonna", which does not reflect the content, but the singer has no right to change, although she admits that she "hates him because of his stupidity." The film is one of the top 10 highest-grossing documentaries of all time, and The New York Times calls the film "a smart, sassy, ​​flashy self-portrait."

In 1992, Madonna starred in the film A League of Their Own as a baseball player named Mae Mordabito. For the picture, she recorded the song "This Used to Be My Playground", which became No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the same year, Madonna founded her own entertainment company - Maverick, a joint venture with Time Warner. The deal provides for the singer record royalties on a par with Michael Jackson.

In 1992, the book-photoalbum "Sex" was published."Sex" contains illustrated sexual fantasies of her alter ego "Ms. Dita" talking to a psychoanalyst. The book is framed in a metal cover as an art object and is supposed to be a manifesto. "Sex" has sold 1.5 million copies in America alone and is causing a flurry of backlash in the media and AIDS-scared society.

The press arranges a multi-page funeral for Madonna's career, believing that she has gone too far. The book "Sex" touches on the themes of masturbation, and draws a clear parallel between sadomasochism and religious self-flagellation, and also contains an ironic attitude towards taboo. Lesbians felt that the singer was mocking their movement by portraying one of them, and called her a "sexy tourist". French journalist Françoise Tournier wrote: “When you get to the bottom of Sex, it’s like finding a poisonous mushroom, you understand that the one who is called the“ new baby Piaf ”is driven more by a thirst for money than a thirst for sex”.

"Sex" and the public backlash against it has been the subject of much scientific research and is considered the most powerful inoculation to a voyeuristic society from an exhibitionist celebrity/musician. The book has been the most wanted of the out-of-print books for several years. After the release of "Sex", Vanilla Ice's boyfriend broke off an 8-month relationship with the singer, allegedly not expecting his photographs to be published in the book.

In 1992, the fifth studio album Erotica was released. Erotica takes the second place in the American charts, and the title single - the third place in the Billboard Hot 100. In the year of release, Erotica was coolly received by critics and listeners because of the "shadow of the book", but subsequently begins to be considered one of the singer's strongest works. The singles "Erotica", "Rain", "Deeper and Deeper", "Bad Girl" and "Fever" (a cover version of an Elvis Presley song) do not have such success in the charts as the singer's previous works.

In 1993, without a release in cinemas, the film A Dangerous Game, directed by Ferrara and starring Madonna, was immediately released on video. The New York Times calls the painting "evil and morbid, where the pain feels real."

A Dangerous Game contains Sarah/Madonna's account of a real-life rape in 1978. Erotic thriller with a singer "Body as Evidence" (1993) contains scenes of sadomasochism with bondage and fails with critics and distributors. The press cultivates the opinion that the singer is a sex maniac, the embodiment of sin, making a career exclusively through bed.

The 1993 "The Girlie Show" tour of Europe and South America (instead of the US and Canada) contains more burlesque, irony and clowning than erotica, which softens the negative after the release of the book "Sex", the album Erotica and film roles. A concert in Puerto Rico causes pickets: the singer, dressed in a military uniform, in response to the whistle of the audience at the appearance of a huge American flag, conducts Puerto Rican in the crotch area. The episode was interpreted ambiguously due to the singer's multiple romantic entanglements with Puerto Ricans, and was later scrutinized as an example of the mutual influence of Latin American culture and the United States.

The sixth studio album, Bedtime Stories, was released in 1994 and became her first Grammy-nominated disc. The hits are "Secret", "Take a Bow", "Bedtime Story" and "Human Nature". Babyface/Madonna's "Take a Bow" reaches No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, but breaks a record streak of 32 consecutive Top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart.

The singer is changing her style towards R'n'B and hip-hop, and for the first time since Like A Virgin began working with major producers - Dallas Austin, David Foster, Dave Hall (who worked with Mariah Carey) and Marius De Vries and Nellie Hooper ( who worked with Björk). Bedtime Story, written by the already acclaimed Björk, becomes a milestone. Madonna perfectly masters the "Björk architecture of the text" and lays the foundation for her next albums in it. Relations with rapper Tupac Shakur end for a racist reason - his friends "couldn't believe that he was walking with a white girl."

The singer begins a short relationship with basketball player Denis Rodman. A year after the breakup, he writes a bestseller with an entire chapter about sex with Madonna. According to Lucy O'Brien, while reading this story in the press, it became obvious that Madonna, who wants to have a child, starts relationships with unsuitable men, which harms her career.

In 1995, "You" ll See "from the album of ballads Something to Remember becomes a hit. The album reminds the public a little about Madonna's talent as a songwriter and producer, which the press had previously ignored amid scandals. According to Taraborelli, "for the first time about her career was talked about more honestly and fairly.” In 1996, the singer starred in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita. where he performs the songs of the soundtrack. For the record, Madonna begins taking vocal lessons from Joan Lader for the first time, which brings results. On the Evita soundtrack, she demonstrates her upper register and diaphragm singing for the first time. The film about Argentine president's controversial wife is receiving positive reviews from film critics and author Andrew Lloyd Webber. Weber wins an Oscar for Madonna's performance of "You Must Love Me". Song Don't Cry For Me Argentina becomes a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart, and the singer receives a Golden Globe for Best female role comedy or musical.

