Life with My Sister Madonna

by Christopher Ciccone

  IN EARLY 1993, Madonna calls and tells me she’s going on tour again and wants me to work on it. She is also looking for a new house and asks me to come out to L.A. and help her.

  I fly out, stay at Oriole Way, spend a couple of weeks looking at houses with Madonna. We look in Bel Air, in Pacific Palisades, in Beverly Hills. We never let the brokers pick us up from Oriole Way, though. Madonna can’t stand real estate brokers and I know they don’t like her very much either, for when it comes to real estate, she is an extremely particular and difficult customer.

  Consequently, Madonna always drives us to the prospective houses. She likes to drive and enjoys being behind the wheel. She drives a little fast and is not a smooth driver, a little jerky. She doesn’t particularly care about cars, except for a classic white convertible Mercedes with a red leather interior that she owns—an older model that she first has in L.A., then ships down to Coconut Grove.

  So we drive to meet the brokers. Each time, we walk up the drive, but don’t go inside the house, because it takes Madonna one glance at an exterior to know she isn’t interested in a particular house—which bugs a lot of brokers, as she is depriving them of the chance to pitch it to her.

  But then we see Castillo del Lago, the former home of gangster Bugsy Siegel—coincidentally the subject of Warren’s movie Bugsy—which overlooks the Hollywood Reservoir and doesn’t feel as if it is in L.A. at all, but more like a palazzo in northern Italy. Madonna loves it and so do I. The twenty-thousand-square-foot castle has five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, stands on four acres of land, and—with its 160-foot lookout tower—feels secure.

  Madonna buys Castillo del Lago for around $5 million, and I start renovating it, working 24-7. Madonna doesn’t give me a budget, and I end up spending $3 million on renovations, the interiors, fixtures, and fittings. Then she has second thoughts. She sends me a letter in which she writes, “I don’t know how long I can live in this culturally bankrupt town,” and tells me I am spending too much money on Castillo. I probably am, but I’m having a great time doing it. Besides, every expenditure is necessary and accounted for.

  We meet and discuss the budget. I explain what I need to carry on the renovation. To my surprise, for the first time ever while I am working on one of her houses, Madonna questions my judgment, and I find it disconcerting. Ultimately, she leaves me completely to my own devices, and Castillo del Lago ends up being the most enjoyable interior job I have ever done for her.

  Part of the renovation of Castillo del Lago includes transforming the house’s two turrets, and its massive retaining wall. I hit on the idea of copying a little church in Portofino that Madonna and I visited at the end of Blond Ambition and both loved, which is painted in alternating white and terra-cotta stripes. I tell her my idea. She says, “Are you sure it won’t look like a circus tent?” I promise her that it won’t, particularly after it has aged. She tells me to go ahead.

  On the largest wall in the living room, we hang a Langlois nude of Selene and Endymion, which was first commissioned for the Palace of Versailles, which I had originally mounted on the ceiling of the Oriole house. With Madonna’s imprimatur, I fly to London and spend a fortune on fabrics and furniture. On Lillie Road, I find sixteen William and Mary chairs—an expensive purchase, but well worth it—and buy them. Madonna loves them. They travel with her on all her moves and she still has them to this day.

  Madonna and I are together all the time now, and—in shades of the past—whenever I wake up in the dead of the night, she is sitting on the floor in her library, reading books such as Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist. Despite the intervening years, her patterns are still the same. Only the surroundings and the lifestyle are grander.

  With the house under way, she asks me to meet with Freddy about my role on the tour. I tell her I want to direct as well as design. I ask to be relieved of my old dresser duties, and she says she will think about it.

  I have long forgiven her for outing me. She is trusting me to do her house, and the chances are that she is now about to trust me to direct her tour. She is relying on me, I am part of her world, and I am perfectly content.

  When I arrive at Freddy’s and he gives me the good news that Madonna has decided that I can direct The Girlie Show, he also gives me the bad. She has certain conditions.

  On tour, she will give me my own car and driver and will fly me first-class. However, she will not pay for me to stay in hotel suites. I am annoyed because even her assistant stays in a suite.

