Madonna

(born August 16, 1958, Bay City, Michigan, U.S.) American singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur whose immense popularity in the 1980s and '90s allowed her to achieve levels of power and control unprecedented for a woman in the entertainment industry.

Born into a large Italian-American family, Madonna studied dance at the University of Michigan and with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City in the late 1970s before relocating briefly to Paris as a member of Patrick Hernandez's disco revue. Returning to New York City, she performed with a number of rock groups before signing with Sire Records. Her first hit, “Holiday,” in 1983, provided the blueprint for her later material—an upbeat dance-club sound with sharp production and an immediate appeal. Madonna's melodic pop incorporated catchy choruses and her lyrics concerned love, sex, and relationships—ranging from the breezy innocence of “True Blue” (1986) to the erotic fantasies of “Justify My Love” (1990) to the spirituality of later songs such as “Ray of Light” (1998). Criticized by some as being limited in range, her sweet, girlish voice nonetheless was well-suited to pop music.

Madonna was the first female artist to exploit fully the potential of the music video. She collaborated with top designers (Jean-Paul Gaultier), photographers (Steven Meisel and Herb Ritts), and directors (Mary Lambert and David Fincher), drawing inspiration from underground club culture or the avant-garde to create distinctive sexual and satirical images—from the knowing ingenue of “Like a Virgin” (1984) to the controversial red-dressed “sinner” who kisses a black saint in “Like a Prayer” (1989). By 1991 she had scored 21 Top Ten hits in the United States and sold some 70 million albums internationally, generating $1.2 billion in sales. Committed to controlling her image and career herself, Madonna became the head of Maverick, a subsidiary of Time-Warner created by the entertainment giant as part of a $60 million deal with the performer. Her success signaled a clear message of financial control to other women in the industry, but in terms of image she was a more ambivalent role model.

In 1992 Madonna took her role as a sexual siren to its full extent when she published Sex, a soft-core pornographic coffee-table book featuring her in a variety of “erotic” poses. She was criticized for being exploitative and overcalculating, and writer Norman Mailer said she had become “secretary to herself.” Soon afterward Madonna temporarily withdrew from pop music to concentrate on a film career that had begun with a strong performance in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), faltered with the flimsy Shanghai Surprise (1986) and Dick Tracy (1990), and recovered with Truth or Dare (1991, also known as In Bed with Madonna), a documentary of one of her tours. She scored massive success in 1996 with the starring role in the film musical Evita. That year she also gave birth to a daughter.

In 1998 Madonna released her first album of new material in four years, Ray of Light. A fusion of techno music and self-conscious lyrics, it was a commercial and critical success, earning the singer her first musical Grammy Awards (her previous win had been for a video). Her experimentation in electronica continued with Music (2000). In 2005 she returned to her roots with Confessions on a Dance Floor. Despite a brief marriage in the 1980s to actor Sean Penn and her wedding in 2000 to English director Guy Ritchie (with whom she has a son), Madonna has remained resolutely independent. In 2008 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Lucy M. O'Brien

Like a Virgin (1984)True Blue (1986)Like a Prayer (1989)Erotica (1992)Bedtime Stories (1994)Ray of Light (1998)Music (2000)

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