Actors - Madonna

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Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (born August 16, 1958) is an American pop singer, dancer, songwriter, producer, actress, and author. Hits such as "Holiday", "Like a Virgin" and "Like a Prayer" catapulted her to massive success in the 1980's; further hits followed in the 1990's such as "Vogue", "Take a Bow", and "Frozen" and in the 2000's "Music", "Don't Tell Me", "Die Another Day" and "Hung Up". She is internationally well known for reinventing her image, creating innovative music videos, and generating controversy in both her work and personal life. She is commonly referred to as the "Queen of Pop".

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Madonna is the most successful female recording artist of all time as of 2000 with an estimated 120 million records sold worldwide. In a 2005 press release, her record label, Warner Bros., reported she had international sales in excess of 200 million albums. Apart from achieving twelve #1 hits and 36 top ten hits on the U.S Billboard Magazine Hot 100, she has garnered numerous awards for her music, videos and films. Madonna is currently planning a summer concert tour in support of her 2005 release, Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Biography

Early life

Madonna Louise Ciccone was the third of six children born to an Italian-American Chrysler engineer, Silvio "Tony" P. Ciccone, and Madonna Louise Fortin (from a Québécoise family in Bay City, Michigan). She was raised in a Catholic family in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Rochester Hills.

Madonna's mother died of breast cancer at the age of thirty on December 1 1963; Madonna was five years old. The singer has frequently discussed the impact her mother's death had on her life and career. Tony Ciccone later married the family housekeeper, Joan Gustafson, and had two children with her.

Tony required all of his children to take music lessons. After a few months of piano lessons, Madonna convinced her father to allow her to take ballet classes instead, and she proved to be a gifted dancer.

Madonna attended Rochester Adams High School, where she was a straight-A student, excelled at sports and was a member of the cheerleading squad. After graduating from high school in 1976, Madonna received a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan, where she met ballet teacher Christopher Flynn. In addition to mentoring young Madonna in the field of dance, he provided her first exposure to gay discotheques, a scene that would later have an impact on the singer's music and style.

In 1977, at the encouragement of Flynn, Madonna left college at the end of her second year and moved to New York City to pursue a dance career. Looking back at her arrival in New York, Madonna has said: "When I came to New York it was the first time I'd ever taken a plane, the first time I've ever gotten a taxi-cab, the first time for everything. And I came here with 35 dollars in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I'd ever done."

Madonna would brave financial difficulties throughout this time, living in squalor (when not living off the kindness of friends and lovers) and working a series of low-paying jobs. She would turn to nude modeling to make ends meet, a choice that would come back to haunt her after she reached mainstream success. During this time, she also studied with modern dance legend Martha Graham as well as a Graham disciple, Pearl Lang. Madonna later performed with several modern dance companies, including Alvin Ailey and the Walter Nicks dancers.

While performing as a dancer for French disco star Patrick Hernandez on his 1979 world tour, Madonna met and became romantically involved with musician Dan Gilroy, with whom she would start her first rock band, the Breakfast Club, in New York. Madonna played drums and later sang and played guitar and the drums with The Breakfast Club before forming Emmy in 1980 with drummer and former boyfriend Stephen Bray. She then broke off with Bray to write and produce a number of solo disco and dance songs that brought her local fame in New York dance clubs, particularly Danceteria and Kansas Kansas. A demo of Madonna's Bray collaborations caught the ear of popular New York DJ/Producer Mark Kamins, who brought the tape to the attention of Sire Records. It was at this time that Madonna received her first starring film role - a part in the low-budget independent film A Certain Sacrifice
- another career move that would reap unfavorable attention on Madonna in the years following her success.

1980s

The first album

In 1982, Madonna inked a singles deal with Sire Records that paid her $5,000 per song. Her first single, "Everybody", was produced by Mark Kamins. Although it did not become a pop hit, it peaked at #3 on the Billboard Dance Chart. It also gained some airplay on R&B radio stations, leading many to assume that Madonna was an African American artist. When "Everybody" was released, Madonna's picture did not appear on the single cover sleeve, because Sire did not want to risk losing the black audience (Madonna's core purchasing audience at that point) by advertising that Madonna was white.

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Actors - Madonna

Biography

Early life

1980s

The first album

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