Modern Divas Boxed Set Read online

  Modern Divas Boxed Set

  Women of Substance Behind the Sex, Scandals and Controversy

  Jessica Jayne

  Platinum Publishing

  Contents

  Madonna: Desperately Seeking Superstardom

  Lady Gaga: From Fame Monster to Global Superstar

  Beyoncé: From Destiny's Child to Worldwide Star

  J.Lo: All Around American Idol

  Madonna: Desperately Seeking Superstardom

  Jessica Jayne

  Platinum Publishing

  Table of Content

  Chapter 1 – Humble Beginnings

  A Mother’s Death

  Chapter 2 – “I Wanted To Be Somebody

  Big Changes

  High School Life

  One of the Crowd

  Chapter 3 – A Work Of Art

  A Career in Dance

  New York, New York

  Chapter 4 – On The Way To Stardom

  A Career in Music

  One Song to Success

  Chapter 5 – A String of Successes

  Like a Virgin

  The Virgin Tour

  Live Aid

  True Blue

  Like a Prayer

  I’m Breathless

  The Immaculate Collection

  Erotica

  Bedtime Stories

  Ray of Light

  Music

  American Life

  Confessions on a Dance Floor

  Hard Candy

  MDNA

  Chapter 6 – Madonna On Stage

  Conquering the World

  Chapter 7 – Let’s Talk Business

  Acting and Directing

  Entertainment Company

  Clothing Line

  Fitness Center

  Writing Books

  Chapter 8 – Wife and Mother

  Sean Penn

  Lola

  Guy Ritchie

  Rocco

  David and Mercy

  Chapter 9 – The Legacy Of The Queen Of Reinvention

  Chapter 1 – Humble Beginnings

  The entertainment industry is filled with artists who more or less started out with a tame image which slowly progressed to the provocative and then gradually disappeared from the radar. There are only too few who were able to establish a career for themselves and claim that they were successful for the most part.

  Before Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and other female pop performers invaded our TV screens, there was Madonna. Who would have thought that this simple, small town girl who grew up with a strict Catholic upbringing would later become a bombshell, shattering people’s preconceived notions about sex and sexuality and titillating people with her controversial performances?

  We know Madonna as the artist who broke down sexual boundaries and challenged social and religious mores. For years, she remained that performer with a warm, jovial spirit. Her danceable and beats-driven music was very appealing. Unlike other pop artists, Madonna was able to hone an image that she did not change when faced with negative reactions. While she maintained such image, she also explored the possibilities of reinventing herself. We know now that she is a product of success, but how did she reach that pedestal?

  She certainly isn’t an overnight success, and her life story is something else entirely. We only know the obvious things, but once familiarized with her roots and her gradual rise to pop stardom, it will be easier to understand how Madonna got away with trying to reconcile sexuality and spirituality.

  * * *

  Born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan. She is the issue of Silvio Anthony Ciccone and Madonna Louise (nee Fortin). Her father, a first-generation Italian American, hailed from Pacentro, Italy, while her mother was of French Canadian descent. Madonna adopted the name Veronica after receiving confirmation.

  Madonna recalled that her paternal grandparents came from Italy on the boat. They didn’t speak English and had no formal education. Madonna’s grandfather, Gaetano Ciccone, was from Pacentro, and those before him in the family were peasant farmers. However, he was encouraged to go to school.

  After finding himself jobless in 1920, in an economy worsened by crop failures, a flu epidemic and World War I, Gaetano decided to try his luck in America. He, along with his aunt and uncle and a cousin, settled in Aliquippa, a steel town outside Pittsburgh. He had found a job working on the blast furnace floor and was thus able to bring his wife, Michelina di Ulio, from Italy to America. The young couple lived in a one-bedroom apartment near where Gaetano worked and had six sons. Five of them worked at the mill. The youngest son, Silvio (also known as Tony), was fortunate enough to go to college.

  The Ciccones had a hard time adjusting to their new home, especially since there was prejudice against European immigrants, particularly Italians, who came from impoverished backgrounds and were usually subjected to exploitation in the non-unionized mills.

  Gaetano didn’t let this deter him. He worked hard and got into politics. In 1937, just two years after the historic National Labor Relations Act of 1935, Gaetano helped in organizing a crippling strike at the Aliquippa mill which significantly led to the betterment in the lives of the workers.

  Gaetano was a disciplinarian. Though he had managed to provide for his large family, it wasn’t an easy life. But his son Tony wanted to break away from this kind of life, and as Madonna told Time magazine writer Denise Worrell, “He wanted to be upwardly mobile and go into the educated, prosperous America.” She knew that her father wanted a better life for his own family, something that he did not have while growing up.”

  Tony served the military in Texas in the US Air Force. But in 1952, he returned to Pennsylvania and decided to pursue engineering at Geneva College, a Catholic institution in Beaver Falls. This was among his plan for a life with Madonna Fortin, the younger sister of his friend from air force Dale Fortin, whom he met the previous year. They met at Dale’s wedding on the Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas where Madonna, just 17 years old, was the maid of honor.

