Madonna

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Melinda Cooper, who worked as an assistant to Madonna’s manager Freddy DeMann, confirms at least one abortion during these early years. “Madonna loved Jellybean very much,” she recalls, “but she wanted a career and so did he. So the abortion was necessary.”

  Cooper says that Madonna called Freddy to tell him that she was pregnant and had decided not to have the baby. Freddy agreed that the timing was probably wrong for a child in her life, and so he had Melinda make the necessary arrangements. Melinda remembers the pregnant Madonna as, “scared to death, and I also recall that she definitely did not want her father to know that she was going to have this abortion, or any family member for that matter. I drove her to the doctor’s office myself, a long, difficult ride in which she was very quiet, sometimes crying. I know that she had made a conscious decision that the mature thing for her to do at this time in her life was not to bring a baby into her world. ‘I’m not cut out to be a mother,’ she told me. ‘At least not yet.’ Still, she definitely wanted to be a wife. Jellybean’s.”

  “We were going to be married along the way,” concurs Jellybean Benitez when speaking of his two-year romance with Madonna. “But there was no way [this would happen], when you really think about it. I don’t know that she could be monogamous, though, at least at this time. I mean, no, to be frank, she couldn’t be.”

  Says Melinda Cooper, “Definitely, Jellybean was the man for her. She was crazy about him. I think that the reason she started playing around behind his back was to get his attention. She would do anything to get him to treat her the way she wanted to be treated, even if that meant inciting his jealousy.”

  Indeed, while engaged to Benitez, Madonna began dating Steve Newman, the editor of a small-time magazine in New York, Fresh 14. After he featured Madonna on the cover of the magazine, the two began their own romantic relationship.

  “I told her that I wasn’t going to be into it if she wasn’t going to be committed to me,” he recalled many years later. “And she said, ‘Oh yeah, definitely. I want this relationship more than anything in the world.’ So I was cool with that, even though I knew she still had a lot of unfinished business with Jellybean. I figured, well, she knows what she’s doing. He was out and I was in . . . or so I thought.”

  One morning, a frustrated and enraged Benitez broke into Newman’s home, where he found the woman he’d been searching for the entire previous evening. It seemed clear that his girlfriend and Steve Newman had just made love. Jellybean turned toward Madonna in a cold fury. He dragged her into another room and became engaged in an argument with her that was so vicious, Newman was stunned by it: “She was screaming things like, ‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d be nobody today. I made you, Jellybean. You were just nothing until I came along and fucking transformed your life.’ And he was saying the exact same things to her. And it was all about who made who a star.

  “I knew then that she was still obviously involved with him, but I loved her. Sure, she was an incredible sexual partner, very imaginative, wild. But more than that, she was seductive, just in her personality. There’s something about being with a woman who is that aggressive, and who you know is going to make a success of her life. It’s intoxicating to hear her talk, to watch her do the things she does on a daily basis.”

  When Benitez finally left Newman’s home, Madonna saw Steve Newman standing at a window and looking out at the city, probably wondering about his fate in the relationship. She walked up to him and touched his arm. When he turned around, she fell into his arms, tears streaming down her face. “She hugged me tightly,” he recalls, “and it was as if time stood still. I was in love. I told her she was not going to ruin me emotionally. I said, ‘Listen, don’t think you are going to do to me what you are doing to Jellybean.’ And she said, ‘Oh, no, Steve, you’re different.’”

  She cried and begged for his forgiveness. “I love you,” she told him, “and only you.”

  “I looked into her beautiful eyes and I saw reflected there all the love we shared,” he now recalls. “She looked so lost and awful, I felt that I needed to take care of her. So what could I do? Just wait and see how it would turn out, that’s all I could do.”

