Madonna (entertainer) Informations

Madonna Louise Ciccone (/tʃɪˈkoʊni/, Italian: [tʃikˈkoːne]; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop" since the 1980s, Madonna is known for pushing the boundaries of songwriting in mainstream popular music and for the imagery she uses onstage and in music videos. She has frequently reinvented her music and image while maintaining autonomy within the recording industry. Although having sparked controversy, her works have been praised by music critics. Madonna is often cited as an influence by other artists.

Born and raised in Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City in 1978 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing as a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist in the rock bands Breakfast Club and Emmy, Madonna signed with Sire Records in 1982 and released her eponymous debut album the next year. She followed it with a series of successful albums, including global bestsellers Like a Virgin (1984) and True Blue (1986) as well as Grammy Award winners Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). Many of her songs have reached the top of record charts worldwide, including "Like a Virgin", "La Isla Bonita", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Take a Bow", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes".

Madonna's popularity was further enhanced by her roles in films such as Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Dick Tracy (1990), A League of Their Own (1992), and Evita (1996). While Evita earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, many of her other films received poor reviews. As a businesswoman, Madonna founded an entertainment company called Maverick (including the label Maverick Records) in 1992. Her other ventures include fashion design, children's books, health clubs, and filmmaking. She contributes to various charities, having founded Ray of Light Foundation in 1998 and Raising Malawi in 2006.

Having sold more than 300 million records worldwide, Madonna is noted as the best-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed her as the second highest-certified female artist in the U.S., with 64.5 million album units. According to Billboard, Madonna is the most successful solo artist in its Hot 100 chart history. She is also the highest-grossing solo touring artist of all time, accumulating U.S. $1.4 billion from her concert tickets. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility, Madonna topped VH1's countdown of 100 Greatest Women in Music. Additionally, Rolling Stone listed her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.

Madonna Louise Ciccone was born to Catholic parents Madonna Louise (née Fortin) and Silvio Anthony "Tony" Ciccone in Bay City, Michigan on August 16, 1958. Her father's parents were Italian emigrants from Pacentro, while her mother was of French-Canadian descent. Tony worked as an engineer designer for Chrysler and General Motors. Since Madonna had the same name as her mother, family members called her "Little Nonni". Madonna later commented about her name, "How could I be anything else but what I am having been named Madonna? I would either have ended up a nun or this." She has two older brothers, Anthony and Martin, and three younger siblings, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.

Upon being confirmed in the Catholic Church in 1966, she adopted Veronica as a confirmation name. She was raised in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Avon Township (now Rochester Hills). Months before her mother died of breast cancer at age 30 on December 1, 1963, Madonna noticed changes in her behavior and personality, although she did not understand the reason. Her mother was at a loss to explain her medical condition, and often began to cry when Madonna questioned her about it. Madonna later acknowledged that she had not grasped the concept of her mother dying.

Madonna turned to her paternal grandmother for solace. The Ciccone siblings resented housekeepers and rebelled against anyone brought into their home who they thought would try to take the place of their beloved mother. Madonna later told Vanity Fair that she saw herself in her youth as a "lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn't rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn't shave my underarms and I didn't wear make-up like normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades... I wanted to be somebody." Terrified that her father Tony could be taken from her as well, Madonna was often unable to sleep unless she was near him.

In 1966, Tony married the family's housekeeper Joan Gustafson. They had two children, Jennifer and Mario. Madonna resented her father for getting remarried, and began rebelling against him, which strained their relationship for many years afterward. She attended St. Frederick's and St. Andrew's Catholic Elementary Schools, and West Middle School. Madonna was known for her high grade point average, and achieved notoriety for her unconventional behavior. She would perform cartwheels and handstands in the hallways between classes, dangle by her knees from the monkey bars during recess, and pull up her skirt during class—all so that the boys could see her underwear.

Madonna's father put her in classical piano lessons, but she later convinced him to allow her to take ballet lessons. Christopher Flynn, her ballet teacher, persuaded her to pursue a career in dance. She later attended Rochester Adams High School where she became a straight-A student and a member of the cheerleading squad. After graduating, she received a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan and studied over the summer at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina.

At the age of 19, Madonna began studying dance under the tutelage of Martha Graham, the noted American dancer and choreographer. It was Graham who gave her the nickname "Madame X"; she titled her 2019 album Madame X in reference to this.

In 1978, Madonna dropped out of college and relocated to New York City. She had little money while working as a waitress at Dunkin' Donuts and with modern dance troupes, taking classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and eventually performing with Pearl Lang Dance Theater. Madonna said of her move to New York, "It was the first time I'd ever taken a plane, the first time I'd ever gotten a taxi cab. I came here with $35 in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I'd ever done." She started to work as a backup dancer for other established artists. One night, while returning from a rehearsal, a pair of men held her at knifepoint and forced her to perform fellatio. She later found the incident to be "a taste of my weakness, it showed me that I still could not save myself in spite of all the strong-girl show. I could never forget it."