  Silvio”Tony” Ciccone’s grown up children, with Madonna, fifth from left

  Madonna Fortin’s family was pioneering French-Canadian farmers and lumberjacks. Her parents settled in Bay City, Michigan, where they raised 8 children and taught them to be devout Catholics. Her father was a manager in a Bay City construction company.

  One of the things that Tony liked about Madonna was she came from a similar ethnic Catholic background. Both of them had the same ideals and both were strongly family-oriented. Tony would make the round trip from Pennsylvania to Bay City whenever he could. They had gone through a three-year long-distance relationship before they got married on July 1, 1955, at the Visitation Church in Bay City after Tony’s graduation.

  Tony got a job as a defense engineer with Chrysler and moved with his wife to Pontiac where they lived in a small bungalow at 443 Thor Street. Soon after, Madonna became pregnant with their first child. Anthony (Tony) was born in 1956, and the second child, Martin (Mard), arrived the following year. Their first daughter was born on August 16, 1958, and they named her Madonna Louise.

  Madonna Louise was called by her family as “Little Nonni” to distinguish her from her mother who had the same name. She would often compete with her brothers for their parents’ attention. “I was considered the sissy of the family, because I relied on feminine wiles to get my way,” she said. “My older brothers… picked on me, and I always tattled on them to my father.”

  2-year-old Madonna with her mother

  The Ciccones’ house in Pontiac wasn’t big enough for six children, so Madonna had to share a room with her two younger sisters. And as expected from such a large family, the children would compete for atten
tion, and Madonna learned early how to get it: either by being a goody-two shoes or by being outrageous. Her older brothers, Tony and Mard, would always tease her. There was a story in the family about how Tony and Mard hung Madonna on a clothesline by her blouse and left her there until their stepmother brought her down.

  It would take years before this sibling rivalry was resolved. In 1959, Madonna Jr.’s little sister, Paula, arrived. Another brother, Christopher, was born in 1960 and the youngest, Melanie, was born in 1962. Aside from the rivalry, growing up in the Ciccone family was happy, and Madonna Jr. had a normal childhood until she was five.

  From the start, it was evident that performing was in Madonna’s blood. She was a pretty girl with blue-green eyes and dark-brown hair and possessed a streak of exhibitionism that always got her the attention that she craved. She was famous for having a slight gap in her front teeth, which she never corrected despite having the means to. Later on, in her movies and videos, she would just disguise it. At 5 feet, 4 ½ inches, she is considered short.

  In her family, Madonna was known to have a diva streak, and she loved to dance for grownups at family gatherings. There were many of these gatherings because both sides of her family came from large families.

  Their mother was a devoted woman who loved to look after and care for her children. She was almost pregnant every year of her seven-year marriage to Tony. Tony had the children attend parochial school and would always make sure that they attend Mass on Sundays and on school day mornings. The children, especially Madonna Jr., took this strong Catholic upbringing with them. And even if Madonna rebelled time after time, there was no hiding the fact that she was deeply imprinted by her religious upbringing.

  “My mother was a religious zealot,” Madonna recalled later. “There were always priests and nuns in my house growing up.” It would be evident that some elements of Catholic iconography, such as her mother’s statues of the Sacred Heart, the Catholic altar where the family prayed, and the habits of the nuns at her Catholic elementary school, appeared in Madonna’s controversial works as a singer and performer.

  Thiers was a big family, but it would soon be evident that something was wrong: Madonna Sr. was dying.

  A Mother’s Death

  Madonna Sr. was a heavy influence on her eldest daughter, but everything would change after she was diagnosed with breast cancer while she was still pregnant with her youngest child. The mother declined treatment until after she had weaned Melanie, but by then it was too late.

  Having worked as an X-ray technician may have contributed to Madonna Sr.’s disease. The protective lead-lined apron that became obligatory was then rarely used. Madonna Sr. struggled with the last year of her life, spending more time in a hospital for chemotherapy. The children regularly visited their sick mother, and sometimes they would be farmed out to relatives. When their mother was home, she was too exhausted to care for them the way she used to when at the peak of her health.

  Madonna at her first communion in 1967. Marty and Melanie smiled for the camera while Christopher looked annoyed

  Madonna Jr. was five years old then and didn’t fully understand what her mother was going through. She was at a stage where she was just becoming aware of herself and had a strong sense of independence. Yet, she was also longing to be noticed. Even at that age, she was always challenging her parents. She remembered one time when her mother was kneeling at the kitchen, scrubbing the floor.

  “She was always picking up after us. We were really messy, awful kids. I remember having these mixed feelings,” Madonna recalled.

  And as her mother got weaker each day, Madonna Jr. had an urge to summon it back. She remembered one incident when her mother was trying to rest on the sofa. She climbed on her mother’s back and said, “Play with me, play with me,” but her mother didn’t respond. Her mother started crying, making Madonna angry with her. She pounded her mother’s back with her fist and said, “Why are you doing this?”

