Madonna

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Though he isn’t listed in the credits as a performer, Babyface also sings on the track, vocally co-singing Madonna’s lines in a way that makes their performance practically a duet. It proved to be a winner. “Take a Bow” put Madonna back in the place on the Billboard singles chart to which she’d become accustomed — Number 1.

  Stalked

  In the spring of 1995, Madonna — now thirty-six — had concerns bigger than just the softening of her public image. Although she had become accustomed to being dogged by photographers and fans, she found herself being stalked not by a fan, but rather a fanatic in the form of crazed drifter, twenty-seven-year-old Robert Hoskins. Hoskins had actually deluded himself into thinking he was her husband. He had begun his campaign for Madonna’s attention in February by sending her a disturbing series of bizarre letters which he signed “Your husband, Bob.” He also began showing up at her home unexpectedly and ringing her security buzzer, perhaps hoping someone would allow him access to her grounds. One morning, Madonna was bewildered to see, from her bedroom window, Hoskins prowling around her estate. She alerted security, who handcuffed him to the garage for forty-five minutes as they waited for the police to arrive.

  Frightened, Madonna promptly left town, fleeing to her new waterfront home in Miami. Undaunted, Hoskins turned up again on her property, scaled a twelve-foot fence, and crept to within twenty to thirty feet of the house, where he was confronted by security guard Basil Stephens. “I love her!” Hoskins screamed at the security guard. “I love her, don’t you guys understand!”

  Hoskins then lunged at the security guard, screaming for him to get out of the way, that he was coming home to see “his wife.” When Hoskins allegedly tried to grab the security guard’s gun, Stephens shot him.

  Madonna was in her Florida home when she heard the news that her stalker was recovering at Cedars-Sinai Hospital from three bullet wounds in the arm and abdomen. The news promptly sent chills through many in the celebrity world. She had recently met Diana, Princess of Wales, at a party in London and had invited her to her home. That morning, she received word that Diana was interested in visiting her in the near future. “Tell her not to come,” Madonna said to one of her associates. “My God, I don’t want to be responsible if anything happens to her. Why should she have to be a part of my nightmare?”

  “Madonna attracts a lot of crazy people,” said Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano. “Madonna’s about the worst. She goes out in public and likes to flaunt herself.”

  Madonna was truly frightened by the stalker’s persistence, though she tried to remain unruffled and continue with her life and career.

  “It really freaked her out,” said one friend of hers. “It was difficult for her to come to terms with it. She was afraid to leave the house. She told me, ‘When I was younger, I could deal a lot better with the crazies out there. But as I get older, it somehow gets harder. Maybe I’m losing my edge . . . or maybe I’m losing my mind.’ She was hating her life and career, feeling strongly that her career was on the wrong track.”

  Once back in Los Angeles, Madonna showed up at her agent’s office at CAA (Creative Artists Agency) upset. Her face was pale and seemed tiny. Her lips, so dazzlingly red, dominated her appearance. Looking startlingly thin, she wore a crisp white two-piece power trouser suit — all straight lines and starch — and matching hat. She also wore a single strand of pearls, matching earrings and a thin gold watch. No doubt, she was fully aware of the stares and whispers of those in the waiting room. “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked, her tone tremulous.

  “You want to help me?” Madonna answered, abruptly. “Well, let’s see. I need a new agent. This agency sucks. Recommend a new agency, and then you’ll be helping me.”

  The receptionist did not know how to respond. Looking peeved, Madonna reached into a silver bowl on the secretary’s desk and popped a chocolate mint into her mouth. She then made a beeline for her agent’s office, and slammed the door behind her.

  Something to Remember

  “So much controversy has swirled around my career this past decade that very little attention ever gets paid to my music. The songs are all but forgotten. While I have no regrets regarding the choices I’ve made artistically, I’ve learned to appreciate the idea of doing things in a simpler way. So without a lot of fanfare, without any distractions, I present to you this collection of ballads. Some are old, some are new. All of them are from my heart.”