While performing as a backup singer and dancer for the French disco artist Patrick Hernandez on his 1979 world tour, Madonna became romantically involved with musician Dan Gilroy and they lived in an abandoned synagogue in Corona, Queens. Together, they formed her first rock band, the Breakfast Club, for which Madonna sang and played drums and guitar. In 1980 or 1981 she left Breakfast Club and, with her then boyfriend Stephen Bray as drummer, formed the band Emmy. The two began writing songs together, but Madonna later decided to promote herself as a solo act. Her music impressed DJ and record producer Mark Kamins who arranged a meeting between Madonna and Sire Records founder Seymour Stein.

After Madonna signed a singles deal with Sire, her debut single, "Everybody", was released in October 1982, and the second, "Burning Up", in March 1983. Both became big club hits in the United States, reaching number three on Hot Dance Club Songs chart compiled by Billboard magazine. After this success, she started developing her eponymous debut album, Madonna, which was primarily produced by Reggie Lucas of Warner Bros. However, she was not happy with the completed tracks and disagreed with Lucas' production techniques, so decided to seek additional help.

Madonna moved in with boyfriend John "Jellybean" Benitez, asking his help for finishing the album's production. Benitez remixed most of the tracks and produced "Holiday", which was her third single and her first international top-ten hit. The overall sound of Madonna was dissonant and in the form of upbeat synthetic disco, using some of the new technology of the time, like the Linn drum machine, Moog bass and the OB-X synthesizer. The album was released in July 1983 and peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 six months later, in 1984. It yielded two top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, "Borderline" and "Lucky Star".

Madonna's look and style of dressing, her performances, and her music videos influenced young girls and women. Her style became one of the female fashion trends of the 1980s. Created by stylist and jewelry designer Maripol, the look consisted of lace tops, skirts over capri pants, fishnet stockings, jewelry bearing the crucifix, bracelets, and bleached hair. Madonna's popularity continued to rise globally with the release of her second studio album, Like a Virgin, in November 1984. It became her first number-one album in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, and the US.Like a Virgin became the very first album by a female to sell over five million copies in the U.S. It was later certified diamond, and has sold over 21 million copies worldwide.

The album's title track served as its first single, and topped the Hot 100 chart for six consecutive weeks. It attracted the attention of conservative organizations who complained that the song and its accompanying video promoted premarital sex and undermined family values, and moralists sought to have the song and video banned. Madonna received huge media coverage for her performance of "Like a Virgin" at the first 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. Wearing a wedding dress and white gloves, Madonna appeared on stage atop a giant wedding cake and then rolled around suggestively on the floor. MTV retrospectively considered it one of the "most iconic" pop performances of all time. The second single, "Material Girl", reached number two on the Hot 100 and was promoted by a music video recreating Marilyn Monroe's performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. While filming this video, Madonna started dating actor Sean Penn. They married on her birthday in 1985.

Madonna entered mainstream films in February 1985, beginning with a brief appearance as a club singer in Vision Quest, a romantic drama film. Its soundtrack contained two new singles, her U.S. number-one single, "Crazy for You", and another track "Gambler". She also played the title role in the 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan, a film which introduced the song "Into the Groove", her first number-one single in the UK. Her popularity relegated the film as a Madonna vehicle, despite not having lead actress billing.The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby named it one of the ten best films of 1985.

Beginning in April 1985, Madonna embarked on her first concert tour in North America, The Virgin Tour, with the Beastie Boys as her opening act. She progressed from playing CBGB and the Mudd Club to playing large sporting arenas. The tour saw the peak of Madonna wannabe phenomenon, with lots of female attendees dressing like her. At that time, she released two more hits, "Angel" and "Dress You Up", making all four singles from the album peak inside the top five on the Hot 100 chart. In July, Penthouse and Playboy magazines published a number of nude photos of Madonna, taken in New York in 1978. She had posed for the photographs as she needed money at the time, and was paid as little as $25 a session. The publication of the photos caused a media uproar, but Madonna remained "unapologetic and defiant". The photographs were ultimately sold for up to $100,000. She referred to these events at the 1985 outdoor Live Aid charity concert, saying that she would not take her jacket off because "[the media] might hold it against me ten years from now."

In June 1986, Madonna released her third studio album, True Blue, which was inspired by and dedicated to Sean Penn.Rolling Stone magazine was generally impressed with the effort, writing that the album "sound[s] as if it comes from the heart". Five singles were released from the album—"Live to Tell", "Papa Don't Preach", "True Blue", "Open Your Heart", and "La Isla Bonita"—all of which reached number one in the United States or the United Kingdom. The album topped the charts in 28 countries worldwide, an unprecedented achievement at the time, and became her best-selling studio album of her career with sales of 25 million copies.True Blue was featured in the 1992 edition of Guinness World Records as the best-selling album by a woman of all time.

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