Louise Gannon on what makes Madonna the rarest of women in showbiz

Dress to impress, have a joke up your sleeve and flout rule number one – NEVER mention her age! – at your peril… Event’s Louise Gannon recalls her SEVEN bruising bouts with pop’s punchiest star 

A decade ago I sat in a holding suite in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills awaiting an audience with Madonna.

It was a matter of weeks ahead of her 50th birthday and the beginning of her eighth concert tour (Sweet & Sticky) to promote her 11th studio album, Hard Candy. Eight writers had been hand-selected from the biggest territories all over the world. There was tension in the room – there always is with Madonna – because there was one rule she was insisting every journalist follow: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN YOU ASK HER ABOUT TURNING 50.

There is no such thing as complacency in her world – even at 60. Madonna, we salute you

Dress to impress, have a joke up your sleeve and flout rule number one – NEVER mention her age! – at your peril...

Dress to impress, have a joke up your sleeve and flout rule number one – NEVER mention her age! – at your peril…

I was the last person to speak to her that day. The journalist before me, a nervous Italian, was led out of her interview room after less than 15 minutes and looking close to tears. He had not asked the forbidden question; he’d done something far worse. He had bored her with tedious queries and then sat in terrified silence, flipping back and forward through his notebook as she demanded: ‘Ask me something interesting.’ He was struck dumb so she waved her hand for him to be removed.

Anna Friel: ‘I met Madonna in 1999 when I was doing the play Closer in New York. She took me out to dinner. I was so nervous, but I had my gran with me and I asked if she could come too. It was hilarious. My gran had no idea who she was. She called her Radonna and asked her what she did for a living. I think she thought it was quite funny. I still laugh about that now.’

Anna Friel: ‘I met Madonna in 1999 when I was doing the play Closer in New York. She took me out to dinner. I was so nervous, but I had my gran with me and I asked if she could come too. It was hilarious. My gran had no idea who she was. She called her Radonna and asked her what she did for a living. I think she thought it was quite funny. I still laugh about that now’

She was wearing a black leather jacket, black trousers and a scowl when I walked in. On a previous occasion she had told me she enjoys being in ‘bitch mode’. I was prepared. She complimented me on my outfit (I was wearing gold sandals from her 2007 H&M collection because I’d interviewed her six times before and know she takes in every tiny detail) and I grinned. ‘We’ve been told not to ask you about turning 50,’ I said. ‘But you’re a feminist, you’re a trailblazer and women want to know how you are going to handle 50.’

‘You’ve broken the rule,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes,’ I answered, making sure I gave direct eye contact. ‘Because that’s what you’ve taught women to do. I’m only following your lead.’ She burst out laughing. I had a longer audience than anyone else that day (possibly because of the early exit of the terrified Italian), and when I left she recommended a Vietnamese massage centre on Sunset to deal with jet lag. I tried her recommendation – it was pure torture. I wondered whether it was a joke on me or a lesson in what it takes to be Madonna: take everything to the extreme.

Ten years ago, she gave me her manifesto for ageing: ‘I’m not going to be defined by my age. Why should any woman? I’m not going to slow down, get off this ride, stay home and get fat. No way… I will certainly never get fat. I don’t ever want to stop learning, living, loving – I want more, more, more.’

The first time I met her was in 1989 (the year she divorced her first husband, Sean Penn), when she had just had a $5 million contract with Pepsi revoked after the Vatican condemned her for the Like A Prayer video, which featured burning crosses, stigmata and her making love to a saint in a dream sequence.

Sharleen Spiteri: ‘To me there are three great women in rock: Madonna, Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde. I got to know Madonna though Stella McCartney – she asked if she could bring me to dinner at her house. I was totally blown away by everything about her but most of all how brilliantly sarcastic she is about absolutely everything. There’s something fantastically British about her. Madonna gets irony. Very few Americans do’

Sharleen Spiteri: ‘To me there are three great women in rock: Madonna, Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde. I got to know Madonna though Stella McCartney – she asked if she could bring me to dinner at her house. I was totally blown away by everything about her but most of all how brilliantly sarcastic she is about absolutely everything. There’s something fantastically British about her. Madonna gets irony. Very few Americans do’

She was (slightly) less intimidating then, with cropped, curly peroxide hair and dressed like an off-duty dancer in black sweats. But Madonna doesn’t necessarily give interviews – she gives tests. She said I had to tell her a joke. ‘What’s the difference between a rock star and a dictator?’ She shook her head. ‘You can negotiate with a dictator.’ She laughed. How did she feel being banned by the Pope and losing $5 million? ‘I got to No 1 all over the world, didn’t I?’ she answered. ‘And I’m not here just to entertain people. I’m here to make them think. I want to push boundaries. Or else, what’s the point? I’m not afraid to be the sort of artist who makes you question everything – people can hate me or love me, but as long as I make them think, that’s all I care about.’