  Her anger ebbed away when she realized that her mother was crying. “I remember feeling stronger than she was. I was so little and I put my arms around her and I could feel her body underneath me sobbing and I felt like she was the child.” It would become a significant moment in young Madonna’s life. Seeing how frail her mother was, she developed an aversion to weakness. “I knew I could be either sad and weak and not in control, or I could just take control and say it’s going to get better.”

  Despite the sickness, Madonna Sr. tried to be there for her children. Being remembered as “forgiving and angelic,” she would often laugh and joke with her children, even trying to do some housework and pretending everything was normal. Her health after being diagnosed with breast cancer was a far cry when she was a bit younger. She was a former dancer and carried herself with poise and grace. But the disease took her energy.

  On December 1, 1963, just a few days after President Kennedy was assassinated, Madonna Louise Fortin died at the age of 31. Her eldest daughter, Madonna, was just 5 years old.

  Madonna lost her mother when she was just 5

  Madonna Sr.’s funeral was held at the Visitation Church in Bay City where she had gotten married eight years ago. She was made to look like an angel in the open casket. But Madonna quickly noticed something was wrong. Her mother’s mouth “looked funny,” and realized that her mother’s lips were sewn together. That image haunted her for years to come, knowing what it symbolized. Madonna Sr. was symbolically silenced. She would not be able to tell her children what her life was like. Later on, Madonna’s life became a testimony to it being in opposition to her mother’s. If her mother’s silence meant death, then Madonna would speak out. If her mother’s health deteriorated, then she would ensure that she was in good physical condition.

  She once said. “Sometimes I just assume I’m going to live forever. I don’t want to die. It’s the ultimate unknown. I don’t want to go to the dark beyond.” For this reason, Madonna avoided drugs and alcohol, believing that anything that tranquilizes the spirit means mini-death.

  For someone who was too young to understand death, the passing away of Madonna’s mother was very traumatic for her and for the entire family. She had never forgotten her mother’s early death. She said that she felt “gypped.” Child psychologists claim that when a girl loses a mother this early in her life, she is unable to work through her natural attachment to her father. This explains why Madonna is obsessed with her love-hate relationship with her own father. This issue was evident in her songs and videos, particularly the Oh Father video.

  Madonna didn’t forget her mother’s death, and she wrote about Madonna Sr.’s memories in her diary that she kept later while filming of Evita. She could clearly remember how her mother, a very devout Catholic, followed the rituals of Eastertide by covering up “all the religious pictures and statues in the house with purple cloth.” She also wrote in her diary about “how my mother must have felt with my father when he told her she was dying. And how she stayed so cheerful and never gave in to her sadness even at the end.”

  Looking back on that particular sad event in her life, Madonna recognized that knowing her mother was so sick made her grow up quickly. It also made her realize how much she wanted to control things in her life while at the same time knowing that there were just so many things that she couldn’t control, leading to her obsession to take charge. This attitude constantly pitted her against her father and her stepmother and everyone else. She resorted to rebellion and outrage to get what she wanted.

  Madonna wasn’t the only one affected by her mother’s death. Everyone in the family was. Madonna now found herself being the mother to her younger siblings and helping in the house chores. In 1985, she told Time magazine, “I feel like all my adolescence was spent taking care of babies and changing diapers and baby-sitting.” She said she resented it “because when all my friends were out playing, I felt like I had all these adult responsibilities. I think that’s when I really thought about how I wanted to do something else and get away from a
ll that.”

  Madonna’s older brothers suddenly became difficult to handle after their mother’s death. She had nightmares and developed agoraphobia: she couldn’t leave the house except to go to school.

  Even into her adolescence, her mother’s death deeply affected her. She was haunted by the memory of her mother’s frailty during her final days. She resolved that she was going to make her own voice heard.

  Chapter 2 – “I Wanted To Be Somebody

  Big Changes

  Afterwards, a number of housekeepers came and went; no one stayed more than a few months. The Ciccone children resented the housekeepers or anyone who took the place of their mother. Until Joan Gustafson arrived.

  Tony Ciccone was still mourning for his wife but he had returned to work and struggled to keep his family together. He knew he couldn’t do it on his own – his children needed a mother, and Joan was eager to take care of his children and of him. Within six months, they were married.

  The Ciccone family with the new mother of the house, Joan

  Madonna was eight by then, and Joan’s marriage to Tony meant that she was no longer in control of the house. She had lost her mother, and she was felt bandoned by her father with whom she had had a special relationship.

  Thinking that Joan grabbed her father away from her, Madonna began to rebel against her stepmother, refusing to call her “mom” and fighting against her rules. She found a new strength, a certain kind of boldness, in not following Joan’s orders. When her mother died, Madonna had found liberation. “I think the biggest reason I was able to express myself and not be intimidated was by not having a mother. Women are traditionally raised to be subservient, passive… the man is supposed to be the pioneer. He makes the money, he makes the rules. I know that… my lack of inhibition comes from my mother’s death. For example, mothers teach you manners. And I absolutely did not learn any of those rules and regulations.”