  My sister stands to make millions from this tour. I ask Freddy why he is haggling with me over a few thousand.

  “I have to, it’s my job and she insists,” he says.

  The remark is cryptic, but I think I know what he means. Although Madonna fully accepts that I merit the job of director and has willingly agreed to give it to me, strangely enough she partly resents her generosity to me. Refusing to allow me to stay in hotel suites is an expression of that resentment.

  When we arrive in London and I am shown to my room—a single one, at that—I complain to the tour manager. He gets me a suite instead. My sister finds out and sends me a rather nasty letter of complaint. I go to see her in her suite, and for the first and last time, I resort to a tear or two. I tell her that I am so sorry if she feels I took advantage of her and ask her to forgive me. For the rest of the tour, she books me into suites. I win the battle, but the point is still taken. She is thinking in terms of costs, not human beings, and definitely not of me and all the years we have worked together. Or perhaps I am now getting too close to her, and she is beginning to pull away.

  Starting in July, we begin rehearsing the show at Sony Studios on West Washington in Culver City. I am still designing Madonna’s house, but I am also supervising the crew, designing the stage set, handling all the dancers, maintaining peace onstage, and—above all—directing Madonna.

  To my surprise, though, at rehearsals she listens to me, and follows my advice on dance moves, costumes, lighting, and staging. We are together 24-7 and there are no more conflicts. Our creativity is perfectly in tune and I am having the best time of my life, although I have never worked harder.

  At first, I do have some problems with the crew—about a hundred roadies who assume I am only around because I’m Madonna’s brother. She doesn’t disabuse them of that notion. It takes me two weeks to win their respect, but in the end I do.

  In the evenings, Madonna and I talk about the show and, for inspiration, watch Bollywood musicals, Thai dancing, Burt Lancaster’s Trapeze, Marlene Dietrich, and Louise Brookes. We decide on a burlesque circus theme for the show and that we will use five different choreographers. Gene Kelly is one of them.

  He is to choreograph the “Rain” number, but from the first it is clear that he is uncomfortable with our dancers, whom we have picked for personality, and not because they are classically trained ballet dancers. He doesn’t understand the show’s concept of grand spectacle and burlesque with heavy sexual overtones.

  I take Madonna aside and tell her she needs to come and watch Gene’s number, as I don’t think he is working out and we need to fire him.

  She sits in on the number and strongly disagrees with me: “No, I think Gene will be fine.”

  I shrug and bide my time.

  A week later, she marches up to me and says, “Christopher, I’ve just watched Gene’s number again. I don’t think he’s working out. I think we need to fire him.”

  “Really? Are you sure, Madonna?”

  She nods, shamefaced at having single-handedly conceived of such a terrible fate for this venerable American icon. “Will you break it to him?” she asks, somewhat tentatively.

  “No way, Madonna. Your idea—you tell him!” I say firmly.

  “I’ll get Freddy to do it.”

  Exit Gene Kelly, with no hard feelings, I hope. Madonna, on the other hand, is not sentimental and never has been.

  IN JUNE 1993, just before the tour begins, Danny and I celebrate our tenth anniversary. In commemoration, I design
two matching platinum bands for us—one set with square-cut rubies, one set with square-cut emeralds—and have them made at the venerable Harry Winston. I have also translated to Latin and had engraved on the outside of the rings the words “As I am yours, you are mine.”

  During our ten years together, once Danny has conquered his drinking issues, the only cause of dissonance between us has been my relationship with my sister. Although she and Danny are on friendly terms, and when I am working on the Coconut Grove house, he comes to stay there with me, but in private he tells me that he thinks she is using me.

  He says constantly that she is sucking the life out of me. I counter with “You are wrong; she’s giving me life.” He hates Madonna because he holds her responsible for tearing me away from the secure little world we’ve created together in New York.

