While the critics praised the play, they panned Madonna. “She moves as if she were operated by a remote control unit several cities away,” said Dennis Cunningham of CBS, adding that “her ineptitude is scandalously thorough.” John Simon of New York magazine complained that “she could afford to pay for a few acting lessons.” The Washington Post’s David Richards said simply, “she’s the weakest thing in it.” Madonna, though, was happy with her performance. “It’s like having really good sex,” she said of the experience.
“I hated to love it and I loved to hate it,” she said, later. “It was just grueling having to do the same thing every night, playing a character who is so unlike me. I didn’t have a glamorous or flamboyant part. I was a scapegoat. That’s one of the things that attracted me to it. Still, night after night, the character failed in the context of the play. To continue to fail each night and to walk off that stage crying, with my heart wrenched . . . it just got to me after a while.”
Also in that first-night audience, perhaps to check out her son’s latest romantic interest, was Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
“John told me that Jackie thought she was ‘fascinating’,” said Stephen Styles. “I asked him, ‘What does that mean?’ and he laughed. ‘That’s Mother’s way of saying that Madonna isn’t her cup of tea,’ he said.”
“Madonna didn’t know Jackie was in the house [the theater],” said Diane Giordano. “If she had known, as fascinated as she was with Jackie, she might have had trouble going on, she would have been that nervous.”
After the show, when Madonna was told that Jackie had been in the audience, she waited backstage for an hour, hoping the former First Lady would come back and say hello. She had applied a pale, almost white foundation to her face, which contrasted dramatically with her bright red lips. Carefully she penciled in her eyebrows and then shaded her beauty spot. She pulled her dark hair back severely and dressed in a natty, gray, pinstriped Armani trouser suit with a white silk blouse — buttoned all the way to the top. Three friends joined her. Someone fixed martinis. Then they waited . . . and waited. Jackie never showed up.
Later, Madonna would say that Jackie’s absence backstage “ruined” her opening night. “The only reason a person doesn’t come backstage after a show is if they didn’t like what they saw and don’t know how to tell you that,” Madonna said, sadly. “If I had only known she was out there, I swear to God, I would have been much, much better. I would have tried so much harder. Why didn’t Johnny tell me she was coming?”
Madonna loved a good icon, always had. She was such an admirer of Jackie, she desperately wanted her approval, especially now that she was dating her son. She was certain, she told friends, that she would be able to convince Jackie that she wasn’t as notorious as the former First Lady believed her to be. However, Jackie steadfastly refused to meet her. “How can she not take my calls?” a perplexed Madonna was reported as having said. “Doesn’t she know who I am?”
Privately, Jackie told a colleague at Doubleday, “I don’t want to validate the relationship by meeting her. I’m not going to have her going around saying that she and I are friends.” If circumstances had been different, no doubt Jackie would have wanted to meet Madonna and discuss with her the writing of her memoirs for Doubleday, just as her son had observed. In fact, she asked certain people in the publishing company’s editorial division if they thought Madonna had a compelling story to tell. She was told that such an autobiography would definitely translate into a best-seller. When she asked for details, she was duly intrigued but also more sure than ever that this woman was not for her son. “Yes, she has had an amazing life,” Jackie said to a source, “but I simply don’t want my son to now be a part of it.”
In July 1988, Madonna pleaded with John to arrange a meeting with his mother. Two other people were present at John’s Upper West Side apartment in New York with John and Madonna while they engaged in a conversation about meeting Jackie. John was in red sweats and a black T-shirt with the words “Man Power” emblazoned across his chest in big, white letters. In an odd contrast of fashion, Madonna wore a slinky, short black dress that appeared to be designed by Yves Saint Laurent, with heels. She was smoking. John never smoked. He asked Madonna why she was so certain his mother would be interested in meeting her. His tone, the witnesses recall, was sarcastic and inconsiderate.
