Life with My Sister Madonna

by Christopher Ciccone

  We also often go to Club Louis on Pico, a tiny place run by Steve Antin, an actor, with a bar rather like someone’s living room, decorated with seventies posters of black guys with Afros. Very cool. Madonna and I really love it there, and so do countless other celebrities.

  We spend the night on the dance floor, doing steps from our old track-date routines, making up new ones along the way. My sister dances with me, and if any of our dancers come with us, we all dance together. On the dance floor Madonna isn’t self-centered. She doesn’t want to dance alone, but in step with me and anyone else we are with; we all end up dancing the same steps together.

  Meanwhile, Warren sits on the sidelines, sometimes smiling, other times frowning, always watching, always indulgent, and un-threatened by being around so many gay people.

  I say, “Come on, Warren, come and dance with us.”

  He grins that half grin and says, “No, thanks, you guys do it better than I do. Dance away.”

  He is the only straight guy in the room, and I think he likes it that way. He doesn’t have a problem with all the gays dancing together. He is far too sure of his own masculinity for that.

  Nor does he react to my gayness by deriding me or by suggesting that my sexuality emasculates me. He always treats me with the utmost respect, makes sure never to overlook me, and never comes between Madonna and me. All in all, I really like and admire Warren.

  Meanwhile, my sister is cheating on him.

  I KNOW LITTLE about the other man, just that he is Latino.

  She has told me that she doesn’t trust Warren; she is convinced that he is being unfaithful to her, but she has nothing tangible on which to base her suspicions.

  From what I know of him, I think she is wrong and that he isn’t fooling around.

  Warren is perceptive enough to sense that Madonna has other fish to fry, and that, as far as she is concerned, he definitely is not the only game in town.

  At this stage, we are rehearsing for the next tour, Blond Ambition. Madonna has promoted me to artistic director, although she still wants me to dress her, and I am more involved than ever in planning the tour. In the four-month run-up, I stay with her at Oriole Way, where I have my own room.

  We run together every day and afterward work fourteen hours a day and hang out together when we’re not working.

  Warren rarely comes to rehearsals. Many times at the end of the day, when we are in the kitchen, talking about the show, Madonna tells me Warren is coming over later. By the time he makes it, I am usually in bed. The next morning, Madonna and I go running. When we get back, he has already left.

  One night, I wake up thirsty at around three in the morning and go to get a glass of water. The house is dark and the limestone floors are cool beneath my feet. The house is shaped like a U, with the master bedroom at the end of one side of the U and my bedroom at the end of the other. In between, there is the office, the library, the living room, and the kitchen. To get to the kitchen, you have to go past the office. As I walk down the long hall to the kitchen, out of the corner of my eye, in the shadows, I see Warren in the office. It looks to me as if he is rifling through my sister’s wastebasket.

  I quickly walk on into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water, making sure to create a lot of noise.

  When I walk past the office again, Warren is gone.

  The next morning I decide to keep the whole Warren-in-the-office incident to myself. But deep down, I think that Warren, operator that he has always been, has had the sense to recognize his equal in Madonna. An accomplished philanderer, he has met his match and knows it. All that is left for him is to un-earth the evidence. And that, I believe, is apparently the explanation for his going through Madonna’s garbage: searching for proof of her infidelity out of an understandable desire to know the truth.

  Whether he finds it is debatable. What is incontrovertible is that as soon as Madonna starts being filmed for Truth or Dare, his relationship with her starts to spiral downward. Warren exhibits great disdain for the project, and—with the exception of one short scene—refuses to take part in it. His refusal earns him my further admiration.

  EACH MORNING BEFORE rehearsal, Madonna and I go for our usual six-mile run. On the way back to Oriole Way, we run up an extremely steep hill. One morning, I get to the top of the hill and feel light-headed. I don’t say anything to Madonna, drive with her to rehearsals, but all morning keep forgetting things and, in general, feel extremely weird. I find it difficult to catch my breath.

