Madonna (17 page)

“Lucky Star” ended up as the biggest single yet for Madonna. However, she knew that the
Like a Virgin
album—musically—was twice the artistic accomplishment of its predecessor. Unfortunately no one could hear it, because Warner Brothers wasn't going to do anything to detract from the sales of “Lucky Star.”

Even by September 14, 1984, when Madonna was scheduled to perform the song “Like a Virgin” on the MTV Awards, the record was two months away from release, because “Lucky Star” was headed for the Top Ten—ultimately peaking at Number Four on the pop charts in October.

Broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall, the first annual MTV Awards put Madonna on the same stage as Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Hall & Oates, Huey Lewis and the News, and ZZ Top. The appearance on the show served many purposes. Not only did Madonna get to introduce her upcoming release, “Like a Virgin,” but she was also seen in the context of being a full-fledged rock-and-roller. Although she didn't win the award she was nominated for—Best Video by a New Artist, for “Borderline”—she gave the program's most controversial live performance.

Dressed in a tight-fitting white lace bustier and a skirt and veil composed of yards and yards of white tulle, as the curtain rose she was seen as the bride on top of a huge wedding cake. With her “Boy Toy” belt buckle on, accessorized in chains, strings of pearls, and dangling crucifixes, she was quite a sight. Her blonde-with-dark-brown-roots hair was matted and standing on end. It looked as if she had styled it with Crisco, then tied it in rags. From her right earlobe hung a metallic heart and small crucifix, and from the left earlobe hung a rhinestone-covered silver star. Her wrists were encircled in dozens of bracelets. Madonna was a fashion statement in action.

As she sang the song with a pouting look on her face, she descended from the cake and spun around, with the veil trailing behind her. During the song she removed the veil from her head and threw it to the floor. Then, in the middle of her prime-time debut, she proceeded to hump the floor on her hands and knees as if she were having sex with it. With her tulle skirts creeping up her thighs, revealing her garters and panties, she made an indelible impression. The song ended with Madonna on her back, sprawled on the stage floor.

Bette Midler, who was the show's hostess, returned to the podium and cracked, “Now that the burning question of Madonna's virginity has been answered, we are free to go on to even more GAPING questions—such as, how is a video made? We
know
Madonna's story!”
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In an interview a couple of weeks later, I prodded Madonna. “Everyone was talking about you on the MTV Awards.”
¹

“That and my underpants,” she said, finishing the sentence. “If I ever see those cameramen I will personally kill them. They unleashed cameramen on the stage. I had no idea they were going to be there. When I rehearsed, there were two cameramen, one was center stage, and one was off on the side. When I did the actual show, there were six all over the place. A camera up my dress, a surprise for everyone.”
¹

When I asked her if she saw herself doing a duet recording, Madonna thought for a moment and said, “He'd have to be a man and he'd have to be black—Prince! That would be cool. We're on the same label. Other than that, I'm not interested. There are not that many singers I'm really crazy about.”
¹

The Madonna look was beginning to get as much press as her music. In the November 1984 issue of the monthly fashion bible
Harpers Bazaar
, Madonna was depicted in a four-page spread on hot new jewelry accessories. The photos were taken by none other than fashion-photography great Francesco Scavullo. At the sessions he dubbed the aggressive young songstress “baby Dietrich,” for her photogenic flair. The jewelry that she modeled in
Harpers Bazaar
was a combination of costume pieces, with price tags in the $100-to-$200 range. But in her own day-to-day wear, Madonna's accessories were comprised of very inexpensive pieces of junk jewelry.

Almost immediately, Madonna was looked upon in the fashion industry as a trend-setter. For little girls especially, her look was much easier and cheaper to replicate than Cyndi Lauper's tie-dyed hair. Madonna's junk jewelry was an immediate hit. The little rubber bracelets—which were actually O-rings used as drive belts for typewriters—became the hottest selling and least expensive accessory to acquire. A store on Manhattan's Canal Street called Canal Rubber, mere blocks from Madonna's new SoHo loft space, saw a fast change in their clientele. Mingling with the beer-bellied mechanics who usually frequented the store on any given Saturday afternoon were hordes of scantily clad teenage girls. At twenty-five cents each, girls and guys could line their forearms with the “bracelets” by the dozen. It wasn't long before Canal Rubber had to stock them by the case.