Madonna, as per usual, was unruffled. “She’d want to meet me because I’m Madonna,” she said, exasperated. “Who wouldn’t want to meet me? After all, John,” she concluded, “your mother is probably the only woman on earth more popular than I am.”
“Can’t happen,” John declared. “Mother would make sure we never see each other again if she meets you. I can guarantee it.”
No doubt, the fact that Jackie Kennedy Onassis refused to meet her tapped into Madonna’s deep inferiority complex. Beneath all of the bravado, she has always been insecure — it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to discern that much about her. During this time, she kept saying to friends, “His mother would love me, if she gave me a chance.” Jackie’s refusal even to give Madonna “a chance” quickly became a source of hurt for her. Then, as often happened in her life, hurt turned to anger. By the end of 1988, Madonna told friends that she was bored with John.
Besides the Jackie factor, another issue in her relationship with John was her communication with him. One had to know how to deal with John Kennedy, Jr., when he was angry. John was a shouter. If he was upset, he’d scream at full volume, his own face just inches from the object of his aggression. Though such a thing could be daunting to some people, it certainly was not to Madonna. She was equipped with the skills to handle this kind of explosive personality, simply because of who she was married to and what she put up with on an almost daily basis. However, for some reason, she didn’t seem to be able to meet John at that hot level during a disagreement. Perhaps she was awed by him because of his family’s almost regal history. Maybe she wished to appear dignified in his presence. Or, maybe she just didn’t care enough about him, didn’t feel passionate enough about him, to engage in the kind of fracas with him that she would customarily have with Sean.
Apparently, a defining moment in Madonna’s relationship with John occurred when he thought she had told someone else something personal about him — and that this person had then gone to the press with the information. When Madonna denied having done as much, he didn’t believe her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he screamed at her at full volume in front of friends. Everyone in the room who knew Madonna held on to his chair for dear life, probably expecting the outbreak of World War III. However, instead of firing back as expected, Madonna was quiet. Her startled expression indicated that she was stunned by John’s outburst. She dropped her eyes, unable to meet his accusatory gaze. Then, she ran from the room. This was odd behavior from a woman used to taking as much as she could dish out in an argument. Mystified by her conduct, John turned to his friends and sputtered, “What’d I say? What’d I say?”
After that incident, Madonna seemed to lose all interest in John Kennedy, Jr. Some intimates believed she thought he was a “hothead,” and since she already had one of those at home she didn’t need another. Others said that the intensity of the physical intimacy they shared had waned and it now wasn’t worth her tolerating him and his domineering mother. Madonna didn’t say much about any of it. To one friend, she called the situation with Kennedy “toxic and sad,” and said “I needed out of it.” She asked that friend, “Don’t you think the need for companionship is a weakness? Because I do. And I refuse to be weak.”
After a two-week cooling-off period at the end of July, John invited Madonna to dinner at a trendy West Side restaurant to discuss their relationship. According to law school classmate Chris Meyer (whom John brought to the dinner because, as he put it, “I don’t want to be alone with her. She scares the hell out of me.”) John told Madonna that he was sorry for all that had happened in their relationship concerning his mother. He hoped that they cou
ld still be friends. He also indicated that there could be nothing more than that between them because his mother would not approve, “and her approval means everything to me.”
“Madonna was annoyed by the whole thing,” said Chris Meyer. “He thought he was letting her down easy, but she was clearly finished with John. He didn’t need to be gentle with her. My impression of her was that she had already given him the heave-ho in her mind, anyway. John’s ego, though, would not allow him to believe that she had lost interest.”
A week later, Chris Meyer had an appointment with an attorney at the same New York high-rise that houses Doubleday when he happened upon John Kennedy, Jr., in the men’s room. John was probably visiting Jackie at work. As they stood beside each other at adjoining urinals, Meyer asked Kennedy about Madonna. “How’s it going, buddy?” he wanted to know. “Is it really over with Madonna?”
