Madonna

by Andrew Morton

  Madonna herself has admitted that her struggle to come to terms with her part in Shanghai Surprise was largely because the innocence and repressed personality she was required to portray was so at variance with her own character. Yet when the film was released in August 1986, to poor reviews and even worse box-office figures, she was quick to blame anyone but herself. She described the making of the film as a ‘hellish nightmare’ and announced that she was ‘extremely disappointed with it.’ Without a trace of irony, she added, ‘The director didn’t seem to have an eye for the big screen. He seemed to be in a bit over his head.’

  It wounded her deeply that a film in which she had seen such promise should have become an object of derision, and she herself pilloried when she had believed she would be fêted. Years later, when a friend casually mentioned to her that she had been weak in the film, she snapped back, ‘You’ve got a lot of nerve. At least I took a chance. You have to start somewhere.’

  While every single taken from her True Blue album would find its way into the Top Ten, getting her film career off the ground continued to be a struggle. True, there were plenty of scripts, but Madonna was now uncertain of her ability to make a good choice, and producers were even less sure about backing her. Nonetheless, the period did at least bring her first acting performance on stage. In the last week of August she again teamed up with Sean in a play by David Rabe called Goose and Tom-Tom, in which she played the part of a gangster’s moll. Although the play, staged as a work-in-progress in the Mitzi Newhouse Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center, was only open at this time to an audience of celebrities, the public waiting outside got their share of the drama when Sean assaulted two paparazzi photographers, hitting Vinnie Zuffante several times and spitting on Anthony Savignano, as well as punching him. On the night of her debut stage performance, this was hardly the publicity Madonna was looking for, a situation made worse when both photographers pressed charges.

  For her next screen project, she picked another comedy, originally entitled Slammer, but later renamed Who’s That Girl? since its release in 1987 would have coincided with a 60-day jail term Penn was to serve, having violated the probation he received for assaulting a friend of Madonna’s in 1986 by attacking an extra on the set of his latest film who was taking snapshots. The part she wanted to play was that of a wisecracking street urchin named Nikki Finn, who has been jailed for a crime she did not commit. In the light of the bad publicity surrounding her and Sean, and also of the very public failure of Shanghai Surprise, she had to fight hard to persuade the producers, Warner Brothers, that she was up to the part. In addition, Madonna wanted an old friend, James Foley, Penn’s best man at their wedding and the director of her Papa Don’t Preach, Live To Tell and Open Your Heart videos, to be the director, proclaiming him to be a ‘genius.’ The combination of a dubiously talented movie star and a first-time movie director hardly guaranteed a box-office hit, but the film received the go-ahead from Warner.

  This time around, there was a lighter atmosphere on set when filming began in New York in October of 1986. Madonna was approachable, signing autographs for children of the film crew, joining in with the wisecracking, and on one occasion even dancing around a boombox with fellow star and long-time friend Coati Mundi (real name Andy Hernandez), one of the original members of the group Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Her idea of preparing for her part, however, was hardly studied; for example, before a scene in which she needed to appear badly out of breath, she did a series of push-ups before going on set. Once again she was always punctual and professional, and once again she always felt that her first take was perfect. It was a source of conflict. Her co-star Griffin Dunne, who played the male lead, observed; ‘She likes her first take best. I think my best is around the fourth. She always says, “You got it, you got it,” and she was driving me crazy, just the way her character would.’ On one occasion James Foley mockingly went down on his knees and kissed her feet to encourage her to do a retake. Afterwards he noted, not without irony, ‘She’s very instinctual, what comes out is unencumbered by analysis.’

  Although Coati Mundi recalled getting on well with Madonna, and was particularly impressed that when one scene they were rehearsing, which involved a live cougar, went wrong, she stayed calm, even he admitted to being ‘flipped out’ by her on occasion. ‘She doesn’t rest,’ he noted. ‘She’s got a bit of that perfectionist thing in her. She was doing the movie, and the sound-track album for the movie, and also planning her Who’s That Girl? Tour at the same time. She’s doing all this stuff, plus she’s got the lead in the film!’