  So wrote Madonna in the liner notes accompanying her eleventh album, Something to Remember, issued at the end of 1995. Perhaps no truer observation has ever been made of Madonna or of her musical career, and made by the lady herself. Like so many of the strong female entertainers from Hollywood’s past who have inspired her, Madonna’s personal life has often left her professional accomplishments sitting in the shade. Of course, she neglected to add that she has usually been the very source of the distracting madness. After all, she was the one who had practically ruined her image with her maddening, one-track-mind sexual outrageousness.

  “She knew it was time to make a change,” said one member of her management team who insisted on remaining anonymous. “She would have to be pretty stupid not to know it, and you could never say that Madonna was stupid. She was upset, a little frantic about what people were saying about her. That’s why she put together the Something to Remember album, to remind people that there was more to her than just the controversy that had surrounded her almost from the beginning of her career.”

  Madonna was also correct when she wrote that some of her songs have many times been overlooked in favor of the current gossip and innuendo. Her savvy as a serious pop songwriter has attracted even less attention. For instance, the tabloids don’t report that she has written most of her songs and publishes them through her own Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. “She hasn’t shouted about her musical abilities,” notes Mirwais Ahmadzai, a star of France’s burgeoning electronica scene who would go on to produce her 2000 album, Music. “She is the consummate songwriter,” he says. “She listens to classic musicals a lot. Not just the obvious ones, like Singin’ in the Rain, but the lesser ones. She loves them. I remember one time we all had dinner in Germany, and somebody brought up old musicals, and she was the one who knew all the verses. Things our mum and dad watch, she’s into it all. Really solid, melodic stuff like that. And she writes really solid, melodic stuff.”

  While such facts don’t make exciting headlines, Madonna’s interest in publishing is significant, especially in a business where, every day, famous singer/songwriters create valuable copyrights that they don’t own. Nor is much made of the fact that Madonna is one of the few hands-on female record producers in the music business — and one of the most successful of either gender. She is certainly able to hold her own with such legends as George Martin, producer of the Beatles (whose chart performances Madonna’s hits have challenged), and Quincy Jones.

  So, whether Madonna issued Something to Remember, a collection of previously released love songs, because she had a point to prove or simply to keep a contractual obligation, the fourteen-track recording did make a statement. That statement began with the CD’s packaging. On it, Madonna looks deliciously cosmopolitan in a form-fitting white cocktail number. On the front she’s posed in meditation; on the back photograph she is coy, playful and just a bit sexy.

  As she wrote in her notes, not all of the songs had been re-released; four of them were new. It’s interesting that even though Madonna profits greatly each time she records a song she has written, she will gladly and eagerly perform a new tune by another writer, or, if she feels she can bring something new to it, even redo a classic. Such is the distinction of an artist more concerned with the whole of the project as opposed to how much money she can deposit in her current account as a result of its sales.

  Long a fan of Marvin Gaye’s 1976 classic, “I Want You,” Madonna recut the song with the British dance-music unit Massive Attack. (It was also released on Inner City Blues
— The Music of Marvin Gaye by Motown Records in November 1995.) The track was produced by Nellee Hooper. Whereas Marvin Gaye’s version of the song, penned by veteran R&B writer Leon Ware and T-Boy Ross (younger brother of Diana Ross), is elaborately produced, Madonna’s is pared to basically just her voice and Massive Attack’s club beat. The result is a bit sexier than Gaye’s version; one can almost imagine Madonna crawling seductively across the floor, after her prey.

  “I’ll Remember,” another new cut, is just the opposite of Madonna’s take on Gaye. Written by Madonna, Patrick Leonard and singer/songwriter Richard Page, the beautiful, gold-selling song was the theme from the 1994 motion picture With Honors. It sounds like a flick theme, too, equipped with smart chords and big emotion. It is reminiscent of another movie theme of Madonna’s, “Live to Tell,” also featured on the album, only better.

