MADONNA
An Intimate Biography
By the same author
J. Randy Taraborrelli
Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness
Sinatra: Behind the Legend
Jackie, Ethel, Joan — Women of Camelot
SIMON & SCHUSTER
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
Copyright © 2001 by J. Randy Taraborrelli
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
This book was originally published in Great Britain in 2001
by Sidgwick & Jackson, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
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ISBN-10: 0-7432-2880-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-2880-0
For my father, Rocco
Author’s Note
When I first met her at a press conference in the spring of 1983, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone — twenty-five at the time — struck me as brash, cocky, petulant and self-indulgent. Never one to put on an act for a journalist, she was just what she was — and without hesitation. “Look, I never had money,” she told me of her early, struggling days in New York. “Each month it was a scramble to pay the rent and get some food in the apartment. I literally had to eat out of garbage cans in those days. Now that I have a record out and it looks like it’ll be a success, hell yeah, I feel like I deserve it,” she concluded. She fixed her hazel eyes on me. “People don’t know how good I am yet,” she said, holding me with her gaze. “But they will soon. In a couple of years everyone will know. Actually,” she concluded, “I plan on being one of this century’s biggest stars.”
“And with no last name?” I asked, uncertain that “Madonna” was even an authentic appellation. (Surely, it couldn’t have been.)
“It’s Madonna,” she snapped. “Just like Cher. Remember it.”
It was difficult to argue with her, mostly because she wouldn’t hear of it. Poor thing, I thought. Let her have her illusions. No reigning beauty she, and — judging from her first record — equipped with only a fair voice, yet she thinks she’s going to become a dominant influence in pop music, a big star. Well, we’ll see . . .
Of course, it didn’t take long for Madonna’s prediction to come true.
Everything she is today has been hard earned. With nothing ever handed to her on the proverbial silver platter, her life and career have been built on single-mindedness of intention, the most exhausting work (in recording studios, on movie and video sound stages, and on concert tours), dogged determination and, often, unmerciful and extreme sacrifice. Today, Madonna is arguably one of the most memorable, celebrated and highest-paid women of the twentieth century . . . and to think that I doubted her resolve.
I first began the challenge of writing this book in, but decided to put it away for a few years. I thought then that Madonna should have an opportunity to do more living before I, as her biographer, would be able to do her story justice. Though she was already one of the most famous people on the planet, it takes more than just the accurate documentation of a person’s celebrity to make for a good character study. Most subjects need time for evolution and personal growth before their stories are ripe enough to commit to paper. At the time, Madonna was in an ambitious, self-involved phase during which nothing mattered more to her than her career.
When I picked up work on this book again in 1994, I felt the same way about her. She had prioritized her life — career first, above all else — and would do almost anything to get to a certain point of creative freedom and financial security. I anticipated that when she was finally satisfied with her career, she would begin to work on her life. Happily, just such a personal evolution began to occur in 1996 when she had Lourdes, her first child.
Now, in the year 2001, Madonna has greater concerns than just the next big public relations spectacle in her career — especially since giving birth to another child last year, a brother for Lourdes, named Rocco. She has grown, changed and transformed herself (again) and, this time, in a way that not only inspired me to want to write about her, but admire her as well. Yes, she is still driven, still ambitious and still self-involved — that really hasn’t changed. She’s still Madonna, after all, an artist of calculation known for inventing and reinventing her image, usually for the purpose of publicity. However, as I now see it, in recent years she’s also been shedding certain layers, slowly revealing who she really is as a person, as a woman.
Affluent, powerful and famous people like Madonna are, generally, different from most other people — at once more and less human, they’re walking paradoxes, thoughtful and inconsiderate, generous and parsimonious, disciplined and uncontrolled, self-denigrating and self-important. While it may not always be easy to find the real Madonna amidst the hocus-pocus of public relations she manufactures to hide her true self, she’s there just the same. In pursuit of her, one only has to be perceptive enough to look beyond the thick smoke, away from the confusing mirrors. There hides the real woman. As I found in the years of researching and then finally writing Madonna: An Intimate Biography, finding her is worth the effort.
J. RANDY TARABORRELLI
Los Angeles, January 2001
The Actress and the President
Perhaps the last place Madonna’s fans would ever have expected to find her was crouched on the floor of an automobile racing down a bustling Buenos Aires street. Her destination: the home of the president of Argentina, Carlos Menem. It was Wednesday, February 7, 1996 — just another day in the extraordinary life of Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone.
While huddling on the floor of a black Spanish-made automobile, Madonna was being smuggled to meet the president. Her own rented Mercedes-Benz — surrounded by police on motorcycles — had successfully been used as a decoy moments earlier, confusing the ever-stalking paparazzi who had followed it in hopes of capturing on film whatever they believed Madonna was going to be doing that day, probably shopping. If only they had known the true nature of her plans; that would have been a real story.