Staring straight ahead, Kennedy smiled thinly and said, “She’s great, but, yes, it’s over between us, Chris.”
“Because of your mother?”
Kennedy shrugged. “Not really,” he said, sounding vague. “But any excuse will do, I guess. That’s as good as any other when you’re trying to break it off with someone gently.”
“Wow,” Chris said. “Too bad.”
Without a reaction, John zipped up, walked over to the basin and washed his hands. As he dried off with a paper towel, he turned to Chris who was finishing up at the urinal. “We had some good times,” John observed. “I like her a lot. Oh well. Easy come,” John said while crumpling the towel, “easy go,” he concluded as he tossed it into a trash can.9
Sandra Bernhard
During the 1988 run of Speed-the-Plow Madonna had a dream that she and actress/comedienne Sandra Bernhard — a casual friend whom she had met a few years earlier — had survived a catastrophe and were the only two people left on the planet. Madonna had always placed importance on her dreams. She enjoyed sharing with friends the details of her nightly dreams and also recorded them in journals. So, she was astonished when, a few weeks later, she went to see Bernhard’s Off-Broadway play Without You I’m Nothing and heard one of her monologues referring to the comedienne’s fantasy that she and Madonna had survived World War III and were now indeed the last two people on earth.
Madonna had actually first met Warren Beatty and Sandra Bernhard at the same party, at Beatty’s home, both of them introduced to her by Sean Penn. “We met and got to know her when she came to see my show,” Sandra now recalls, “and she really enjoyed it, so she came backstage and we really hit it off. We just started becoming friends, that’s all. Before that, she was someone I just knew through Sean. I was always fascinated by her. When I would see Sean at a party and she was there, she would give me the evil eye, like she thought maybe Sean and I were fucking. But we weren’t.”
In Bernhard’s dressing room after the show, Sandra told her, “I can’t imagine being you.” Unfazed, Madonna — wearing a white Chanel dress that exposed plenty of cleavage — replied, “I can’t imagine being you.” Madonna so enjoyed Bernhard’s act, she even toyed with the idea of playing herself in the movie version of Bernhard’s play (which never happened).
In the five years since Madonna had first come to prominence, she had become accustomed to the fact that she could not be harmed by scandal. In fact, any controversy to which she was attached merely added another layer of intrigue to her infamous image . . . and that usually meant more money in the bank. When one of her backup dancers expressed concern that being involved in a steamy dance scene with Madonna might damage his career, Madonna lectured: “The more notorious you are, the more you’re going to work. Don’t you guys understand that?” She certainly understood it, and exploited it better than any other performer. Now, Madonna may have decided that her friendship with the openly bisexual Bernhard gave her a new act, something else to get her name in the papers and to start Middle America’s tongues a-wagging: lesbianism.
Within weeks of their growing friendship, Madonna was immersed in a lesbian subculture, socializing in New York “girl bars” and showing up dressed in the same gay fashions as her “gal pals.” Bernhard and Madonna added Jennifer Grey to their small band of carousers and, in a take-off of Sean Penn’s “Brat Pack” status, they dubbed themselves the “Snatch Batch.” The gals began an “in your face” promotion of their “lesbian” exploits — leading to gossip that Madonna and Bernhard were having an affair. When asked by reporters, Madonna encouraged the gossip, giggled and blinked and only halfheartedly denied the rumors. A gleeful Bernhard — getting the most publicity of her career so far — played along.
“She is probably one of the world’s sexiest women,” Sandra told a reporter for Penthouse. “She’s worked hard at it and done some interesting things with it. Despite all of the mixed messages people think she gives, she’s one of the smartest women in the business — and most disciplined — and I really admire her. I think what she has done is great, and that makes her sexy to me.”
The witty and talented Bernhard had a reputation for her wild antics and vulgar mouth. When Bernhard was booked on David Letterman’s The Late Show with David Letterman — taped at Manhattan’s NBC studios — Madonna tagged along. Bernhard appeared first and Letterman wasted no time in asking her to “talk about your new good friend Madonna. Is there any truth to this nonsense?”