In October 1996, Madonna's daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone-Leon is born. The girl's father is the singer's then boyfriend, Cuban fitness trainer and aspiring actor Carlos Leon. Seven months after the birth of their daughter, they break up, and Madonna incurs the wrath of public organizations "for a complete family" and accusations of "pregnancy in order to promote the film." The singer baptizes the girl in Catholicism and named after the city of Lourdes in France, which her extremely religious mother dreamed of visiting. During pregnancy, the singer delves into yoga, the study of Buddhism and Kabbalah, which she describes as "a lesson in physics, a bridge between science and spirituality", and not as a religious teaching.

Ray of Light's seventh studio album (1998) reflected the "spiritual rebirth" of the singer and became decisive in all her work. The direction of his development was influenced by motherhood, a philosophical rethinking of reality and an affair with the English screenwriter and actor Andy Bird. The record received critical acclaim, and was called "one of the greatest pop masterpieces of the 90s" by the authoritative music publication Slant Magazine.

The disc was included in the list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and ranked 28th in the "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s" by Rolling Stone magazine. The release was accompanied by commercial success: the album topped the national charts in Australia, Canada, the UK and most of Europe, and in the US it finished at number two on the Billboard 200, losing first place to the Titanic soundtrack.

Ray of Light has sold over 16 million copies worldwide. Album single Frozen the first time since "Vogue" (1990) in the discography of the singer reached number one in the UK chart. In the US, the song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, where Madonna set the record for the most singles to reach number two. On the disc, the singer "attentively peered into the past and thought a lot about the mystical side of life." After Ray Of Light, Madonna again saw a progressing musician. Evaluating the work, the singer did her best to extol the "brilliant" producer of the album, William Orbit, but he himself considered his contribution to "her" album rather modest. In a tradition of condescending attitude towards pop writers/performers, critics attributed the success of the record to Orbit. Ray of Light was awarded a Grammy(including in one of the main nominations "Best Pop Album").

Madonna

Hits were "The Power Of Good-Bye", "Nothing Really Matters", "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" and the title track "Ray of Light". The video for "Ray of Light" last received 6 MTV Video Music Awards in 1999. Madonna's performance at the ceremony with the Sanskrit song "Shanti/Ashtangi" and Ray of Light in an Indian dress with a dot on the forehead, symbolizing devotion to God, provoked protests from the country's Hindu organizations and accusations of blasphemy.

The image of the singer was influenced by her passion for the book Memoirs of a Geisha. In the same 1999, she released the single "Beautuful Stranger" (Russian beautiful foreigner), written for the soundtrack to the film "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me". The song became a big hit outside the US and earned Madonna another Grammy for "Best Song Written for a Feature Film". The singer's relationship with Andy Bird, described in this song as a "beautiful foreigner", lasted about a year. In the summer of 1998, accompanied by him, she attended a party of Sting and his wife Trudy Styler, where she met Guy Ritchie, her future husband and father of their second child. Richie was not free, dating model Tanya Strecker, and romantic relationship with the singer arose a year later, and their development included a public fight in a bar between Richie and Bird. This story later became the basis of Robbie Williams' song "She's Madonna" (2006).

In 2000, a film was released starring Madonna "Best Friend", for which she recorded a hit. "American Pie" and the ballad "Time Stood Still". These songs ended the Ray of Light era. In early 2000, she became pregnant by Guy Ritchie, who worked on the film "Snatch". and was forced to move to him in London to record an album. In August 2000, their son Rocco was born.

In September 2000, the eighth studio album Music was released. The disc received positive reviews from critics and became #1 in both the UK and the US, repeating the success of Like a Prayer (1989). Under the influence of the co-author and co-producer of the disc, Mirva completely changed her sound and began to use a vocoder for the first time. Three singles were released from Music: Music, "Don't Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like for a Girl". The music video for "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was banned from MTV and VH1 due to its violence. For the album, the singer chose the grotesque image of a cowgirl, expressing the ironic attitude of a Londoner towards America.

December 22, 2000 married Richie, the former stepson of a baronet, which automatically ranked the singer among the English aristocracy. The wedding in a Scottish castle was held according to the Presbyterian rite. Soon Madonna became a subject of Great Britain. The "made" British accent of a native of Michigan became the subject of irritation of the Americans and the irony of the British. This has taken root in the colloquial language with the expressions "Madonna syndrome" and "Madge complex". Living on his own estate, Ashcombe, in a Wiltshire village, influenced the mood of subsequent works and attitudes towards the United States.

In 2001, for the first time in 8 years, the singer resumed touring, and the sold-out Drowned World Tour took place. The concerts received positive reviews from critics despite the dark dramaturgy. After the September 11 attacks, Madonna excluded from the show the moment of firing a gun at a samurai, who, according to the plot, was trying to cut off her head. For the first time since the early 1980s, the singer began to accompany on the guitar, and was nominated for the Orville Gibson Award.

At the end of 2001, a single was released for the James Bond film "Die Another Day" under the same name. Die Another Day. For an episodic role in the film, the singer received the Golden Raspberry, in addition to the title of Worst Actress of the Millennium. The song received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song and a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Song. Movie "Gone" was critically acclaimed and was released straight to DVD in the UK. At the moment, this is the last picture of Madonna as an actress.