  By lunchtime, my thoughts are in turmoil. So I go to see David Mallet, the tour director, and tell him I don’t feel well and that I think I need to go to the hospital—adding that he mustn’t tell Madonna, as I don’t want her to freak out.

  I go to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, on South Buena Vista right by Warner Studios, and take an ECG. The results show that I am in the midst of an arrhythmia attack. My heartbeat is off-kilter and blood is failing to reach my brain properly. I lie on the table, worrying about how rehearsal is going without me.

  A freckle-faced nurse pops her head into the curtained area I’m in and with a look of surprise and curiosity says, “Madonna is on the phone for you. Is it the Madonna?” I tell her it is and ask her to bring me the phone, which she does.

  Madonna asks me what’s going on.

  I tell her that I have a problem with my heart and that further tests are pending.

  She tells me not to worry about coming back to rehearsals, and that she’ll call back to see how I am.

  Then she carries on rehearsing.

  Fifteen minutes later, the same nurse comes up to me and—with utter disbelief—announces, “Warren Beatty’s on the phone! You’re pretty popular!”

  I smile wanly and get on the phone with Warren.

  “Christopher, tell me exactly what’s going on.”

  I tell him, and without skipping a beat, Warren says, “I am going to call my cardiologist. He’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  He does.

  I see the cardiologist the next morning, and he diagnoses me with mitral-valve prolapse. Whatever is or is not going on between Warren and my sister, Warren is there for me, he comes through. I think he is cooler than ever. (Six years later, the same thing happens to me again, but my heart problem is reclassified as a stress-related electrical issue—at that time in my life, hardly surprising.)

  The last time I see my sister and Warren together is at the Washington premiere of Dick Tracy. Afterward, they and the dancers and I all come back to the hotel together. I go downstairs to have a drink, and Warren and Madonna go upstairs together. After that, their relationship just fizzles out. They have been an item for just fifteen months. No fireworks, no recriminations herald the end of their romance. Just a slow, gentle fade-out.

  I last see Warren about four years ago when we have lunch together at a little Japanese restaurant high above Beverly Hills, close to his home on Mulholland. He advises me about a script I’ve written, I advise him regarding renovations on his home, and then he asks me about Madonna.

  For a while, we chat about her. But during the entire lunch, Warren, cool as ever, never once mentions current my brother-in-law Guy Ritchie. All during my lunch with Warren, I wish that Madonna had married him instead.

  Warren’s successor in my sister’s life is not a big-time Hollywood tycoon, but a twenty-seven-year-old actor, Tony Ward—who appeared in the Pepsi video and has also made gay as well as straight porn. Not that Madonna has ever been remotely interested in porn. The image she so painstakingly projects in her book Sex is just that—an image concocted for commercial purposes. She never has any porn around any of her houses. Like Warren, though, Tony is incredibly sexy, and I fully understand Madonna’s attraction to him, though in this case I don’t share it.

  As the eighties end, Madonna is showered with accolades. MTV’s viewers vote her Artist of the Decade, People lists her as one of “20 Who Defined the Decade,” she overtakes the Beatles on the list of all-time consecu
tive top-five U.S. singles (she has sixteen of them in a row), and she is named the world’s top-earning female entertainer. Madonna’s legend will unquestionably endure far into the next decade.

  SEVEN

  What counted was mythology of self, blotched

  out beyond blotching.

  Wallace Stevens

  THE DAY BEFORE the opening of the Blond Ambition world tour, Marine Stadium, Makuhari, Tokyo, Japan, April 12, 1990, Madonna marches onstage bitching about the sound system, stomping around and yelling “You motherfuckers,” all classic Madonna, all captured on camera by Alek Keshishian for his documentary Truth or Dare. I hesitate, though, to apply the word documentary to my sister’s performance in Truth or Dare because it really is a performance, comprising the best acting of her whole career. And anyone who thinks that Truth or Dare reveals the real Madonna is on the wrong track—just as she always intended them to be.

