Madonna is an American singer who has worn a number of other hats: actress, author and fashion icon. She has been described as one of the worst actors in American history.
Madonna was raised in a Roman Catholic family. Her French-Canadian mother died of breast cancer when she was five. She attended several Catholic schools as a child, which allowed her to explore her artistic and musical talents. During college she had a dream of becoming a professional dancer, and began dancing for several small modern dance companies. At the same time she joined pop-punk bands Breakfast Club and Emmy.
Madonna's first record deal came in 1982 with demo song, "Ain't No Big Deal" with Sire Records. Her first single, "Everybody," was produced by Mark Kamins, and released without her photo. Many fans believed that she was black. Madonna's bleach blonde hair did't remain hidden for too long. MTV helped market her label as well as her image. She soon became a playful and sexy part of punk culture.
A year later, she released her self-titled debut album with hit "Holiday" topping the charts globally. In 1994 she released Like a Virgin. The provocative and controversial subject matter of the album was praised by fans. The title track "Like a Virgin" topped charts for six weeks and single Material Girl brought about many Madonna wannabies, and a social trend of spandex, belly shirts and teased hair among teenage girls.
Madonna married Sean Penn on August 16, 1985 (her birthday). That year she also released another album, True Blue, which brought the hits "Open Your Heart," "True Blue," and "Live To Tell." This album is known as her "blue album," by Rolling Stone Magazine. Her style complemented the sentimental set of lyrics, with short bleached hair, tapered pants, and a leather jacket. In 1989, she changed her image again. She replaced her short platinum look with a more refined long, curly dark brown style.
Like a Prayer marked a new exploration of Madonna's emotional and private experiences, rather typical catchy pop beats. Songs "Till Death Do Us Part" and "Act of Contrition" shows a series of honest lyrics and supurb guitar skills. Critically, this album was well received and earned her high credibility as a rock artist.
She released The Immaculate Collection at the end of 1990. It included 15 of her biggest hits and two new songs. This album sold over a million copies, and the video single (the first ever released) sold over 400,000 copies to earn her a quadruple platinum. In 1992 she released "Erotica" which she co-wrote and produced with Shep Pettibone. At the same time she published "Sex," an erotic book that showed various sexual fantasies (it was packaged to look like a giant condom). The video for "Erotica" was banned but is now aired by MTV and VH1; however, mostly during late night only. The album and the book were viewed as tasteless by the press, but nevertheless, the album sold five million copies, and became a best seller.
She released Bedtime Stories in 1994, which included yet another stream of top 10 hits such as "Take a Bow" and "Like a Virgin."
Evita was Madonna's twelfth platinum album. The song "You Must Love Me" earned her an Oscar nomination for best original song in a movie. Then with a new spirituality (Judaism), and a toned body from dedication to yoga, she gave birth to daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon in 1996.
In 1998 Ray of Light was released; it became her biggest success in ten years. It included title track "Ray of Light" and single "Frozen;" it sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
In 2000, her album Music was released with a new spirit of dance, a cowgirl theme, which set a new trend: pink cowboy hats. The album created her 12th number one single, Music. During the filming of the video for Music, Madonnna was pregnant with her second child.
In 2003 Madonna's reputations took a turn for the worse when she released American Life. It was described as tired, monotonous, and carried a lot of controversy around the music video "American Life," which showed her tossing a hand grenade at President George W. Bush. The video was removed upon Modanna's request, and redone with a less aggressive performance. During the same year she appeared on the MTV Music Awards where she engaged in romantic bride-groom kisses with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on stage. The incident made headlines for the gender role reversal and lesbian theme they portrayed.
Madonna currently lives in England where she owns two multi-million dollar homes. She has published five children's books including The English Roses, which became the fastest selling book by any first-time children's author. | 