The ninth album, American Life, was released in 2003. and topped the US and UK charts. American Life was written and produced by Madonna in collaboration with Mirva in a minimalist concept. American Life quickly lost ground and became the biggest sales failure of its career at the time. The album received mixed reviews from critics due to the theme of debunking the "American Dream" in light of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. Later it was rated higher. In addition to "Die Another Day" (2002), the singles were "American Life", "Hollywood", "Love Profusion", "Nothing Fails".

In France, it was a great success because of the pacifist mood, since this country did not participate in the operation against the Taliban. The video for the title track featured a parody of US President George W. Bush kissing Saddam Hussein. After accusations of lack of patriotism, a ban on playing Madonna's new songs on American Republican radio stations followed. A week before the release, she said that "there is no better time for a pacifist video than the time of war." At the last moment, she withdrew the clip, stating "unwillingness to embarrass people whose relatives are fighting in Afghanistan", which did not affect the ban.

In September 2003, Madonna Ciccone made her debut in children's literature with the picture book English Roses, topping The New York Times bestseller list. Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller unexpectedly shared his positive opinion about the book, calling it "more than just a children's fairy tale" in the newspaper Rzeczpospolita. Madonna's performance at the MTV ceremony provoked a scandal. The singer appeared in the suit of the groom, and Christina Aguilera played the role of brides. The French kiss with Spears caused a scandal in the press due to a hint of lesbianism. The singer was justified by the logic of the kiss in the performed stage images.

Madonna and Britney Spears - Kiss

In 2004, the Re-Invention World Tour took place in support of American Life. Unlike the Drowned World Tour, it contained enough of the old hits in a new sound, in addition to the songs from the new album. The performances received a mixed response from critics due to the general politicization and overt support for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. A second documentary, I'm going to tell you a secret, was filmed during the tour. The film was made in the style of "In bed with Madonna", but showed the singer's passion for "The Zohar" and a touching relationship with her children and husband Guy Ritchie. A DVD of the film and a live album of the same name was released a year later. According to Lucy O'Brien, the film began to merge the singer with the image of the righteous.

In 2005, Madonna Ciccone had an accident on an estate in Wiltshire. The new horse unsuccessfully threw the singer to the ground during the first ride. Before the accident in the village, Madonna had completely grown into the role of an English aristocrat (by her husband), a reclusive wife and mother of a family. In addition to the British accent and riding, she began to drink ale in local pubs, learned to fish. The singer began to hunt pheasants, although before that she was a vegetarian, for which she was blacklisted by PETA.

After the horse "played polo" with the singer, she lost consciousness and woke up with multiple fractures. After that, the singer changed internally and outwardly lost a lot of weight. The record was called Confessions on a Dance Floor and returned Madonna to leading positions in almost all charts, as well as the title of queen of the dance floor. This happened not least thanks to the mega-hit "Hung Up", written on the basis of the Abba sample. Madonna Ciccone wrote and produced the record with her longtime engineer and keyboardist, Stuart Price. Due to the lack of rotation of Madonna's new songs in the United States since the American Life scandal, the singer's homeland became one of the few countries where the single "Hung Up" did not become No. 1, but only took 7th place.

During the subsequent tour, another scandal took place, according to Lucy O'Brien, caused by the experience of the proximity of death in connection with a fall from a horse. It was the performance of the classic ballad “Live To Tell” a la Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns on a mirrored cross, accompanied by footage of suffering children in Africa and quotes from Matthew 25:40.At the end of the issue, addresses of donation sites for sick African children were shown.This speech raised questions and anger from social activists, who quickly died out due to the distribution of videos through the Internet, the singer's statements and the meaning of the song itself.

All tickets for the concerts of the tour were sold out, except for the singer's first concert in Moscow, where the Russian Orthodox Church called on believers to boycott the performance, calling it "blasphemous". At the end of the tour, the singer and husband adopted a one-year-old child from Malawi, David Bandu. This caused another scandal and a wave of protests against the "purchase" of the child, since the then laws of Malawi, despite the 1 million orphans in the country, did not allow adoption by foreign citizens. In the same year, Madonna Ciccone produced and narrated a documentary about the catastrophic state of affairs in the African country of Malawi called I Am Because We Are, which was screened at the 2008 Tribeca Festival.

In 2007, Madonna Ciccone began to master a new profession for herself as a film director, writing the script for a partly autobiographical film parable. "Filth and Wisdom". In the film, the hero is trying to promote his rock band, while earning his living by beating up masochists for money and dressing up as. "Dirt and Wisdom" with Evgeny Gudzem in the title role got to the Berlin Film Festival in the "Panorama" program, where it was coolly received by critics. Film critics positively noted the music of the gypsy folk-punk rock band Gogol Bordello and the presence of the main character, which brought Russian obscenity to the British non-commercial film.

Eleventh album Hard Candy was released in early 2008 and topped the charts in 37 countries, including the US and the UK. To work on Hard Candy, Madonna Ciccone turned to the main hit-makers of the second half of the 2000s: Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams. The reason for the change in style, the singer explained the interest in these artists and the desire to learn from the new generation. The singer admitted that she wanted to regain the love of American radio listeners, whom she lost with the 2003 anti-war album. The record received mixed reviews from critics for the lack of originality inherent in previous works, and some crisis of the singer herself, reflected in the provocative cover of the album, which contrasts sharply with the style of "Ray of Light".