  The title, Truth or Dare, is a grave misnomer, because anyone seeking the truth about the real person behind my sister’s artfully constructed facade won’t find it in this “documentary,” except in the Marine Stadium scene and in a second authentic Madonna moment, which comes when she is having breakfast with Sandra Bernhard. Dressed in a silk kimono, she is relaxed and natural. Sandra asks her about her childhood after our mother died, and Madonna tells her how—for five years after our mother’s death—she used to have nightmares that someone was strangling her, broke out in sweats, and fled to our father’s bed for comfort. Sandra asks how she slept in her father’s bed, and Madonna cracks, “Fine. I went right to sleep after he fucked me.” Then she laughs at her own “joke” and adds, “No, I’m just kidding.”

  The scene perfectly illustrates Madonna in one of her more aberrational moments when—in her head—she is so above everything and everyone that she thinks she can say whatever she wants. I never mention it to her again. I am far too angry with her.

  As to the rest of Truth or Dare—which in Britain is retitled as Bedtime with Madonna—this travesty of reality starts with Madonna bemoaning that the end of the tour is nigh. “I’m just getting rid of the depression of what I feel when the tour’s over with…. I know I’m going to feel something later.”

  Consequently, she says, she is becoming emotional. In reality—and this is an exact quote from Madonna, as she told me when the tour ended—her primary emotion was “Thank God it’s over.”

  In general the end of a tour is never remotely emotional for Madonna, just for the tour dancers, who have been harboring the fantasy that they have been growing closer to her daily—and will always remain so. However, during these last days of the tour, they are slowly starting to realize that once the tour is over, they will never see her again face-to-face.

  In this first scene of Truth or Dare, Madonna appears to be extremely thoughtful and weighing her words. In reality, she is far more likely to blurt things out, without giving them any thought at all. Yet here she is obviously calculating what to say next and is clearly reciting her words, as if she has memorized them from a script.

  The phone call to my father, inviting him to the show—which begins, “Listen, I realize I haven’t talked to you in a while. You know I hope everything’s okay and everything, but I have no idea what night you guys are coming to the show, what night…. Well, who wants to come and when?”—is also a setup, filmed with my father’s permission. In real life, Madonna’s assistant Melissa would have made that call, not Madonna.

  When she pulls the petals off a daisy and wistfully poses the question about Warren—“He loves me, he loves me not”—that moment is contrived for the camera. At this stage in their relationship, Madonna doesn’t care much about Warren at all anymore. Nor would she ever berate him the way she does on camera or call him “pussy man.” In real life, she would be far more polite, far more respectful. As for Warren, he makes it clear from the start that he hates the concept of Truth or Dare. He definitely is not himself in the few scenes in which he consented to take part. After Madonna secretly tapes one of their more intimate phone calls and later tells him she plans to include it in the documentary, he sends in his lawyers and the call is cut.

  During the scene in Toronto, when we play the SkyDome on May 27 and 28 and her manager, Freddy DeMann, and I learn that the police might arrest Madonna for obscenity, I am seen giving her the news. The scene is staged from start to finish. The director urged me to tell Madonna on camera, and despite my better instincts, I agreed. In reality, I would never have mentioned the police threat to her until after the show, and would have dealt with the situation myself.

  The backstage scenes in the Palace, Michigan, when Madonna plays there from May 30 to June 2, are also contrived. In my experience, Madonna would not have allowed Marty backstage, or her childhood friend Moira McPharlin. Nor would she have socialized with the dancers’ families. She’s too focused on the tour to be even remotely interested in anyone’s family when she’s on the road.

  During the second show in Detroit, she announces, “There’s no place like home. There’s nobody like this man. There’s nobody like my father. I worship the ground that he walks on.” Our father comes onstage, she bows down to him, and she gets the audience to join her in singing “Happy Birthday” to him, and in that she is sincere.

  The poem Madonna recites in praise of her assistant Melissa Crowe, which plays extremely well in the movie, may be heartfelt, but not long afterward, Melissa quit working for her because she’d had enough.

  After Melissa stopped working for Madonna, I wanted to stay in touch with her as we were good friends, but Madonna decreed that I couldn’t. As far as she is concerned, once employees are out of the loop, they are banished for all time. And anyone who has the temerity to talk to them is branded a betrayer.