“A tad,” was Bernhard’s response. “A hair.”
When Letterman asked Bernhard what they did when they went out, she replied, “We party and we get crazy. We drink tequila, we talk about old times, and we get to know each other a little better. What do you think you do with a girlfriend? What do you do when you go out with your girlfriend?”
Then Madonna made a grand entrance, wearing an outfit matching Sandra’s — knee-length jeans, a simple white T-shirt, black shoes with ankle-high white socks. Ever impatient for a media fracas, Madonna wanted to get the ball rolling. “Let’s talk about me and Sandra,” she instructed Letterman.
Letterman, tactfully prying, asked Madonna for her version of what she and Sandra did when they were together, and he wondered if he could be a part of it. “If you get a sex change,” Madonna shot back. Her posture was all masculine, legs spread apart, slouching. There was nothing traditionally feminine about her at all.
“We meet up,” Bernhard interjected, “sometimes with Jennifer Grey, sometimes just the two of us. You usually find us at the Canal Bar or at M.K [two lesbian bars].”
Madonna pushed it farther: “. . . en route to the Cubby . . . ,” leaving Bernhard to finish with “Hole.”
Bernhard whipped the little act to a fever pitch by claiming she had slept with both Sean and Madonna.
While sprawled all over the set’s furniture — practically reclining on it rather than sitting on it, and with their legs wide open — the two spoke over one another, laughed at each other and at Letterman, and were raucous, rude, annoying and unappealing in every way.
“We just thought it would be fun,” Sandra now explains. “She had never done Letterman before, and she was afraid to do it on her own, so I said, ‘Look, come on with me and we’ll fuck with him, and with everyone else.’ It turned out to be a lot crazier than I think either of us expected, though. I really think we were great guests, even though David looked like the whole thing confused him.”
Judging by what she said and did, Madonna didn’t seem concerned about what her husband, Sean Penn, still filming Casualties of War in Thailand, would think of her latest promotional hook as a lesbian. She realized, no doubt, that the international publicity and worldwide attention generated by such a surprising twist only served to benefit her career, which, to some observers, seemed as urgent a concern to her as anything else in her life at this time. The fact was that Madonna had never even been to the Cubby Hole. By this time, though, Madonna was well aware that many of her staunchest supporters were homosexual men, and that even a hint that she herself was gay would only strengthen their loyalty and devotion. Soon, she began app
earing in gay-oriented magazines as an activist for gay rights, and was even named in the book The Gay 100 as one of the most influential gay people in history.
According to Madonna the press “failed to get the joke.” Madonna would also claim that she and Bernhard were just “fucking with people’s minds,” though some of her friends insist that at this point in her life Madonna was once again exploring her bisexuality, especially after seeing the odd couple fondling themselves and grinding their bodies together while singing the Sonny and Cher song “I Got You Babe” at a New York benefit. Perhaps she was so unhappy with the way matters had turned out with Sean Penn and John Kennedy that she decided to try something different. Or maybe not. Only she would know — and she has denied it. Because Madonna has been frank about her bisexual nature, one has to assume that if she and Sandra — who is open about her own sexuality — were having a romantic relationship, she would have said as much. After all, she’s talked in the past about some of her other dalliances with members of the same sex.
One of Madonna’s first experiences with a female was with twelve-year-old Moira McPharlin. Madonna was the same age. During a sleepover, she and Moira stripped naked and began to explore each other’s bodies. Madonna says that Moira was the first to show her how to insert a tampon. She said that, prior to Moira’s influence, “I put it in sideways and was walking around paralyzed one day.” Of course, through the years she had many other dalliances with women. “Let me tell you this much,” says Erica Bell, her close friend, “I was fascinated by her long before she kissed me. But once she kissed me, wow! When you’ve been kissed by Madonna, you have definitely been kissed.”
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