The album's first single was a duet with Timberlake 4 Minutes. The song 4 Minutes only partly lived up to expectations, becoming a radio hit and Madonna's most successful single in the States since Don "t Tell Me" (2001), but never became No. 1 in the US due to low radio rotation, despite record The song became her record-breaking 13th No. 1 single in the UK and hit in Europe with "Give It 2 ​​Me" featuring Pharrell Williams.

The tour in support of the album was called the Sticky and Sweet Tour and contained no provocative material. The Sticky and Sweet Tour broke the record for solo artist tour success previously set by Madonna herself with the previous Confessions Tour. The gay singer's brother Christopher Ciccone's book, Life with My Sister Madonna, published against her will in early 2008, showed Guy Ritchie as a clear homophobe and slippery type manipulating his sister. During the tour in October 2008, the singer announced her divorce from her husband. On June 12, 2009, the singer adopted a Malawian girl Mercy James, the desire to adopt whom is considered the main reason for Madonna's divorce from her husband, who had three children. For the first time in her career, the singer decided to extend the tour until the summer of 2009.

In 2009, the release of the third collection of Madonna's best songs took place. celebration, which ended the singer's relationship with the label Warner Bros. The music video for the song "Celebration" features the singer's boyfriend, model Jesús Luz. In 2010, Madonna exclusively granted the rights to the entire catalog of her songs to the television series Glee. In April 2010, the episode "The Power of Madonna" was released. The episode received approval from the singer, and the soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 album chart.

In 2010, Madonna Ciccone opened a chain of her own fitness clubs named after her Hard Candy album. In 2010, Madonna Ciccone and her daughter Lourdes Leon launched Material Girl, a youth clothing brand. At the presentation of the collection, Madonna Ciccone met Pokemon Crew breakdancer Brahim Zeba, who performed at the event, who became the singer's boyfriend for 3 years and also starred in her video.

In December 2011, the film “WE. We believe in love", where Madonna Ciccone directed and wrote the script. The film was critically acclaimed, but Andrea Riseborough's performance as Wallis Simpson and the film's soundtrack drew enthusiastic comments. The continuation of the "Russian" theme in the second picture of Madonna was noted: the main character's name is Eugene and he is depicted as an intelligent positive character.

In early 2012, Madonna's song "Masterpiece" from the movie "We. We Believe in Love" was recognized as the best at the "Golden Globe" awards ceremony.

Madonna

On February 5, 2012, Madonna performed during the break of the 46th Super Bowl, which was broadcast on NBC. She sang a medley of "Vogue", "Music", "Open Your Heart", "Express Yourself", "Like a Prayer" and the new song "Give Me All Your Luvin'" with Nicki Minaj, M.I.A. and the LMFAO group. Madonna's game and performance became the most watched TV show in US history. Patriotic critics noted that the singer inappropriately ironic about the "sanctity" of the Super Bowl for Americans, using the images of the goddess Isis / Cleopatra performed by Elizabeth Taylor. In the US, the new single set the record for top ten hits for a solo artist, breaking the record. The single failed in the UK.

The singer's twelfth album, MDNA, was released on March 26, 2012 and topped the US and UK charts. Critics considered the record a dark album of a painful divorce, and The Telegraph called it "the latest success" due to Madonna's lack of progress as a songwriter. The video for the second single Girl Gone Wild was censored due to explicit scenes. The record, without a promotional tour in support, became the worst in terms of sales in the singer's career.

The MDNA Tour began on May 31 and was the most successful tour of 2012. The concerts caused public outcry in the US due to the use of mock weapons on stage. Billboard once again named Madonna the record-breaking music industry with $34.6 million for the year. Madonna won 3 Billboard Music Awards in 2013. In August 2013, Forbes magazine named her the Celebrity Earnings Leader of the Year, earning $125 million.

On September 24, Madonna released the 17-minute short film "secretprojectrevolution", performing a cover of Elliott Smith's "Between the Bars" at the premiere. The film was billed as human rights and was the result of Madonna's collaboration with photographer Steven Klein. At the same time, “secretprojectrevolution” in HD and 2K format was officially released for free download after registration on the BitTorrent “Bundle” website. The film was the first project in the framework of the joint action of Madonna and "VICE" called "ArtForFreedom" (Russian Art for Freedom). The film was accompanied by the launch of Madonna's eponymous magazine on the Flipboard service.

In December 2014, an unexpected leak of 13 demo versions of songs that were recorded while working on Madonna's thirteenth studio album occurred on the Internet. The artist was furious at what had happened, leaving later several formidable messages against the pirates. A few days after the leak, on December 20, Madonna officially announced the thirteenth longplay, called Rebel Heart. In connection with the pre-order of the album, six new songs out of 19 were made available, including the lead single "Living for Love". The album was released on March 10, 2015.

In the 2016 presidential election, she supported her distant relative -. Two weeks before the election, she announced the performance of stand-up comedian Amy Schumer, known in the United States for her below-the-belt jokes. Ciccone joked that she would give a blowjob to anyone who voted for Clinton.