  The predicament Madonna has said she faced in her personal life at this time was that, because of her runaway success, she felt she would not be able to find a mate among the men who had been in her circle — all of whom were really still struggling to attain their own measure of success. Even though Jellybean Benitez was now making a good living as a result of the success of his song “Holiday,” she didn’t think he would ever be able to equal her financial status. Steve Newman, she felt, would probably never even come close to Benitez’s financial status. Simply, she was a practical woman who didn’t want to be in a relationship with a man who had less money than her. “I want to be taken care of,” she had said. “I don’t want to be the one doing the taking care of.”

  While she may have thought she loved Steve Newman, in a matter of months Madonna no longer felt that way about him, just another example of her mercurial nature. One evening during a date, Madonna and Steve Newman were enjoying martinis in an intimate bar in New York. Steve took the moment to address the fact that he sensed her lack of commitment. Many years later, he would recall the conversation. “I really love you, Madonna,” he told her. “I mean, I swear to God, you are the woman for me.”

  “I know I am,” Madonna said, matter-of-factly. “That much is clear.”

  “So why not just drop that Jellybean character? Let’s you and me get together,” Newman said, pushing.

  Madonna thought it over for a moment and, toying with the slice of lime in her drink, looked at her boyfriend with a serious expression. “Steve, face facts,” she said. “You’re this nobody writer making no money. Right? But I’m Madonna. I mean, I’m making, what? A quarter million a year? And next year, I’ll be making ten times that much. And you? Well, you’ll still be this nobody writer, making no money, won’t you?”

  Ignoring the hurt expression on his face, she continued, “In fact, your magazine will probably even be out of business in a year. So, I’m afraid that this will never work. You and I, we’re over, Steve. I’m so sorry,” she concluded, “but, really, it’s over.”

  “Is that all it’s about for you?” Newman asked, incredulously. “Success and money?”

  “Yeah, it is,” she answered, nodding her head. “Now that you mention it, it is.”

  *

  Anyone who knew her well knew that Madonna — who would turn twenty-six in August — wasn’t the kind of woman one might consider a particularly nice person. However, she was also objective about herself and her shortcomings. She would be the first, for instance, to call herself “a bitch.” In an interview with the author in June 1984, she said, “Yes, I admit it. I’m tough. And I don’t use the fact that I’m a woman as an excuse like a lot of other bitches. They say, oh, poor me, I’m a woman, so I have to fight harder. That’s true. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a bitch.”

  She also had a sense of humor about herself.

  “How did you get this reputation?” I asked. “Is it because you want attention, and so you push people around?”

  “No, that’s not it,” Madonna said.

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  She mulled over the question. “Basically, I think it’s this: people just tend to piss me off. Therefore, I hate them.”

  The two of us dissolved into laughter. She was wearing a black lace bodysuit with a plunging neckline. Three crucifixes dangled from her neck: “one for each of the sins I committed just in the last hour,” she explained.

  Later in the interview, Madonna openly admitted that she has been intimate with both men and women, and that often they were people who could advance her career. “True,” she said. “And they fucked me to advance their careers, too. Let’s face it. It has worked both ways. How many people used me to get ahead? You’re a reporter. Make a list and get back to me later.”

  I wondered ho
w she felt about Cher’s recent comments that she was “tacky”?

  “Now, that’s in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?” she answered. “And who knows tacky better than Cher?”

  “She also said that you are ‘vulgar, aggressive, even mean-spirited.’”

  “Oh, puh-leeze,” Madonna said, giggling. “Of course I am.”

  *

  As her musical career continued to thrive, Madonna turned her sights on one of her earliest obsessions: the movies. She still wanted to be an actress, that ambition had not changed. Obviously, her musical career had begun to be rewarding, financially and creatively. Now, she was seeking a movie role. Once again, timing and Lady Luck conspired to make Madonna’s dreams a reality.

  At this time, movie producer Susan Seidelman was in the process of casting a relatively low-budget ($5 million) film for Orion Pictures. The script, entitled Desperately Seeking Susan, was a good one — a modern, screwball comedy with a New Wave feel about a suburban housewife who, bored with her upper-middle-class existence, starts following romance through the personal ads. Enter the “Susan” of the title, a kooky, scatterbrained “street girl” who disrupts the sex lives of all concerned and causes the housewife (Rosanna Arquette), to shed her inhibitions and, after a temporary loss of memory, to “become” Susan. The character was perfect for Madonna’s brash image and in the late summer of 1984 Madonna turned her attention to landing the role, letting Seidelman know she was interested.