  Also included were two new sentimental and expansive ballads, “You’ll See” and “One More Chance,” both written by Madonna with songwriter/producer David Foster. The working universe of a star as big as Madonna is small. At some point, she had to end up working (or consider working) with those who have had success with her peers, even competitors in the pop music world. Foster had produced Barbra Streisand and had written hits for Al Jarreau and Earth, Wind & Fire (“After the Love Is Gone”). It was interesting that, with all of his exciting musical ability from which to draw, he and Madonna would come up with two of the most somber songs she had ever recorded — but such is the excitement of collaboration: one never knows what will come from it.

  The rest of Something to Remember consisted of some of Madonna’s most important ballads, including “Crazy for You,” “Oh Father,” “Take a Bow,” “Forbidden Love,” a remix of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” “This Used to Be My Playground” (a melancholy performance heard in A League of Their Own, and which went on to become her tenth Number 1 record in 1992, making its Madonna album debut here) and “Something to Remember,” from the I’m Breathless collection. That she made the Dick Tracy ballad this CD’s title track might indicate how she felt about the song she and Patrick Leonard had written — perhaps wanting it to have the attention it did not receive the first time around.

  In any case, perhaps all that Something to Remember lacked was a bow around it. It was a valentine, a love letter from Madonna to her fans and music lovers alike. Like any Madonna project, it seemed to say just a little more than the obvious. In this case, the collection seemed to nudge teasingly at her contemporaries, “. . . And these are just my ballads.”

  Perfect Casting?

  She had wanted it for years, but never had she needed it as much as she did in 1995.

  From the first moment in early 1995 that Madonna learned she had won the prized role of Eva Perón in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s film interpretation of his musical Evita, she sensed a major shift about to occur in her life and career. “I really want to be recognized as an actress,” she had once said. “I’ve learned that if you surround yourself with great writers and great actors and a great director and a great costumer or whatever, it’s pretty hard to go wrong. In the past, I’ve been in a really big hurry to make movies and I haven’t taken the time to make sure all of those elements were in line and good enough. It’s a waste of time to do something mediocre. Unless you absolutely believe in every aspect of it, then you shouldn’t waste your time.”

  For over a decade, much of the press and the public had speculated that Madonna was the perfect choice for the role of Evita. However, because her movie career had never really ignited, as a result of box-office disasters such as Shanghai Surprise, Who’s That Girl? and Body of Evidence, a number of other actresses were considered for the part. It was a search that nearly rivaled the casting of Scarlett O’Hara in the classic Gone With the Wind back in the 1930s.

  Patti LuPone, who had masterfully created the part on Broadway, was under consideration and was said to have wanted the movie role badly. Glenn Close, who had caused a sensation starring on the stage in another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Sunset Boulevard, was also vying for the part. Meanwhile, Meryl Streep diligently took lessons to better her voice for her own Evita audition. There were also sporadic announcements that genuine singing divas such as Bette Midler, Mariah Carey, Olivia Newton-John and Gloria Estefan were all interested in starring in what promised to be a big-budget, highly publicized movie musical. Not to be outdone, Liza Minnelli and Barbra Streisand — performers respected for their acting ability as well as their singing talent — were also associated with the project at different points along the way.

  After years of announcements, denials, rumors and speculation, most Hollywood observers believed that Michelle Pfeiffer had finally been chosen by the film’s director Alan Parker (Bugsy Malone, Fame, Pink Floyd — The Wall and The Commitments) to star in the movie. Pfeiffer had, indeed, expressed an interest in the project. However, it had taken so long for decisions to be made that, while waiting for the wheels to turn, Pfeiffer had a baby. When Parker met her just before he was to make his final casting decision, it was clear that her motherhood status now presented a problem. With two small children in tow (an adopted daughter as well as the new baby), the actress wasn’t eager to tackle the long, difficult shooting schedule Parker had in mind. So, she was out. But who would be in?

