Madonna

MADONNA

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born in 1958 on the 16th of August, in Bay City, Michigan. Madonna was the oldest of eight, and she was named after her mother who died of breast cancer when she was six years old.
She graduated school in Rochester in 1976.

In 1978 she moved to New York. There she met Dan Gilroy, with whom she made her first couple of songs.
A few years later she was in a band called the breakfast club where she sang and played the drums. In that time she made most of her money by posing naked, she also played in some erotic movies.

Eventually, Madonna decided to concentrate on a singing career. She brought out her first single in 1982, everybody, and it became a club and dance hit.

In June 1983 she had another club hit, which was called Physical Attraction.
Her first top 40 hit was called Holiday. It reached the US top 20 in the end of 1983, and became a top 10 hit in Europe. In 1983 her first album, called Madonna, was brought out.

In 1984 she made some top 10 songs, like the song Borderline and Lucky star. She also started to work on her first starring role in the movie Desperately seeking Susan, which came out in 1985 and became quite a success.
In 1984 Madonna had her first number one hit: Like a virgin.

Her next single was called Material girl, and it reached number 2.
After this song, she went on her first tour, and she also married her first husband; the actor Sean Penn in Malibu Beach. By this time Madonna had become an internationally recognised superstar with thousands of teenage girls tried to look just like her.

In 1986 she appeared with her husband Sean Penn in her first real failure, the movie Shanghai Surprise. She separated from her husband in 1989.
In the period of the next two years she had a lot of top-5 hits, like Crazy for you, Dress you up, Papa don’t preach and La Isla Bonita, which was the sound track of her third feature movie, Who’s that girl. The movie wasn’t a success.

In 1989 she had already made four albums, and now brought out her fifth one, which was called Like a Prayer. The album was another number one hit, as well as the song that was called like a prayer. The album included another three top 10 hits.

In April 1990 she began her Blonde Ambition Tour, which ran throughout the entire year. In the same year the movie Dick Tracey was released, in which Madonna played a co-starring role. It was her most successful movie appearance since Desperately seeking Susan. She also released a greatest-hits album The Immaculate Collection.

In the summer of 1992 Madonna returned to the charts with the song This used to be my playground, which was the soundtrack of the movie A league of their own. Madonna played a small role in that film.
Later that year, Madonna published a book called Sex. It featured hundreds of erotic photographs of herself, several models and other celebrities, like Vanilla Ice and Naomi Campbell. It became a big success, the book was sold out within hours. The accompanying album, called Erotica was also a success: It sold over two million copies.
Bedtime stories, an album released two years after, was an album with slower material. It included Madonna’s biggest hit Take a Bow, which spent 7 weeks at number one.

In 1995 Madonna starred in the movie Evita, which was released in 1996. The soundtrack for the movie were the songs You just love me and Don’t cry for me Argentina.

Around the time that Evita was released, Madonna announced she was pregnant and her daughter, Lourdes, was born.
She returned to music in 1998 with her album Ray of Light, which included the hit singles Frozen, Ray of light and The power of goodbye.
She also wrote the song Beautiful stranger for the movie Austin Powers: The spy who shagged me, which was released in 1999.

Another soundtrack she made was for the movie The Next Best Thing, it was called American Pie. The song became a hit but the movie wasn’t really successful.
On the 11th of August 2000, right before the release of her album Music, Madonna gave birth to her second child, Rocco. In December that year she married the movie director Guy Ritchie. Together with him she made the video for What it feels like for a girl and in 2002 she starred in the movie Swept away. The same year Madonna performed the theme song for the new James Bond movie, Die another day.

Madonna has been in music for about 20 years now, and she is still successful. She has made 14 albums in total and has scored a lot of hits, of which 11 reached number 1. Some of her songs have been covered, Madhouse covered e.g. like a virgin and holiday, and kelly osbourne has covered papa don’t preach.
She has played in lots of movies, but only a few of them became a success.
She has been an example to women all over the world, by both looks and personality. She is known to often change her appearances, and surprises people by different clothing and hairstyles.