On January 21, 2017, during a speech at the Women's March mass protest, Madonna twice used obscene language against the opponents of the action. In the performance with the songs "Express Yourself" and "Human Nature" that followed the speech, she changed the last line to a curse at the 45th president, with whom she had been in open hostility since the early 1990s. The singer was criticized for swearing and speaking out loud "anti-patriotic" thoughts about the White House bombing. No prosecution ensued due to the general context of the speech, in which she also quoted the Anglo-American poet Auden.

Since September 2017, Madonna has moved to permanent residence in Lisbon, where her adopted son David Banda successfully qualified for the football academy of FC Benfica.

Madonna's Height: 163 centimeters

Madonna's personal life:

Madonna's first husband was an Oscar-winning actor and director Sean Penn. They got married in 1985, and after 4 years Madonna decided to divorce - they often quarreled, and her husband also beat her.

On the set of Dick Tracy, Madonna had an affair with director and lead actor, Hollywood legend Warren Beatty. However, she did not marry the artist.

The Cuban boyfriend Carlos Leon became the father of her daughter in 1996 (the diva will part with him six months later). Madonna's daughter was named Lourdes, she has already celebrated her 18th birthday, and she has a business together with her mother - her own clothing line.

Madonna and Carlos Leon

In mid-1998, together with then-friend Andy Bird, the singer attended a party with Sting. There was a meeting with the British director, who would later become her husband and change Madonna's personal life, and very much.

In 2000, Madonna moved in with her lover, and the couple's son Rocco was born in August of the same year. Divorced in 2008.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie

Discography of Madonna:

1983 - Madonna
1984 - Like a Virgin
1986 - True Blue
1989 - Like a Prayer
1992 - Erotica
1994 - Bedtime Stories
1998 - Ray of Light
2000 - Music
2003 - American Life
2005 - Confessions on a Dance Floor
2008 - Hard Candy
2012-MDNA
2015 - Rebel Heart.

Filmography of Madonna:

1985 - Vain search for Susan
1987 - Who is this girl?
1987 - Dick Tracy
1991 - In bed with Madonna
1992 - A league of their own
1993 - Dangerous Games
1996 - Evita
2000 - Best friend
2002 - Gone
2005 - Madonna. I want to reveal my secrets to you
2002 - I am because we are
2008 - Filth and Wisdom
2011 - WE. We believe in love
2017 - (Her Story)

Madonna's books:

Sex
"English roses"
"Mr. Peabody's Apples"
"Jacob and the Seven Thieves"
"The Adventures of Abdi"
"Lotsa Tight Purse"
"English roses. Love and friendship".

Name: Madonna (real name - Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone) Born: August 16, 1958, Michigan, USA.

Childhood and youth

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born on August 16, 1958 in a small town near Michigan in a large family. Her father was an engineer and her mother a technician.

Since childhood, the girl was very athletic and disciplined - she studied ballet, dance, studied well and diligently.

When Madonna was 5 years old, her mother died of cancer, and the upbringing of all six children was taken over by the father of the family, Silvio Anthony Ciccone. It is known that he used a rather interesting incentive for his children to study well - good grades in this family were financially rewarded, which really worked, because all the children, including Madonna, studied with enthusiasm. Peers disliked the young Madonna for her brilliant academic performance and the location of teachers.

By the way, Madonna is the real name of the singer, and not a pseudonym, as is commonly thought. The girl was named after her mother - Madonna Louise. And the name Veronica Madonna took for herself during the Catholic sacrament of chrismation - in Catholicism this sacrament at a conscious age, choosing a name in honor of the desired patron, the Madonna chose Saint Veronica.

Youth and early career

Madonna graduated from high school as an external student in 1976, six months before her final exams, and continued her dance education at the University of Michigan. The choice of a "frivolous" profession caused a crack in Madonna's relationship with her father, who wanted to see her daughter as a doctor or lawyer.

There is a legend that Madonna went to New York with 37 dollars in her pocket and in a few years became a world-class star. Perhaps this is partly a legend ($ 37), but the fact that Madonna, only with her perseverance and hard work, made her way to the musical Olympus is an absolute truth.

Having moved to New York, Madonna worked part-time in a burger and donut shop, but she could not stay anywhere for a long time, everywhere she was hampered by her “impudent” character. Madonna simultaneously danced on stage in clubs and played in theatrical productions. A little later, she tried to stand at the microphone as part of one of the groups, and it became clear - yes, perhaps the girl does not have outstanding vocal abilities, but there is more than enough charisma and artistry.

Soon, a representative of a major record label noticed the bright girl, and before signing the contract, Madonna Ciccone, in order to simplify, began to be called simply “Madonna”, since the Italian surname Ciccone was often incorrectly pronounced in the American manner “Siccon”. In addition, the performer considered her name "rock and roll" and "well suited to the stage." True, her pseudonym (and in fact her name) still excites religious fanatics in many countries who believe that the Madonna can only be a household name for the Mother of God.

The debut single "Everybody" was released in 1982 and became the first in a series of successes of Madonna as a singer-songwriter. From the very beginning, Madonna chose provocation as her calling card - and she did not lose. Today you will not surprise anyone with ultra-short minis, sexy clips and shocking confessions, but in the early 80s the situation in show business was somewhat different, and that is why the appearance of Madonna produced the effect of an exploding bomb and ensured her popularity for many years, which had not been seen before. knew more than one female singer in world history.