When she first exploded on the scene in 1980, a raw, pretty dancer on New York’s arty club scene, whose past boyfriends included the graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, she just seemed – as she once told me – like another ‘piece of ass to be exploited for a fast buck’.

‘Being underestimated is a very powerful position to be in,’ she said. ‘No one expected a woman to make a deal, break a deal and make demands. People call you a bitch and a ball-breaker. No one calls a powerful man that. No one asks can he cook and look after his children. F*** that. If it takes being a bitch, I’ll be a bitch.’

Get into the grooves… her greatest hits

1 Holiday (1983) Childlike synth-pop, so catchy that it goes down a treat in concert. And Madonna knows it: she has performed it more than any other song.

2 Borderline (1984) Swinging dance-pop with a Motown vibe and a video that sums up the young Madonna: squeaky, lovable and looking as if she’s just bought everything in the thrift store.

Madonna

Madonna

In a good year, Madonna picks up on what’s playing in the clubs, finds a hot producer and makes that sound her own

3 Like A Virgin (1984) A defining moment, with a gleaming production by Nile Rodgers, riding high after Bowie’s Let’s Dance.

4 Into The Groove (1985) Her most Madonna-ish hit: ‘only when I’m dancing,’ she trills, ‘can I feel this free’. Her first British No 1.

5 Papa Don’t Preach (1986) Madonna takes on the patriarchy, and wins.

6 Like A Prayer (1989) A peach of a tune, and a controversial video, about white supremacists, which got Madonna admonished by the Vatican and dropped from a Pepsi ad.

7 Vogue (1990) In a good year, Madonna picks up on what’s playing in the clubs, finds a hot producer and makes that sound her own. In 1990 she did it with Shep Pettibone, and the result was a disco-house classic.

8 You Must Love Me (1996) Before starring in Evita, Madonna took singing lessons. They paid off on this touching ballad, written specially for the film by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

9 Ray Of Light (1998) When a pop star discovers spirituality, anything can happen. For Madonna it meant hiring the British producer William Orbit and writing some of her strongest songs, mixing electronica with psychedelia.

10 Hung Up (2005) A rousing floor-filler, and a tribute to her powers of persuasion, as she coaxed Benny and Björn from Abba into letting her sample Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight). ‘She has got guts and has been around for 21 years,’ said Benny. ‘That’s not bad going.’

Tim de Lisle 

Tracy Anderson (former personal trainer): ‘Madonna is a total one-off. I’ve trained a hundred women – lots of celebrities – but no one like her. She’s like a professional athlete. She pushes herself harder than anyone I’ve ever known and she’s willing to do anything – I mean anything – to get results. She even trains for two hours on Christmas Day. Who does that? Even I don’t, but Madonna does.’

Tracy Anderson (former personal trainer): ‘Madonna is a total one-off. I’ve trained a hundred women – lots of celebrities – but no one like her. She’s like a professional athlete. She pushes herself harder than anyone I’ve ever known and she’s willing to do anything – I mean anything – to get results. She even trains for two hours on Christmas Day. Who does that? Even I don’t, but Madonna does.’

When you’re in a room with her, she is in control. She likes to be seated already, and there is usually a large book in front of her containing her schedule for the day, which must be adhered to. And she has always relished her man-eater image. ‘I’m not ashamed of my sexuality – what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,’ she said in 1996. Although she also told me the reason she fell for Guy Ritchie was ‘because he said “No” to me, and that is something I couldn’t resist.’

She can be surprisingly funny – she can even laugh at herself. Ritchie used to mock her outrageous outfits. ‘Sometimes, I’ve come down the stairs all dressed up. He gives me a look and says, “Who are you going as tonight, then?” Isn’t that a great put-down?’ And she took great pleasure in her daughter’s embarrassment of being taken to school by her. ‘“You’re not wearing that, are you?” is what she says to me pretty much each time.’

I’ve asked Madonna many times what it is that drives her. ‘I am entirely a product of my childhood – I have dealt with a lot of my demons, but the biggest one is still to do with my mother dying when I was young.

Bitch? I’m Madonna… 

Rupert Everett with Madonna

Rupert Everett with Madonna

Her Madgesty makes friends fast, but keeping them? That’s another story. Here are four of her most famous fallings-out…

Rupert Everett The pair met at a dinner party where Madonna chatted happily to Everett (right), but ignored everyone else. ‘Manners were something she had discarded at base camp,’ he said later. Their friendship unravelled after he wrote that she looked like a Picasso and behaved like ‘a whiny old barmaid’ when stressed, in his first memoir in 2006. Madonna responded with a frosty silence. 