  In spite of a glitzy launch, in front of thousands of screaming fans, at the National Theater in Times Square in August 1987, and even though the single of the title song from the soundtrack album reached the top of the charts, once again a Madonna movie bombed. This time, however, there was some comfort. Reviews were poor rather than damning – ‘In Madonna Hollywood has a potent, pocket-sized sex bomb. So far, though, all it does is tick,’ noted Vincent Canby in the New York Times —and although critics were not overly impressed by her performance, Madonna’s comic talent was acknowledged. Even so, cinemagoers in the United States stayed away in droves. The movie fared rather better abroad, however, leading Madonna to defend herself, rather weakly, by saying that her ideas were more appreciated in Europe and Japan than in her own country. Yet with a number-one single in America and with her nationwide Who’s That Girl? Tour a sell-out, it seemed that it was only her acting that her home country didn’t appreciate. Americans didn’t want another actress; they just wanted Madonna.

  There were other problems, too, for the relentless speculation in the media about the state of her marriage was a low point of Madonna’s life at this time. When Sean failed to visit her on set during the filming of Who’s That Girl? it fueled rumors that they were about to split. While she accepted that as a Hollywood couple they were bound to attract attention, media interest merely exacerbated existing difficulties. ‘A lot of times the press would make up the most awful things that we had never done, fights that we never had,’ Madonna recalls. ‘They couldn’t make up their minds: they wanted me to be pregnant, or they wanted us to get a divorce. That put a lot of strain on our relationship after a while.’

  The Penns fought back where they could, Sean often with his fists. For her part, Madonna had appeared in a skit about their wedding on the comedy show Saturday Night Live. As the strains of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’ – used in a famous scene in the Vietnam movie, Apocalypse Now —faded into the background, along with a clip from the film showing the helicopter invasion, Madonna impishly told the audience, ‘We have a great show … I’m not pregnant and we’ll be right back.’

  In the early days of their marriage, their running battle with the press drew the couple together in mutual rage. Yet, although Madonna initially viewed Sean’s displays of aggression as a form of chivalry, she soon grew weary of his behavior. It diminished her image, and proved costly. During the filming of Shanghai Surprise, for example, Sean had scuffled with local photographer-cum-publisher, and influential local Hong Kong politician, Leonel Borralho, who filed a $1 million dollar lawsuit against him. Then, one evening in April of 1986, as Sean and Madonna were relaxing in a Los Angeles nightclub, one of her friends, the songwriter David Wolinski, walked over to greet her and kissed her on the cheek. By all accounts, Penn flew into a rage and began beating the hapless Wolinski, only stopping when the club’s owner, Helena Kallianiotes, and a visibly shaken Madonna dragged him outside. Shocked, Wolinski pressed charges, and Penn was fined $1,000 and given a year’s probation.

  Penn may have been on probation for his attack on David Wolinski, but thereafter it seemed that rarely a week passed without his being involved in some incident or other, as the couple played hide-and-seek with the media. When Madonna bumped into Dan Gilroy in Hollywood, where he was busy shooting his own video for the first and only Breakfast Club album, they fell to talking about the old days. Commenting on the media’s
near obsession with her and her volatile husband, she told Gilroy wistfully, ‘Do you remember the time when I would do anything to get noticed? Now I spend all day hiding.’

  While Madonna managed to rise above the media taunts, knowing that any reaction from her merely played into the hands of journalists and photographers, Sean was too easily provoked. By mid-1986 matters were getting out of hand. He found himself taunted by paparazzi cameramen every time he went out, his tormentors hoping that their foul-mouthed abuse, directed either at him or his wife, would push him into an attack, thereby providing a juicy story and a lucrative front-page photograph. In New York in August 1986, shortly after they had celebrated their first wedding anniversary, he allowed himself to be drawn into a fistfight with a group of photographers as he and Madonna were walking home to their apartment. The resulting pictures were plastered over all the front pages, and so, just a day later, were others of Penn spitting on a crowd of photographers and fans from the second floor window of a downtown restaurant.