Even in the very first songs and videos there was a provocation and a challenge - the clips "Like a virgin" and "Like a prayer" challenged not only social norms, but also the church. By the way, Madonna will not get tired of “trolling” churchmen all her life, so even one of the last tours of the MDNA singer opened with a “church” choir, after the entry of which it turned out that it was not the “monks” who sang, but scantily clad male dancers in high heels.

World fame, the book Sex and the musical "Evita"

The 1984 album True Blue marked Madonna's dizzying success already at the global level - the album topped the charts in 14 countries. Followed by Like A Prayer, Erotica and Bedtime Stories. As is clear from the names, Madonna continued to exploit the themes of religion and sex, filmed provocative video clips "on the verge", shocked the public with scandalous antics, but to Madonna's credit it should be said that these were never drunken antics or stories "high". Madonna has always been an adherent of a healthy lifestyle, freedom of thought, sexuality and views.

In 1992, Madonna founded her own record label, Maverick, a joint venture with Time Warner. In the same year, as a promotion for the upcoming album, the limited edition photo album Sex was released, which caused a huge scandal, but was released in a limited edition and is still in great demand to this day. Famous photographers, top models and well-known media personalities participated in the creation of the book, including Steven Meisel, Naomi Campbell, Vanilla Ice, Isabella Rossellini and others.

In 1996, the singer starred in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita. She received a Golden Globe for this role. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber won an Oscar for Madonna's performance of "You Must Love Me".

Ray of Light

Madonna's seventh studio album Ray of Light (1998) reflected the "spiritual rebirth" of the singer and became the second landmark in her work after Like a Prayer, and, according to many critics, the best of her career in general. Whether this is due to the birth of a daughter, a passion for yoga, bondage and meditation is unknown, but the exciting mix of electronic rhythms, ethnic motifs and Madonna's crystal voice still remains an example of an ideal pop album.

Then Madonna released the commercially successful album "Music", the politically oriented "American Life" and the good electronic dance "Confessions on a DanceFloor", the slightly funky "Hard Candy", the dark MDNA and the latest "Rebel Heart" at the moment.

Madonna's personal life

Madonna's first husband was the famous Hollywood actor Sean Penn. The marriage of two eccentric stars was very scandalous, there were, according to rumors, even episodes of assault on the part of Penn, which caused a fairly quick break between the two artists.

Madonna gave birth to her first child, daughter Lourdes Leon, from Cuban fitness trainer and aspiring actor Carlos Leon in 1996.

The second spouse of Madonna was also a representative of the cinema world - the British director Guy Ritchie, from whom Madonna gave birth to her second child - the son of Rocco, who, after the divorce of the spouses in 2008, remained with his father.

Health and sports

Madonna has always loved sports and promoted a healthy lifestyle. Pilates and yoga are especially fond of the star. In addition, Madonna is known for her phenomenal discipline, according to her coach, the only workout that the star allows herself to “skipping” is on Christmas.

In 2010, Madonna opened a network of her own fitness clubs, named after the Hard Candy album, there is one such club in Moscow.

Public and charitable activities

Madonna has been helping the poor African country of Malawi for many years, founded a fund to help the citizens of this country, built several schools for the children of Malawi and adopted two children from there - a boy, David Banda, and a girl, Mercy James.

During the last US presidential election, Madonna was an ardent supporter of candidate Hillary Clinton. Known for her harsh criticism of the current US President Donald Trump.

The legend of world show business, the queen of the stage - these are the epithets that are awarded to this unsurpassed woman, an outstanding personality. She knows how to attract attention and hold it. Singer Madonna is a star who needs no introduction. Comprehensively gifted with talents, she falls in love at first sight.

Star Trek

How old is Madonna? Such a question comes to mind when you look at her chiseled body, young face and shining eyes. She can be given about thirty years, no more. But facts are stubborn things, and they say that the singer was born on August 16, 1958. Thus, this year she will celebrate her 56th birthday. How old is Madonna now? 55.

The star's full name is Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. She is originally from Bay City, Michigan. In the veins flows the blood of French Canadians (on the mother) and American Italians (on the father). When Madonna was born, the family already had two children, after her three more were born. They lived together and piously.

The girl's relationship with others was difficult. Madonna recalls that she was not a favorite, but she did not allow herself to be offended. The loss of her mother at an early age (she died at thirty) turned out to be an expansion of the list of relatives for her. The father married again, thus, another brother and sister appeared in the family.

Dancing in the life of a celebrity

How old is Madonna difficult to answer, looking at her body. And all thanks to fitness and dancing. Very early, the girl persuaded her father to enroll her in ballet. Then she went to school, the University of Michigan, but left because the teacher persuaded her to devote herself to a career. The future queen of the stage moved to New York. The city of the big apple taught her to fight poverty and for her place under the sun. She danced in several bands, took part in the world tour of Patrick Eronandez, met Dan Gilroy. Together with this musician, she creates the first rock band, and then the second. Recordings were successful, and then fell into the hands of the founder of Sire Records Seymour Stein.

