MADONNA: WHO IS THAT GIRL, ANYWAY?

Is there anyone left in the universe who when asked “Who’s that girl?” will not answer back, “Madonna”? The name alone is larger than the petite singer/actress herself and when uttered can instill shrieks, groans, compliments and complaints. Let’s face it. We hate loving her and we love hating her. We laugh as she dares to call herself an actress and then dash out to see the movie several times just to (accurately) criticize it. We berate her image and fashion sense while standing in line at the clothing store purchasing tube skirts and flirting with the sales clerk. We shout out, “you can’t sing for your life” knowing that we own every copy of every record this woman has to offer. We swear we wouldn’t be caught dead at her shows as we stand in line, all night if need be. And you know what? We enjoy the shows. I tell you, the nerve of that woman.

It seems like only yesterday that she entered our homes (via MTV) and teased us with her Shirley Temple do, Betty Boop attire and Minnie Mouse-on-helium vocals. Who exactly loves Madonna? Let’s consult the census. First there are the “Wanna Be’s,” girls who see a woman living her life the way she wants and wearing clothes they can afford, not to mention jewelry they can get away with. After all, it’s easier to explain why you’re wearing a crucifix around your neck than a safety pin through your nose. It is my speculation that people who distribute the material it takes to make tube skirts, stretch pants and wedding gowns have tripled their income and are now toasting Madonna on some tropical island. Which brings us to the second group of people who love Ms. Ciccone: businesspeople. The marketing of Madonna has been astronomically successful. Why, oh why has this woman not come out with her own line of clothing for K-Mart? Regardless, Madonna has sold millions on top of millions of albums which makes the record company happy, who' in turn, love her.

Boys love Madonna. We’re talking boys of all colors, creeds, ages, shapes, sizes, everything. Why? Why the heck not? She could sing a soap commercial and make it ride the charts. Parents, on the other hand, are not too thrilled with Madonna. It’s a little hard to approve of children wearing t-shirts that advertise “VIRGIN” on them. But they smile and clench their teeth and hope to God that it’s just a passing phase like zits or wanting a nose job. After all, Madonna did put a shirt over that black lace bra she was going to parade around in, mothers console themselves.

Then there are the critics who usually stop supporting musicians once they enter a new tax bracket. Often, when you get this big and this successful, your best friend, Mr. Critic, who loved you when you were nobody, will viciously turn around, stab you in the back and say your music stinks.

Today, this powerhouse enclosed inside a five-foot-four-inch frame has her feet firmly planted on the earth, a world she continues to play hardball with. But to clearly understand the ways and means of Madonna, you must first understand where she has been to appreciate where she is. Born in Michigan, the oldest girl in a family of six, Madonna was raised by her father when her mother passed away. Madonna was only six-and-a half. Madonna has vague memories of her mother as a very forgiving, angelic person. Her mother’s temper never flared, even with so many kids with rambunctious antics.

Her mother spent a year in the hospital. Madonna was forced to face the facts of life and death at her mother’s bedside. Immediately after her death, everything changed. Madonna’s brothers and sisters were split up among other relatives. The family was eventually brought back together and Madonna’s father remarried. In the tenth grade she was introduced to dance. Ballet was first, but soon jazz, tap and modern dance came into the picture and Madonna’s escape from school boredom and the doldrums of everyday life was found. She took dancing very seriously and, with a dream, left home for Paris and a chance to grow. Her father was not behind her decision. As Madonna told Time magazine: “It wasn’t until my first album came out and my father started hearing my songs on the radio that he stopped asking me questions. I think now he has some concept of my success. If he didn’t know then, he knows now.”

Madonna returned to the United States to live in New York, again supporting herself on a day-to-day basis. She learned to play several instruments and found her way into a slew of garage bands as a singer, dancer, drummer, anything! She worked briefly in a dance company and modeled for a short period of time, a time that would come back to expose “artistic” nude shots that weren’t the most flattering pieces of photography published in Penthouse and Playboy.

All the while, Madonna continued to work on her music, writing and recording demos during the day and making the rounds of clubs, establishing industry contacts at night. She took her tapes of original recordings to the discos and got disc jockeys to play them while she sang along. Soon Madonna was discovered by a record company representative and landed a contract with Sire Records. The album, Madonna, surfaced in the summer of ’83 and featured a sultry, squeakyvoiced siren who fused dance, pop and the kitchen sink into her debut. The enthusiasm the LP elicited from club-goers was favorable, but getting the rest of the world to agree was more difficult.

Enter music television, the cable outlet suited to please an audience with a face full of metal. Viewers took to songs like “Lucky Star” and “Borderline” quicker than the blink of an eye, and glued themselves to the tube as Madonna danced and pranced, winked and smirked for the camera. Could the silver screen be far off on the horizon?