  Seidelman was also interested in Madonna. She had been having problems casting the role of Susan with an actress who could convincingly convey the character’s combined qualities of sexiness, brashness and self-confidence (actresses who were tested included Jennifer Jason Leigh, Melanie Griffith, Kelly McGillis and Ellen Barkin). After Madonna’s screen test, it was quickly agreed by everyone involved that she was perfectly suited for the part. She began filming the movie in November 1984.

  Though the film had been a vehicle for Rosanna Arquette, it wasn’t long before Desperately Seeking Susan was being referred to by the media as “the Madonna Movie” . . . much to Arquette’s dismay. The movie was soon structured to showcase the inexperienced pop-star-turned-actress. A song by Madonna, “Into the Groove,” was even worked into the thread of the story line, which prompted Arquette to complain later, “It was completely unfair. As soon as Madonna came into the picture, the script was changed to suit her. I told them that if Susan was going to be nothing more than a two-hour rock video spotlighting Madonna, well, I didn’t want to be a part of it. A disco dance movie isn’t what I signed on to do. However, I couldn’t get out of it . . .” (Ironically, it would largely be because Madonna, described by former New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael as “a trampy, indolent goddess,” was in the film that it would go on to become one of the top-five-grossing movies of 1985.)

  Like a Virgin

  Back on the pop music scene, Madonna’s second album, Like a Virgin, was released on November 12, 1984.

  Like A Virgin is really a portrait of Madonna’s uncanny pop instincts empowered by her impatient zeal for creative growth and her innate knack for crafting a good record. With the unqualified success of her debut album, just who and what fueled the Madonna persona was now clear: she was a street-smart dance queen with the sexy allure of Marilyn Monroe, the coy iciness of Marlene Dietrich and the cutting (and protective) glibness of a modern Mae West. Madonna’s first album succeeded in introducing that persona and, now, with the new album she set out to solidify and build upon the concept. The work, the dedication — the stubbornness — had paid off. Now, it was time to solidify her future.

  “Warner Bros. Records is a hierarchy of old men, and it’s a chauvinist environment to be working in because I’m treated like this sexy little girl,” she said at the time. “I have to prove them wrong, which has meant not only proving myself to my fans but to my record company as well. That is something that happens when you’re a girl. It wouldn’t happen to Prince or Michael Jackson. I had to do everything on my own and it was hard trying to convince people that I was worth a record deal. After that, I had the same problem trying to convince the record company that I had more to offer than a one-shot girl singer.”

  Taking control as the record’s primary producer, Madonna chose Nile Rodgers, a man of great experience when it came to creating personas in the recording studio. With production partner Bernard Edwards, Rodgers had formed the seventies band Chic, essentially a studio rhythm section (including two female vocalists and drummer Tony Thompson) which had a string of disco-era dance hits, including “Dance, Dance, Dance,” “Everybody Dance,” “Le Freak” and “Good Times.”

  Because pop and R&B music is a producer-driven medium, Chic’s hits quickly put Edwards’s and Rodgers’s sound in demand. Soon, the duo had written and produced hit records for others, including the sibling act Sister Sledge who found commercial success with Edwards’s and Rodgers’s “We Are Family” and “The Greatest Dancer,” and Diana Ross, who did the same with “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out.” Indeed, when guitarist Rodgers split with Edwards to work separately, his inventive ability to meld rock and rhythm is what made his production of David Bowie’s 1983 hit “Let’s Dance” so spectacular . . . and probably what attracted Madonna to him as a producer. Theirs was — and still is — a mutual admiration society.