Madonna's rise as a singer

How old is Madonna - it did not matter. She set a goal for herself and confidently walked towards it. She personally distributed her notes among the right people at the Dunsteria in Manhattan. Then she began an affair with the king of disc jockeys, Mark Kamins, who did his best to get Warner Bros to promote the rising star. The first single - "Everybody" - gained immense popularity and became a real hit. The success of the song was repeated by the video for it, despite the extremely minimal budget. The second single confirmed that Madonna is popular and has a great future.

worldwide success

The perfect figure of Madonna, her passion for dancing determined the direction in which the girl worked. Dance compositions were close to her, and it was they who brought her to the top of the hit parade. The singer's first album was sold out in the amount of 19 million copies, and it is still considered the most successful. After that, the star began to be invited to act in films, she continues to sing songs and goes on her first world tour.

How old is Madonna the singer was already interesting to people, because in 1986 the first nude photos in black and white appeared in men's glossy magazines. True, the star, who began a serious relationship with Sean Penn, forbade them to be published. The celebrity's third album received good criticism from the outside and entered it into the Guinness Book of Records. Together with her beloved, Madonna plays in films and theater, writes soundtracks for them, and works on remixes.

Scandalous reputation

You can tell exactly how old Madonna is by looking at her passport. A woman who during her lifetime was given a four-meter statue (the city of Pacentro) always looks young and seductive. The rupture of relations with Sean Penn did not stop the singer's victorious march. And scandals fueled interest in her. The first such case occurred during the cooperation with Pepsi. The star with the chaste pseudonym used a lot of Catholic symbols and wore overly revealing outfits. An advertisement for a popular drink featuring Madonna was heavily condemned by the Vatican. As a result, the company breaks off cooperation, and the girl receives decent compensation. A year later, the star again shocks the public with a clip of erotic content.

Madonna and her professions

So, the world knows Madonna as an excellent dancer, a successful singer with a charming voice and a brawler. But in 1992, she founded Maverick, an entertainment company. Together with partner Time Warner, Madonna releases a book with a loud title (“Sex”), the album “Erotica”, but then she changes her style. Passion for Kabbalah and Judaism has borne fruit: the image of the singer has become restrained and more chaste. Confirming her unofficial title of "Queen of the Stage", Madonna records diverse albums. And between all this, she starred in Dolce & Gabbana commercials, creates youth clothing collections with her daughter, tries herself as a screenwriter and director, and opens a network of fitness clubs.

Madonna's personal life

Such an attractive and charming woman has always been the subject of adoration for the stronger sex. Madonna had many novels and connections, but there was also a place for a serious relationship. The singer entered into her first marriage in 1985 with Sean Penn. Their relationship was exemplary, but soon the couple began to compete with each other. The nickname "Mr. Madonna", given to Penn by journalists, he clearly did not like. Four years later they separated. Then the star had an affair with Warren Beatty, a famous womanizer, but it did not lead to anything.

There were rumors that Madonna loves women, and actress Sandra Bernhard, a model, was called her partners. But the queen of the stage herself refutes this, speaking out for traditional relationships. Her marriage to a British director lasted seven years, and after that she met with Jesús Lusa, a Brazilian young model.

Children of a successful woman

Madonna has four children: two biological and two adopted. The eldest is the daughter of Lourdes, whose father was the singer's personal sports coach, but did not become her husband. At what age did Madonna give birth for the first time? The girl was born on October 14, 1996, which means that the newly-made mother was 38. In 2000, that is, at the age of 42, the woman gave birth to a son. An adopted daughter (Merci James) and a son (David Banda) are from Malawi.

Parameters and other interesting facts

Madonna is an icon of beauty and style, the image of a confident and successful woman, a strong and purposeful person. Of course, the parameters of her figure are of interest to both fans of her work and the stronger sex. We will please both those and others by revealing a few interesting facts about the singer.

The practically unchanged appearance of the star is the subject of controversy among her fans. Some claim that Madonna uses the services plastic surgeons, others believe that sports, proper nutrition and anti-aging procedures support natural beauty. The singer herself denies rhinoplasty and other interventions by doctors, assuring that she uses high-quality cosmetics, does hardware lifting and chemical peeling, and loves Thai massage. She also tries to avoid stress, adheres to the correct regime of work and rest.

Madonna weighs only 55 kg, and all due to the fact that she does not have excess fat accumulation, but consists mainly of muscle tissue, which is heavier. Daily fitness, yoga and a special diet, as well as rehearsals of new shows, help keep fit. In addition, the celebrity is engaged in Pilates, karate, boxing, tennis, horseback riding.

The growth of the queen of pop music is small, only 162-164 cm. But, as you can see, this did not cause the complexes to appear. A high heel or platform always accompanies Madonna (with the exception of sports training). The star easily wears a heel about twenty centimeters high and looks down on everyone.

Here she is, Madonna, an inimitable symbol of the sexual revolution, emancipation and femininity!

Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone) is the queen of the American stage, who loves to shock the audience with her performances.

Included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful singer in the history of show business.

Included in the list of 25 women who have had the greatest influence on the development of modern music.

Childhood and youth

The future singer was born on August 16, 1958 in Michigan, USA. She was born the third child in the family, but the first girl, so she was named after her mother - Madonna.

This name was extremely rare, although Madonna had no idea about it in her early years.