  It was upon hearing of Pfeiffer’s rejection that Madonna, her uncanny instinct for perfect timing at work, just as always, sent Parker a handwritten, four-page letter. In it, she explained why she would be the perfect choice to play the role of Evita.

  In her letter, Madonna promised that she would sing, dance and act her heart out if Parker would only give her the opportunity to do so. She would put everything else in her life and career on hold in order to devote her time and energy to Evita. She may have felt that she had no choice; Madonna was that desperate to do something worthwhile in films. In 1995, and then again in 1996, she would appear in supporting roles in movies of which most people didn’t even know she was a part, just for the experience of doing them. The first had been 1995’s Four Rooms, a series of vignettes, one of which featured Madonna as a witch named Elspeth. Blue in the Face, also released in 1995, was a sequel to the popular Smoke, in which Madonna is featured briefly, mooning Harvey Keitel after delivering a singing telegram. In 1996, she would appear in Spike Lee’s Girl 6, in which she appears briefly as the owner of a telephone sex service.

  “When I was chosen to make Evita, I knew I wasn’t Andrew Lloyd Webber’s first choice,” she would later say. “I don’t think he was particularly thrilled with my singing abilities. I knew I was going in with odds against me. That’s an awkward position to be in. You feel everyone’s waiting for you to stumble.”

  Of course, there are clear similarities between Madonna and Eva Perón. Eva was a Latin-looking brunette who found fame as a dyed blonde, as did Madonna. Eva was strong willed, as is Madonna. Eva was emotional, dramatic and sometimes self-pitying, as is Madonna. The story of Madonna’s rise to fame — a legend partly of her making and partly that of the media’s — also parallels Eva Perón’s in that both women exploited a series of relationships with men in order to survive early years of struggle and then, ultimately, clawed their way from obscurity.

  Madonna as Eva Perón — Evita. Perfect casting, it would seem . . . and exactly what Madonna needed most to boost her career during a time she was trying to refashion her image. Throughout the eighties and early nineties, she had exhausted her aggressive sex symbol routine by using songs, films, books and outrageous quotes to sear a particularly scandalous image into the public’s consciousness. However, by 1996, the notion of Madonna as a sexual pariah — the defiant and daring “naughty” girl of pop — had most certainly run its course. Finally, she of the many guises fully understood the need to reinvent herself completely. Thus, Evita. However, there would be a few challenges when it came to aligning Evita’s story with Madonna’s vision of it.

  One major problem Madonna faced with her latest — and arguably most i
mportant — film venture was that the story of Eva Perón was not completely in alignment with the new, softer and uncontroversial image she wanted to project to her public at this time in her life. The story of a manipulative woman who really slept her way to the top — Eva’s true story — may have worked better for Madonna in the eighties when all she could think about was how to shock the world, but not in 1995. Before she went into rehearsals, she spent hours going over the script, listening to the music, reading up on the history and suggesting to the producers changes to what was historically documented. Not to say that Andrew Lloyd Webber had been completely accurate in his own version of Eva Perón’s life, but he was a lot closer to the truth, in tone and intention, than the version Madonna wanted for her break-out movie. Her desire was to rewrite history — even if just in a subtle way — in order to create a softer, more vulnerable Eva Perón. She wanted to craft an Evita more to her liking and, by extension, a Madonna more to her public’s. In the end, her goal was to invent not only “Evita-Lite” but “Madonna-Lite,” as well.

  The real story was that the canny and intelligent Evita influenced an entire nation by aligning herself with a man who would become the country’s next president, Juan Perón. Before her relationship with Perón, Eva Duarte was a minor actress in film and radio who had secured equally minor acting roles by virtue of other romantic relationships. However, as the protégeé, and then wife, of the most powerful man in the country, the real-life Eva was able to turn her attention to politics, which was where her true talents lay. Ultimately, Eva became as important to Juan Perón’s future as he was to hers. She instinctively knew she could endear herself to the country’s working class, thus endearing her husband to them. She perfectly understood the masses. After all, Eva also came from an impoverished background.