  For her part, Madonna had more to worry about than her husband’s behavior. She had reached another low when in June of the same year, her close friend Martin Burgoyne had been diagnosed as suffering from AIDS. This was a devastating blow, not just to Burgoyne, who was only twenty-three years old, but also to all those who knew him. At that time there was considerable hysteria and ignorance about the AIDS virus. What was known was that AIDS was a death sentence for those who contracted it, and that they, on top of their physical suffering, faced the likelihood of being shunned socially, a situation made worse by the strident outpourings of many vociferous would-be moralists, from churchmen to senators, who proclaimed the disease to be a ‘gay plague’.

  While those in Martin Burgoyne’s circle struggled to come to terms with the news, many of them no doubt fearful for their own health, or even survival, Madonna put aside her own problems and seized the opportunity to do what she could to make her friend’s remaining days more comfortable. Her friendship with Burgoyne had been utterly unshaken by her rise to fame, and now, unbidden, she paid his considerable medical expenses, and also rented an apartment for him just round the corner from Saint Vincent’s Hospital, New York, where he was receiving treatment.

  The press lost little time in sniffing out a story. By the first week of August, there were reports of Madonna being seen in New York buying books for a sick friend, and on October 13, 1986, a photograph of Sean and Madonna appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer, along with the headline, ‘Madonna’s Former Roommate Has AIDS – Sean Is Terrified & Furious. It’s What’s Really Ripping Their Marriage Apart.’ Burgoyne was devastated by the lurid exposure of his illness.

  Certainly there had been other reports of Sean’s fear of contracting the disease, and of the fact that he had repeatedly urged Madonna to take an AIDS test, which she steadfastly refused to do. In the circumstances, however, he found the strength to put aside his personal fears, as well as his concerns about his wife’s relationship with Burgoyne. When Madonna, who tirelessly explored every avenue that might give her friend the chance of a few more precious months of life, learned of an experimental drug which, although not licensed in the United States, was available in Mexico, it was Sean who took the trouble to fly across the border to bring back supplies of the medication. Not only did his efforts mean a lot to his wife, but for a time they also raised his standing among her friends. Interestingly, Burgoyne was one of the few among Madonna’s set who was comfortable with her relationship with Penn. ‘She can learn from him, and he can learn from her,’ he had said at the time of their marriage.

  As Burgoyne’s condition deteriorated – friends who saw him at the end of August were shocked to see his face covered with sores – Madonna did her utmost to raise his spirits. She telephoned him most days, her lively, positive manner helping to keep him cheerful, and she also spent time shopping for books and presents that might amuse him. When she was in New York she visited him regularly, and, perhaps most importantly, and ignoring others’ concern for her own well-being, she continued to hug and kiss him as she had always done – once even offering him a bite of her chocolate bar, which she then resumed eating. ‘He really looked forward to her visits, it sustained him,’ recalls a mutual friend. She and Andy Warhol were guests of honor at a benefit for Burgoyne at the Pyramid Club, where the young designer had worked for a time, and on November 10, Madonna was one of several celebrities who took part in an AIDS benefit at Barney’s clothing store, modeling a denim jacket decorated with a picture by Burgoyne.

  The end came on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. By then, Burgoyne’s every breath was an effort, and he was slipping in and out of consciousness. Although his family were at his bedside, he wanted Madonna – who was on her way to New York from Los Angeles – to be with him when he died, and was seemingly fighting to hold on to life until she could be there. It was an unbearable wait for all concerned, as first her flight was delayed and then her limousine became stuck in traffic. When she finally walked into the room, he was able to give up his struggle. She took him in her arms, whispered a few words, and stayed with him until he was finally at peace. The memory of that moment is still fresh in Erika Belle’s memory: ‘They had a very deep and profound love. Once he heard her come into the room he knew he could die. It was very beautiful, very moving, and I still cry about it now.’