  I try to bring him into my world, but he simply refuses. He doesn’t want to meet me on the North American leg of the tour; he hates L.A., doesn’t drive, and won’t join me out there. As much as I can, I encourage him to work again. He has always expressed an interest in architecture, so I offer to send him to NYU to study it. I get the applications, help him prepare all the forms, but a week before the interview he decides he doesn’t want to go to college after all. He prefers to stay in our perfect little bubble, and to hell with the outside world.

  Apart from his distaste for Madonna, he is also uncomfortable with many of my friends because he feels they take me away from him, as well. And when one of my lesbian friends begs me to father her child, and I consider it, he nearly has a fit.

  I pay all our living expenses, but in the house we definitely live Danny’s way. I cook most of the time, we regularly throw dinner parties, and I firmly believe that our relationship is for life, although the gulf between my life with Madonna and my life with him is growing ever wider.

  ON JUNE 1, 1993, Madonna and I see Charles Aznavour and Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall. After the show, we are whisked backstage and into Liza’s dressing room. She is seated in front of her makeup mirror, dressed in the same red-sequined gown she just wore onstage. “Hello,” she blares in her distinctive voice, “I’m Liza!”

  “I’m Madonna.”

  “I know, I know,” says Liza, “I’m a massive fan of your work!”

  “So am I,” Madonna says, hastily adding, “I mean of yours, of course.”

  Madonna turns and introduces me.

  “You were amazing,” I say to Liza.

  Liza gives us both a broad, toothsome grin. The dressing room door opens. Her grin immediately fades. A group of fans enter. Liza’s grin glitters again, only this time not at us. Madonna and I exchange glances. The audience is over. We tiptoe out of the room, leaving the fans to Liza and vice versa. One more legend under our belts.

  On September 25, The Girlie Show opens at Wembley Stadium. Then the show moves on to Paris, where Madonna gives three concerts at the Palais Omnisport, to Frankfurt, and on October 4 to Tel Aviv, Israel.

  On our day off, we take a trip to Jerusalem, where Madonna and I vist the Church of the Holy Sepulchre together. We see how in the Catholic Church every sect of Catholicism has its own section. We are both scared by the intensity of religious feeling in Jerusalem. Madonna says, “Everyone wants a chunk of this city. It would be so hard to live here and find peace.”

  THE EUROPEAN LEG of the tour ends in Istanbul on October 7, then we fly back to America. Since we left, I have inhabited Madonna’s world, utterly and completely. With her, I live out all my creativity and travel to other countries, as well, which fascinates me and feeds my desire for inspiration and adventure.

  She and I are closer than ever, but that doesn’t stop her from forming her habitual on-the-road relationship with a so-called straight man—this time with Michael Gregory. And because I am lonely, and as I have done on every tour, I follow suit and develop an on-the-road relationship, this time with a dancer I’ll call Richard. We form a close, platonic relationship, and from Richard, I receive a little of the affection to which I am accustomed at home. Our relationship is not sexual or romantic, but nevertheless intimate.

  Before the London opening of The Girlie Show, all the dancers give me thank-you cards. I keep just one of them—a black-and-white thirties photo of ballet dancers—the one from Richard, on which he has written, “Thank you so much for being my friend. Working with you has been wonderful. You’re an amazing director. All my love, Richard, xx.”

  When I arrive back from Europe, I spend a couple of nights with Danny at our New York apartment. As Madonna is only going to do three shows—two at Madison Square Garden and the third in Philadelphia—and will leave straightaway for Asia, I don’t bother to unpack my suitcase.

  After the show in Philadelphia, on October 19, 1993, Madonna and I drive straight back to Manhattan. I get home to the apartment at around two in the morning. There I find Danny sitting on the floor, holding Richard’s card. One look at his face and I know I’m in trouble.

  He throws the card at my feet and accuses me of cheating on him. He demands that I confess then and there. I tell him I have nothing to confess. He insists that I swear that I won’t be unfaithful to him again. I tell him that I won’t swear that because, if I do, I’d be lying, because I haven’t been unfaithful to him in the first place. I tell him that what happened with Richard and me was only friendship, that I am not in love with Richard.