Sandra Bernhard In the early Nineties, comedian Sandra Bernhard was one of Madonna’s best pals. Then something changed. While neither Bernhard nor Madge has ever divulged what happened between them, Bernhard said, ‘I look at my friendship with her as like having a gallstone: you deal with it, there is pain, and then you pass it.’ 

Elton John In 2002 Elton branded Madonna’s theme song for Die Another Day as ‘the worst Bond tune ever’. Then, at the 2004 Q Awards, added: ‘Madonna, live act? F*** off. Since when has lip-syncing been live? Everyone who lip-syncs when you pay 75 quid to see them should be shot. That’s me off her Christmas card list, but do I give a toss? No.’ Madonna has appeared to want to mend the rift. ‘He’s known to get mad at me,’ she said in 2012, ‘but I adore him.’ 

Gwyneth Paltrow The two blondes were once besties but fell out after Madonna fired their shared personal trainer, Tracy Anderson, and told Gwyneth she should too. When Paltrow refused, Madonna terminated their friendship. In 2011 Paltrow alluded to the feud on her blog, writing about an ‘insufferable’ friend who left her feeling ‘drained, empty and belittled’.

Livia Firth: ‘I first encountered Madonna at the 2011 Oscars when my husband Colin [Firth] won Best Actor [for The King’s Speech]. It was one of the best nights of my life, and there were so many unbelievable people later at a party. I remember being on the dancefloor and realising I was right next to Madonna. Madonna dancing. I’d like to say she said something but she didn’t really look at me – she was concentrating on her dancing. But just to be next to her was a huge buzz’

Livia Firth: ‘I first encountered Madonna at the 2011 Oscars when my husband Colin [Firth] won Best Actor [for The King’s Speech]. It was one of the best nights of my life, and there were so many unbelievable people later at a party. I remember being on the dancefloor and realising I was right next to Madonna. Madonna dancing. I’d like to say she said something but she didn’t really look at me – she was concentrating on her dancing. But just to be next to her was a huge buzz’

‘As I child I had no control. I felt the world around me was chaotic and I needed to have some control, which would enable me to pull myself up by my bootstraps. That’s when the self-discipline started. It was my way of survival.

‘I started off wanting to be a nun like the ones at my school because they lived this incredible ordered life and they moved around in this graceful, beautiful way. Then I realised I loved boys, so that was out.

‘Then I found dance, and it was this world where you had to achieve results – no tricks, no shortcuts. It’s how I’ve lived my life forever. When I hung out in clubs in New York and experimented with drugs I hated being out of control. I’d drink water to get them out of my system.

‘In life I have to be engaged, to be learning, doing, living. I’ve never wanted to be disengaged or to miss a moment.’

I’m glad not to have missed a moment in her company because women like Madonna are rare. You cannot predict how she is going to react to any question or what words are going to come out of her mouth. There is no such thing as complacency in her world – even at 60.

Madonna, we salute you. 

Desperately seeking screen stardom

Madonna in Who's That Girl? (1987)

Madonna in Who’s That Girl? (1987)

While Madonna has never enjoyed the same sort of success in the cinema as she has in the recording studio (the comically awful Swept Away in 2002, directed by then husband Guy Ritchie, won her an unprecedented fifth Golden Raspberry award for Worst Actress), she does have a small body of film work of which she can be quietly proud. The crowning glory has to be her starring role in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical, Evita (1996), directed by Alan Parker, for which she won a Golden Globe. There’s more quality elsewhere. I love the post-punk, spirit-of-New-York thing she brings to Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), and her willingness to muck in with a classy ensemble cast (Tom Hanks, Geena Davis) in the underrated baseball movie A League Of Their Own (1992).

Then there was the time she saw off competition from Sharon Stone, Kim Basinger and Michelle Pfeiffer to play Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy (1990), with Warren Beatty playing the police detective, and directing too. It was nominated for seven Oscars, won three and co-starred Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman. Classy company for a pop singer, but she looked great and held her own.

One exchange lingers particularly in the memory, as Dick and Breathless meet in her dressing room at a New York dive after the murder of the gangster Lips Manlis. ‘No grief for Lips?’ growls Beatty.

‘I’m wearing black underwear,’ purrs Madonna.

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). 'I love the post-punk, spirit-of-New-York thing,' writes Michael Bond

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). ‘I love the post-punk, spirit-of-New-York thing,’ writes Michael Bond

‘You know it’s legal for me to take you down to the station and sweat it out of you under the lights…’

Pause. ‘I sweat a lot better in the dark.’

They don’t write lines like that any more – which is probably a good thing – but I’m glad they once did, and I’m quietly glad Madonna was around to deliver them.

Matthew Bond 

 



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