  Burgoyne’s death at such a young age badly affected his friends. Although she told the actress and writer Carrie Fisher, in an interview for Rolling Stone, that Burgoyne’s rage at dying haunted her, Madonna, then twenty-eight, displayed great strength in the face of the tragedy, not only in looking after her friend, but also comforting his family and even organizing a wake in his honor. For her, though, the death marked the start of a terrible era, but one to which she responded both energetically and effectively. Over the next few years she would lose many of her closest friends – notably Christopher Flynn, Keith Haring, Steve Rubell and Haoui Montaug – to AIDS. In response to their deaths, she has quietly donated considerable sums to AIDS research and to the care of those suffering from the virus. She is also a champion of safe sex and gay rights, as well as a staunch advocate of the promotion of greater public awareness about the disease. To this end she has attended numerous charity events, freely lending her name and support to AIDS-related causes. In 1991 she became the first recipient of the AmFAR (American Foundation for AIDS Research) Award for Courage for her charitable work and AIDS-awareness efforts, while even conservative estimates put the money she has raised for AIDS charities at over $5 million.

  Yet while such celebrities as Sir Elton John and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, have been widely praised for their efforts in raising public awareness and money in the fight against AIDS, Madonna’s good works have been overshadowed by the controversy that so often surrounds her. Certainly the coming of the AIDS era did little to tame her performances, for on stage she continued unashamedly to use sex and sexuality as her tools. In December 1986, she caused a storm when she released the video to ‘Open Your Heart,’ playing an exotic dancer in a peep-show booth, who reappears dressed in a man’s suit and kisses the lips of an obviously underage boy who has been spying on her through the booth’s peephole. Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, not only was Open Your Heart Madonna’s most overtly sexual video to date – and a sign of her future artistic direction – but the single, which hit the number-one slot, was in stark contrast to the cutesy ‘True Blue,’ described by one source as an ‘unabashed valentine’ for Sean Penn.

  While Penn had briefly redeemed himself in his wife’s eyes during Martin Burgoyne’s illness, he did not remain her valentine for long. In the spring of 1987, while relaxing with friends in the West Beach Café in Venice, California, he spat at a photographer, Cesare Bonazza, as he prepared to take Penn’s picture. The paparazzo also claimed that the actor had ‘gone crazy’ and further alleged that he had threatened to pull a gun on him. By now Penn was drinking heavily and his behavior was out of control. />
  It was not long before Penn’s hair-trigger temper brought him into real trouble. Sure enough, in April 1987, on the set of Dennis Hopper’s film, Colors, in which he was playing the part of a police officer, Penn spotted an extra, Jeffrey Klein, taking his picture. As Hopper and co-star Robert Duvall looked on in amazement, Penn went over, screamed at the extra and then spat in his face. A fistfight broke out which, after it had been stopped by security staff, left Klein with cuts to his face, and determined to press charges. Still on probation for hitting David Wolinski, Penn knew that he was heading for a jail sentence.

  Even with that knowledge, the wild acts continued. On May 25, he was arrested for speeding and running a red light in LA. He was breathalyzed, which confirmed that he had been drinking, and he was duly arrested and charged. On June 23, in a ten-minute court hearing, he pleaded no contest to the charges of assault and of reckless driving, and was duly sentenced to sixty days in jail with two years’ probation. He was also instructed to undergo counseling. When, after the hearing, Madonna’s publicist Liz Rosenberg met with the press, in response to questions about the marriage, she told the eager reporters, with masterly understatement, ‘They are having some problems and they’re taking some time to think things through.’

  Penn began his sentence on July 7, but served just thirty days in the Mono County Jail in California, even being allowed out to film in Germany. While he missed his second wedding anniversary, he was sent nude pictures of his wife, courtesy of Penthouse, which published another set of portraits taken when she had been a struggling dancer. Madonna was furious with the unknown individual – she blamed Penthouse —who sent the men’s magazine to her husband. Not that she was overly impressed by him. On his release in September 1987 he took a pizza home to her, but, by his own admission, she was not particularly pleased to see him; as he observed, ‘Going to jail is not good for any marriage.’ Indeed, weeks later, Madonna instructed realtors to begin the search for a house of her own, although it was a quest that she soon abandoned.