  HERE IS THE full truth about Blond Ambition from my perspective.

  Madonna calls and says, “I’m going on tour, and of course I want you to dress me, but I think you ought to design the stage and art-direct the show as well.”

  Stunned silence from me.

  “You designed my New York apartment and the Oriole Way house, so you should be able to design my show as well.”

  I am really pleased, but mildly disappointed that I still have to be her dresser. But at least I can now tell my friends that I am art-directing Madonna’s show. And the pay is now $100,000—much more than I’ve been paid for the other two tours.

  My responsibilities now include overseeing and supervising the costumes, the tour book, the look of the stage, and, of course, dressing Madonna. By now, her team are all aware that I have a great deal of influence over her, so if they want to tell Madonna something they’re afraid to say to her face, they ask me to be their intermediary. I end up carrying a great many messages between her and everyone else.

  Before the tour begins, we meet with Gaultier and look at design concepts, including the iconic bustier. He sends us a number of designs for it, and Madonna and I make the final selections. Next, the bustier, and everything else we pick, has to be made in triplicate. Everything has to be double-sewn with elastic threads and supports in various places, including for her chest. Her shoulder straps are strengthened, and all snaps are replaced with hooks or zippers, so none of the clothes come apart onstage.

  I suggest that we set this version of the song “Like a Virgin” in a harem. However, the costume for the scene proves to be a problem, as the thread is really heavy gold metal, and the costume is hard for her to wear. All six versions we have made eventually corrode beyond recognition.

  Madonna sings “Like a Virgin” on a red velvet bed with two dancers on either side, and the song ends with her simulating masturbation. My feelings about the scene alter from night to night. Either I laugh uncontrollably or have to turn away in disgust. I may have seen the scene at least fifty times, but it remains difficult for me to watch. I may be my sister’s art director, but she is still my sister.

  I AM WITH her while she conducts the dancer auditions. Although I have learned
to keep my mouth shut, at intervals Madonna does question me about the stage and in particular dancers. Oliver Crumes is her pick, her straight man for the tour. In Truth or Dare, she treats him like a child. They spend a great deal of time together each night after the show, but I don’t know whether their relationship went any further.

  A FEW DAYS before opening night, director Alek Keshishian comes to Tokyo to start filming Truth or Dare, but initially he has a rough time, because Madonna will only let him shoot certain things and is wary of strangers. So he ends up pumping me for advice on how to handle her.

  A short summary of what I told him: “You can’t just bounce into the room and do your thing. You have to enter the room carefully and first check Madonna’s mood. Check her face. Say hello and see in what tone of voice she answers.

  “If she says ‘Hi, how are you?’ that’s a better sign than if she just says ‘Hi.’ If she doesn’t look at you or doesn’t even say hi, you know it isn’t a good day. You must never get in her face. You must make her feel as if all your ideas, in actuality, came from her.”

  He takes my advice; she relaxes with him and gives him almost total access. Now he is shooting everything. Far more than I think he should be.

  On the road, Madonna makes a stab at treating the dancers as if they are her family and even calls it “mothering”—but it isn’t really conventional mothering. She keeps them close enough and devoted enough to remain loyal to her, and useful, but isn’t genuinely loving and nurturing. At times, she reminds me of Joan, keeping her brood in order.

  When we play Detroit and Alek shoots backstage, I hover around her, but I don’t pick anything up or wipe the sweat off her body. Alek asks me to do all of that, but I refuse point-blank to either dress or undress her on camera. Now that I am art director, more than ever I don’t want my friends or family to think of me in the role of her dresser.

  For Madonna, one of the most embarrassing and incriminating moments during Truth or Dare is Moira McPharlin’s backstage visit in Detroit. Moira is invited specifically so that Alek can film her face-to-face meeting with Madonna. If he hadn’t wanted to film it, the meeting would never have taken place, as Madonna always avoids that kind of one-on-one interaction, particularly when she is in the midst of a show.