From the day she arrived in Buenos Aires, Madonna had not been pleased with what she found there: an orchestrated political campaign in opposition to her movie Evita. Much to her dismay, it seemed that everywhere she looked she saw graffiti sprayed on walls with sentiments such as: “Chau good-bye Madonna,” and “Evita Lives! Get Out, Madonna!” Many of those living in Argentina believed that Madonna would desecrate the memory of their beloved Santa Evita. They feared that Evita, as painted by the flagrant Madonna, would be an insult to her memory—and for no good reason other than the fact that Madonna would be the one essaying the role. Perhaps making matters worse for everyone on the Evita project was the fact that director Alan Parker’s cast and crew were comprised mostly of British workers; the 1982 war between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands remained a sticking point for many Argentinians.
Though a replica of the balcony at Casa Rosada, the presidential residence in Argentina, was re-created for the movie at great expense in London, Madonna had longed to film the climax of the movie (when Evita sings “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”) at the actual location. Standing on the exact site at which Evita gave some of her most dramatic appearances would, no doubt, fill Madonna with genuine emotion, thereby enhancing her performance immeasurably. Originally, Menem had granted the film company permission to film at public buildings such as the Casa Rosada. However, because of the public outcry and controve
rsy, he abruptly changed his mind. He now decreed that locations originally scheduled to be used as sites for filming were off-limits.
President Menem, Madonna noted, “was setting the tone for everything” that was, in her view, ruining her movie. “He made statements indicating that he agreed the film was an outrage,” she said angrily. (“I don’t see Madonna in the role,” he had observed to Time magazine. “And I don’t think Argentina’s people, who see Evita as a true martyr, will tolerate it.”)
It seemed clear that no producer, director or studio executive would be able to change the president’s mind. This was a task that would have to be left to the lady herself, the movie’s star. It was another one of those times in Madonna’s career when a “handler” would not be able to do her bidding, when she would have to do something herself in order for it to be done to her satisfaction.
Madonna had met Constancio Vigil, a close friend of Menem’s, who attempted to arrange a meeting between the star and the president. Menem, however, said that he wasn’t interested in meeting Madonna; he refused to see her. Chagrined by his snub, she would not take no for an answer.
After much negotiating, the president relented and agreed to talk with Madonna, but only under the condition that the public not be made aware of the meeting — hence the clandestine manner of her journey on the floor of an automobile. “He didn’t want people to think he was speaking with the enemy,” explained one government official. When this stipulation was reported to Madonna, she was disappointed by it but also understood that it was the only way she would be able to meet the president. She would simply have to refrain from doing what she, a master public relations strategist, probably wanted to do: set up a press conference to announce that she and the president were about to engage in a face-to-face meeting.
Before she would sit down with Menem, it was only natural for Madonna to want to do a certain amount of research. A voracious reader, she asked for material about Menem which she would review prior to the meeting so that she could better understand his life and political career. As she put it to one of her associates, “I want to know who he is. He certainly knows who I am.”
Through her research, Madonna would learn that sixty-six-year-old Carlos Saul Menem was the first Peronist ever elected to national office in Argentina. He was elected governor of La Rioja in 1973, the year Juan Domingo Perón engineered his political comeback. Jailed in 1976 when his wife, Isabel, was forced from power, he was released in 1981. He was reelected governor in 1983 and again in 1987.
From his early career as provincial governor, Menem rose to the presidency by preaching Peronist politics, the nationalistic style of government formulated by Juan and Eva Perón, which sought to reconcile the interests of industry, business, labor and the poor. Menem’s personal charisma and dramatic oratorial style had won him the presidential election in 1989. That election also represented the first transfer of power from one constitutionally elected party to another since 1928. A Roman Catholic convert, Menem is divorced with two children, a son and a daughter. “Divorced, huh?” Madonna remarked. “Finally, something we have in common. We’re both sinners . . . divorced Catholics.”
When it was clear that they had evaded the press, Madonna and Constancio Vigil were driven to an airport and then flown by helicopter to an offshore island in the middle of the delta in El Tigre. They swooped low, flying directly over what was clearly a large estate in the direction of a nearby small airport. Madonna watched as rolling, green hills flattened out, making way for a concrete landing strip. The helicopter dropped gently.
As soon as Madonna and her friend disembarked, a dignified, elderly, casually dressed black man appeared before them. He bowed deeply. They were then escorted to a nearby Land Rover and driven to opulent grounds owned by a business associate of Menem’s. There, surrounded by pink flamingos, as if in some magical fairy tale, Madonna would find the president of Argentina waiting for her. It was six P.M.