  Danny rounds on me and says, “You decide right now. Tell me that you will never be unfaithful to me again, or leave.”

  I am utterly dumbfounded.

  We spend the next couple of hours arguing.

  At four, Danny finally goes to bed.

  I sit on the kitchen floor till the sun rises, asking myself if I can go on. Do I want to remain on this isolated little planet with just Danny for company and never experience the wider world again? Or do I want to carry on exploring, living, being part of the world I crave, rather than watch from afar while life goes by me?

  As dawn breaks, I decide. I grab my bags and move to my studio.

  In the morning, I call Madonna and tell her what has happened. We rarely talk about our feelings in our family, so I know better than to expect her to offer me her shoulder to cry on; still, I secretly hope that she will care enough about me to be slightly sympathetic.

  “Don’t worry, I never liked him anyway,” she says.

  For a second, I am speechless.

  Then she goes on, “Don’t worry about it. Everything will work out.”

  End of discussion. Back to work again.

  No suggestion that I come over for breakfast or sit with her on the plane so we can talk.

  Nothing.

  Ten years of my life, gone.

  At this moment, the loss of my mother is at its most profound. There is no one for me to turn to, no one to understand. No one.

  I concentrate, instead, on retaining my professionalism—and succeed. On October 21, we play the Palace of Auburn Hills; on October 23, we play Montreal; then we fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where, on October 26, Madonna performs in front of twenty-six thousand fans and, by pulling the Puerto Rican flag up to her crotch, ends up being condemned by the Puerto Rican House of Representatives for desecrating their flag. Fortunately, we are allowed to leave the country.

  From there, we fly to Buenos Aires, then perform in São Paulo and in Rio, where Madonna appears in front of a sold-out crowd. In Mexico City, Madonna puts on three shows, flying in the face of religious groups that have fought to bar her from their country, but have failed.

  By the time the tour moves on to Australia on November 17, where Madonna performs in Sydney, then in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide, I am starting to be somewhat distracted from my breakup with Danny.

  After New York, Richard and I have embarked on an intimate relationship after all. Although I am on top of the world professionally, I am still acutely aware that my personal life has come crashing down on me.

  When I arrive in Tokyo, where The Girlie Show tour ends wi
th five sold-out concerts, all I can think of now is Danny. However much Richard has succeeded in saving me from the dark days, now that I am confronting the reality that I am about to return home to America without Danny there waiting for me, I feel as if I have thrown away my last chance at love, the best man I’ll ever know, and I’m distraught.

  I think back on my life with Danny and decide that I want to compensate him for all the years we have spent together. I send him almost a quarter of my savings—$50,000—funds I’ve been saving for the last fifteen years.

  I tell Madonna, and I am deeply moved when she writes me a long and comforting letter. Addressing me as “My dearest tortured brother,” she says that it’s nice to discover that “indecision, self-doubt, the inability to be alone, and masochism is a familial trait and nothing exclusive to my own genetic structure.”

  She confesses that not a day goes by without her experiencing those same feelings. With a degree of insight that surprises me, she tells me that she feels I have outgrown Danny and that she understands how break-ups are particularly hard for us because we never got enough love as children.

  “You need to be around a man that disagrees with you loudly…I’ll race ya! Let’s see who gets there first.”

  She is right on all counts. Moreover, she has demonstrated such sisterly love toward me that I am deeply touched. I guess that’s how it is with siblings—we disappoint the hell out of each other one moment and shower each other with unconditional love the next.

  YET HOWEVER POSITIVE and encouraging and sisterly Madonna is, I still feel my life has somehow ended. In contrast, hers is beginning again, and she is moving in a new and dramatically different direction; she plans to get pregnant. She doesn’t yet have a father in mind, so she launches on what she calls “The Daddy Search.”

  She tells me she’s reached a crossroads in her life when her maternal instinct is starting to kick in. I believe that she wants and needs someone of her own, something of herself to carry on when she’s gone, and I surmise that she wants to be the mother she never had, and to have her child experience the maternal love she never received herself.