Madonna the pop video tart was born, but Madonna the recording star was yet to be conceived. She convinced renowned producer Nile Rodgers to work on her second album. It was at the MTV Video Awards that Madonna debuted what was to become her first gold single. In front of hundreds, being watched by many thousands, she glided onstage wearing a wedding gown. . . and sang “Like A Virgin.” The audience were beside themselves. Who the hell did this woman think she was? It resulted in a classic combination of shock and envy.

Like A Virgin hit the public where it hurt the most: in the wallet. Fans shelled out enough money to buy 14 million copies. A cameo appearance in the movie Visionquest featured a performance of “Crazy For You,” which eventually topped the charts. It made way for Madonna to star in her first feature film, Desperately Seeking Susan, which spawned another #1 hit for the singer: “Into The Groove.”

All dressed up and nowhere to go but up and up, Madonna headed for the wide open concert stages with wedding gown in tow (almost literally). In the summer of '85 Madonna married actor Sean Penn, whom she had met on the set of shooting the video for “Material Girl.” It was love at first sight. As she told Cosmopolitan: “I realized it was Sean Penn, and I immediately had this fantasy that we were going to meet and fall in love and get married. Which is exactly what happened!” Their pairing has been somewhat less than a fairy tale romance, but has offered numerous surprises. As did the “Virgin Tour,” which was received with great enthusiasm. Practically everyone flocked to the shows wearing black rubber bracelets, fingerless gloves, lace stretch pants, tube skirts, corsets, black shades and whatever else Madonna had been seen wearing. It was during the tour that pictures of what Madonna wasn’t wearing surfaced. Suddenly the heat Madonna had been taking from the spotlight had shifted toward an outraged public. Madonna felt as though her fans turned against her.

Fans were willing to forget, placing the pictures back in the closet and in the back of their minds. Madonna learned to laugh with those who would still tease her about the past. At Live Aid, she was introduced by Bette Midler as “a woman who has picked herself up by her bra straps and has been known to let them down a few times.” It was all in good fun, and that day Madonna performed in heat and playfully informed the crowd, “I ain’t taking anything off today.”

A real comedian, she had the audience laughing with her, but only for a short while. Madonna, the ever aspiring actress, sifted through scripts and agreed to co-star in the film Shanghai Surprise with hubby Penn acting by her side. Critics thought Shanghai Surprise was a joke; Madonna made a lousy missionary and the sizzle she and Penn shared off screen was not happening on film.

Madonna recalls the experience as a “hellish nightmare,” so it was back to the recording studio for the blonde wonder, where she would have to answer to no one but herself and the fans that continuously stood by her side. The result was an album co-produced by Madonna, Stephen Bray (a musician she “discovered” when she was 17 and continues to write songs with 11 years later) and Patrick Leonard. It became True Blue.

“Papa Don’t Preach,” “Live To Tell,” “Open Your Heart,” “Where’s The Party” and “La Isla Bonita” commanded the charts, but a tour would have to wait. She received a script by James Foley, who directed Sean in At Close Range, and Madonna in her own “Papa Don’t Preach” video. Who’s That Girl is a romantic comedy about Nikki Finn, a girl out on parole looking for the person who framed her for murder. It didn’t win Madonna’s approval at first reading, but there was something in the script she knew she liked. She and Foley sifted through several writers until they came up with a script they both loved.

But why choose Madonna to star in the movie? Director Foley sees Madonna as a natural talent and potential star, and is convinced that “she was made for widescreen Technicolor. And she is precociously talented.”

Who’s That Girl was, for Madonna, “technically difficult.” The movie has just been released this summer, coinciding with her “Who’s That Girl” concert tour. Again, it was something of a virgin account, marking the first time a woman headlined a stadium tour.

Beginning her North American tour in front of some 60,000 Florida fans at the Orange Bowl, Madonna staged a wellpaced, slick package of entertainment almost comparable to her videos. There’s no doubt about it; Madonna is the captain of her own ship. . . and boy does she run a tight ship. In a show choreographed by Jeffrey Hornaday (Flashdance), every step, every glance and every moment was accounted for. There was no room for spontaneity, only showmanship. But Madonna, nonetheless, was gracious and at ease.

As Madonna sees it, she’s not the least bit surprised by how things are going because, “it feels natural. When I was younger I never said, ‘O.K. this is the plan. I’m going to be a dancer and that’s going to lead me into singing, and that into acting.’ My calculation was that I had to apply myself and work. And that devotion and ambition and courage was going to take me to the next step.”

And the step after that, and the step after that. Madonna’s walk of fame stretches for miles.