  “I’m always amazed by Madonna’s incredible judgment when it comes to making pop records,” says Nile Rodgers. “I’ve never seen anyone do it better, and that’s the truth. When we did that album, it was the perfect union, and I knew it from the first day in the studio. The thing between us, man, it was sexual, it was passionate, it was creative . . . it was pop.”

  Their collective energy — Madonna wanting to score with a smash second album and Nile Rodgers wanting to be the producer to give it to her — drove the production of the Like a Virgin collection with great precision. The album’s title track, and first single, offered the perfect continuation of the Madonna persona with sexy double entendres, every step along the way: “Like a virgin . . . touched for the very first time.” The expensive, lavish video — featuring Madonna with a wild lion — was filmed in Italy. When she sang the song on the 1984 MTV Video Awards show — the public’s first taste of her in live performance — she wore a knee-length, white wedding dress, veil, bustier, garter belt and plenty of clunky jewelry. She worked the stage like a panther in heat, crawling on the floor seductively, playing right to the camera and flirting all the while with what she knew was an international audience. Recalls Melissa Etheridge, “I remember thinking, ‘What is she doing? She’s wearing a wedding dress. Oh my God, she’s rolling around on the floor. Oh my God!’ It was the most brave, blatant sexual thing I’ve ever seen on television.”

  Since Nile Rodgers brought musicians from Chic with him to the studio with Madonna, many Chic fans felt that Like a Virgin was actually just another Chic album. If that was true, it was certainly armed with better, more durable singles. However, neither Madonna nor Rodgers had a hand in writing the song “Like a Virgin.” Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg penned it, and it was middle-aged Mo Ostin (then president of Warner Bros. Records) who found it, then passed it on to the label’s fledgling artist. Madonna and Rodgers, who brought the song to life, created a sparse, anxious groove, driven by a big, mechanical snare drum. Madonna crafted a coy vocal that suggested she really was a virgin — excited, sexy and willing. It all worked: “Like a Virgin” became Madonna’s first Number 1 pop single, and stayed in that position for six weeks. (Nile Rodgers remixed “Like a Virgin” for the twelve-inch dance single; however his version was rejected in favor of the remix produced by Jellybean Benitez.)

  With the success of the single “Like a Virgin,” the album only then began to show its true worth. Behind the title track, Warner Bros. Records released “Material Girl,” an even funkier musical sound with a New Wave accent. Armed with a great melody and semi-biographical, tongue-in-cheek ironic lyrics about a girl’s love for cash, “
Material Girl” was propelled to Number 2 in the pop charts.

  In the meantime, two songs from movie soundtracks would further raise Madonna’s popularity to fever pitch. “Crazy for You,” a sassy ballad written by Jon Lind and John Bettis and produced by Jellybean Benitez (from the movie Vision Quest) would become Madonna’s second Number 1 single. Then, the up-tempo “Into the Groove,” co-written and co-produced by Madonna and ex-boyfriend, musical mentor and cohort Steve Bray (from the soundtrack of Desperately Seeking Susan), went to Number 1 on the dance charts (even though it was just the B side of “Angel,” the third single from Like a Virgin). Both tracks were vital to the public’s growing fascination with Madonna, “Crazy for You” because it provided more proof that she was vocally capable of delivering a serious ballad, and “Into the Groove” because it demonstrated her continual ability to create infectious dance music. “Dress You Up,” the next single from Virgin, added to the successful, commercial streak when it went to Number 5 in the pop charts.

  Though Like a Virgin became Madonna’s first Number 1 album (and one of the biggest-selling albums of 1985), it generated less than enthusiastic reviews (“A tolerable bit of fluff,” People magazine observed). It’s true that, today — and especially when compared to Madonna’s body of work since that time — the album seems a bit repetitious and immature. Nile Rodgers confesses, “As a fan, it wouldn’t be what I consider my favorite Madonna album compositionally.”

  However, the mere fact that at the time of its release so many couldn’t resist commenting on the record was testament to the continuing, growing fascination with the artist who created it. Mick Jagger even threw his hat in the ring by commenting that Madonna’s songs were characterized by a “central dumbness.”