According to some of his aides, President Carlos Menem had been determined not to be impressed by Madonna. However, like many men before him who had tried to resist Madonna, Menem’s cool reserve melted away almost immediately upon meeting her. According to a photograph of her taken that day, she was dressed in a thirties-style ensemble perfectly appropriate for the moment: a black crocheted cotton cardigan and a knee-length silk dress splashed with red, black and white. With black-and-white leather t-strap pumps on her feet, a sequined tulle clutch bag in one hand and what appeared to observers to be ruby antique French earrings, she looked as if she had just stepped out of a 1930s film. Because her hair was pulled into a chignon and covered by a thirties-style black horsehair hat with a gray lace overlay, it was difficult to tell if she was blonde or brunette.
As Madonna stood serenely before Menem, perhaps trying to maintain her composure (she would later admit she was nervous), the president began to compliment her profusely. First, he told her that he was amazed at how much she resembled Eva Perón, whom he had met as a young man. Madonna was flattered. She never expected such a compliment from the president of Argentina and, as she would later say, she couldn’t help but feel “ten feet tall.”
It was going well. They walked through a large courtyard. In the middle of a paved quadrant stood a huge carved fountain on which life-sized, bronze sea horses pranced among stone mermaids, octopuses and jellyfish. As they walked by it, Madonna couldn’t resist dangling her fingers in the cool water. “I need one of these in my backyard,” she joked.
As soon as they were seated in the center of a lovely brick patio, maids and butlers swarmed about, offering wine and cheese. Then, an attractive and formal-looking female interpreter walked over and introduced herself to Madonna. She indicated that she would be assisting in the event of any awkward communication between the actress and the president. While the interpreter spoke, Madonna noticed the president’s eyes going “over every inch of me,” as she would later recall, “looking right through me.” She found him to be “a very seductive man.”
Once relaxed in her wicker chair, Madonna quickly took stock of Menem, just as he had of her. She noted his tan, his small feet, the fact that he dyed his hair black. She also noted that he could not take his eyes off her.
As ravenous mosquitoes descended upon them, Madonna and the president — followed by his aides — retreated into a parlor furnished with expensive antiques; Madonna was unsure about their age and would later say she thought it “uncouth” to inquire. In the parlor, the owner of the estate in which the meeting was taking place suddenly appeared with a bottle of chilled champagne in one hand and a small tray of caviar and crackers in the other. After sampling the caviar, Madonna slipped a cassette tape into a player she had brought with her. The song on the tape was “You Must Love Me,” a new ballad from the Evita cast album, which Madonna, as Evita, sings when she learns that she is near death. It’s an emotionally involving performance, perhaps her best of recent years, and one of which she was most proud.
Fixing him with a stare to gauge his reaction, Madonna watched Menem rock back and forth, his eyes closed, as her voice filled the room. He then leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as he continued to listen intently. When the song was over, he had tears in his eyes. As Madonna had hoped, the president had been moved. With the moment just right, Madonna then began what she would later refer to as her “spiel.”
“I so want to make this movie,” she told him, her tone passionate. Small television cameras, mounted on the walls and swiveling soundlessly, recorded her plea. The interpreter translated as Madonna continued: “I promise you that it will be fair. I want to be respectful to Eva’s memory. You must understand that my intention is good.” She seemed filled with emotion. “It’s all about intention, you know?” she continued. “And mine is a good one, I promise you.”
“Somehow, I think I believe you,” Menem said as he inched closer to his guest. He reached out and patted her hand, seeming happy to be in the company of an attractive and
intelligent woman. Madonna smiled warmly, just a little seductively . . . but not too seductively. When she leaned forward, he did the same. While this flirtatious moment was an interesting turn of events, it was not unexpected.
According to one eyewitness — the two were never left alone but were always in the company of Menem’s aides — Madonna met Menem’s gaze with her own. “You know, you’re a very handsome man,” she told him. He didn’t need an interpretation to understand the compliment.
“I caught Menem looking at my bra strap, which was showing ever so slightly,” she would later recall. “He continued doing this throughout the evening with his piercing eyes. When I caught him staring, his eyes stayed with mine.”
Over dinner, Madonna and the president talked about their lives and careers and, as Madonna later recalled, “our passions.” They spoke of music, politics, mysticism and reincarnation. It must have been difficult for Madonna to come to terms with her circumstances, with how far she had come from her struggling days as a Detroit singer with a New York band called the Breakfast Club. Perhaps it would have been difficult for some observers to reconcile this woman who seemed to possess such a flare for diplomacy with the one who, when she finally did become famous, was often viewed as a temperamental and sex-starved pop star. Now, she was the perfect combination of sexuality and brains. But, of course, she had always been just that.
“One always has to have faith in things that cannot be explained,” the president told her as they discussed Catholicism. “Like God. And the fact that miracles can happen.”
Madonna seized the moment. “Yes,” she agreed. “And that’s why I believe that you will change your mind and allow us to film on the balcony of the Casa Rosada.”
He smiled warmly. “Anything is possible,” he said, nodding. “Anything is possible.”
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