Mom worked from time to time in the X-ray laboratory, but was more involved in a large family.

Father - Silvio Anthony successfully served in the defense concern as a design engineer.

The musical abilities of the baby were transferred from her mother. She played the piano beautifully and sang, but she did not want to develop professionally.

Madonna's mother was an extremely pious person. When she developed cancer during her sixth pregnancy, she took it as God's punishment and refused treatment.

Soon Madonna was left without a mother, and her father remarried. The family moved frequently. Children have always attended only Catholic schools.

Constantly drunk father, drug addict brothers - all this contributed to the fact that Madonna tried to be at home as little as possible.

A closed, modest nerd girl at the age of 14 decides to prove herself. For the first time, she shocked the audience from the stage.

At the talent show, dressed in short shorts, a top and painted in paint, the girl rouses The Who's "Baba O'Riley".

At the age of 15, she began to seriously engage in ballet choreography, but too late to get good plasticity.

At this age, Madonna acquires a reputation as a scandalous and promiscuous student, with a strange and repulsive appearance.

Guys are afraid of her, and girls think she's crazy. In high school, the future star is fond of theater productions and participates in musicals.

However, Madonna has a high level of intelligence, and, despite all the oddities, she always studied with excellence.

In 1976, she received a certificate as an external student. Then the stubborn girl enters the dance department at the University of Michigan for free education.

He spends his free time from studies in numerous clubs. After studying for 2 courses, she drops out and moves to New York.

Early musical career: rock band

There she undergoes numerous auditions for musicals and as part of the backup dancers of musical groups.

In New York, she continues to dance, and begins to study percussion and electric guitar.

Soon she is accepted as a drummer in Gilroy's group Breakfast Club. In 1980, Madonna, together with Gary Burke, organized the Madonna And The Sky team.

The team did not have success, and the group soon broke up. Later, another unsuccessful attempt was made to conquer the musical Olympus as part of the Emmy rock group.

In 1981 there is an acquaintance with K. Barbon, the owner of a recording studio.

This meeting marked the beginning of the career of a great singer.

The formation of the singer and the path to fame

Madonna, at the urging of Barbon, leaves her group and becomes her manager.

At a large Manhattan venue, Madonna starts a relationship with Mark Kamins.

Soon she gives him to listen to her available recordings. He was delighted and took the disk to the deputy. director of Island Records.

However, in a personal meeting, Madonna was refused cooperation due to the smell of sweat. The girl was then in distress and practically lived on the street.

M. Keimins was not satisfied with the refusal, and handed over the cassette to Warner Bros. the CEO himself. Here, the aspiring singer was lucky.

The first single "Everybody" immediately occupies a leading position in the dance club music chart.

He missed quite a bit to get into the "hot" hundred hits according to Billboard magazine.

In 1983, the first album of the singer "Madonna" was released. It doesn't get popular right away.

Only by the end of the year the album enters the first 10 Billboard charts. The following year, the second disc "Like a Virgin" was ready for release.

He was met with a rather cool reception by the public. In 1984, Madonna performed the title song from this album at the MTV Video Music Awards.

On stage, she breaks her heel, and to get out of the situation, Madonna beats her. She, in a wedding dress, begins to crawl on her knees and wallow playfully.

The audience is shocked, and the song becomes a wedding hit for the following years.

In addition, "Like a Virgin" was included in the list of the 200 most iconic songs in the United States.

In 1992, Madonna became the owner of her own company, Maverick.

The main goal was the production and release of entertainment films, books and music albums.

Behind musical career Madonna has released about 11 discs, made about 10 musical tours, some of which lasted throughout the year.

In addition, the singer actively acted in films. Her most popular roles are in the films: "The Body as Evidence", "Best Friend", the musical "Evita".

In 1991, she played herself in the documentary film In Bed with Madonna. The filmography of the celebrity has more than 20 paintings.

In 2007, he acts as a screenwriter and director of the film "Dirt and Wisdom".

After 3 years, Madonna, who is a fan of sports, opens a network of fitness clubs - Hard Candy.

Personal life

Despite scandalous behavior and external promiscuity, Madonna gained sexual experience at the age of 15 with Russell Long (2 years older).

It was a sign of protest against conservatism and strict control by the father and the church.

Subsequently, this theme is often traced in her songs. The first official spouse of Madonna was the actor Sean Penn.

They met in the pavilion on the set of the video in 1985. Love broke out immediately, and the young people got married the same year.

Soon, the family life of two prominent personalities began to be complicated by scandals and quarrels.

S. Penn was extremely jealous and prone to aggression, and Madonna liked to behave provocatively and flirted constantly.

Madonna was hospitalized several times with severe injuries after a showdown.

In 1989, after many hours of violence in her own home, Madonna filed for a divorce against her husband and the police.

The next serious relationship between the singers was with sports coach and actor Carlos Leon.

With daughter

In the autumn of 1996, she gives birth to a daughter from him - Lourdes Maria. During pregnancy, Madonna became very interested in bondage and yoga.

I began to study Buddhism. When the baby was six months old, Madonna broke up with Carlos.

In 1998, at Sting's party, she met British film director Guy Ritchie. After 2 years, Madonna has a son, Rocco.

In December 2000, they got married in Scotland, in the ancient castle of Skibo.