The person who takes credit for coming up with the rubber bracelet craze is a jewelry designer known as Maripol (pronounced
Mary Paul)
. A striking woman with a thick French accent and a look reminiscent of Lina Wertmuller, Maripol was one of Madonna's closest friends during this era. The two women met on the photo session for Madonna's first album. Maripol was invited by the photographer, as a fashion stylist. Maripol was also Madonna's fashion stylist for several key events, including the filming of the “Burning Up” video, the photo session for Madonna's second album cover, and the controversial MTV Awards telecast.

Madonna immediately made a strong impression on Maripol. According to the jewelry designer, “Madonna is a child-woman. She is fun and joyful, but she is also a femme fatale. She is vulnerable—but then she's not that vulnerable. She's not tough exactly—but she'll survive through anything. She's a natural star. She is born to stardom.”
⁸⁰

Explaining their initial connection, Maripol recalls, “I met Madonna actually on the first album cover—and we came up with the idea of the rubber bracelets. It was an idea that I had, and now everyone is wearing the idea. But originally it was my idea. We met and we became friends. And, since I'm a stylist, she became very involved with me, and I helped her a lot. I did the costume for the MTV look—the MTV Awards. And, I did style the last album [cover photo]
Like a Virgin
. And, I don't know if you realized, but I kind of got the ‘soft' feeling, because I thought it was interesting to have a wedding dress, and we did that. And so, we did the whole thing—from the bouquet, to the veil, to the hair.”
⁸⁰

Said Maripol then, “Madonna is very faithful to my ‘look,' and she wears my jewelry all of the time. I do make special things for her that I don't sell to the public—special items.”
⁸⁰

With Madonna parading around town in her jewelry, the enterprising French woman put together the backing to start her own shop in Greenwich Village, Maripolitan. As Madonna's popularity flourished, Maripol's business blossomed. Her shop was filled with jewelry laden with irreverently placed religious symbols. According to Maripol, the crucifixes in her designs became a common bond between them. “We do collect rosaries together. Whenever I buy them, or I get them—I give her,” she said. “I started to make crosses during the punk movement in 1979, which was by religious belief also. But, just because it was fun to wear it on the ears. It was a punk sign of rejecting religion…. It's kind of a little voodoo protection, whatever sign. With Madonna, it's perfect, because of the name she wears, and she really likes it right away. I guess she assimilated herself to that. The trend was set right after that, because everybody started doing it… a trend became a trademark.”
⁸⁰

Finally, by November 1984 “Lucky Star” had cooled down on the charts to the point where the album, the single, and the “Like a Virgin” video could all be released into the marketplace without any conflict. The way the last ten months had gone for Madonna laid the perfect groundwork for the new product. The fact that MTV treated the new video with the importance due a movie premiere assisted the single and album sales in a flawless fashion.

The outrageously titillating fact that a sexy, self-confident girl with the name of “Madonna” could release a song entitled “Like a Virgin” piqued everyone's curiosity. The factor of Ms. Ciccone obviously being no virgin, and the added element that the whole product had a borderline tinge of sacrilege, only further promoted the package. The single was in the Top Forty in two weeks, and by Christmas it was in its six-week reign as the Number One single in America. Likewise, the album was Top Ten in two weeks, and Number One by January.

Madonna was immediately crowned the pop provocateur
extraordinaire
. Madonna was shocked by the reaction to the single, “Like a Virgin.” What she had intended to be a harmless, upbeat song was perceived as something else. “Everyone interpreted it as ‘I don't want to be a virgin anymore—fuck my brains out!' That's not what I want at all.”
⁸¹

Bette Midler's line about her was perhaps the most tongue-in-cheek and on-target of all: “Like a virgin, indeed!” she sniped. “The only thing Madonna will do like a virgin is have a baby in a stable!”
⁸²

The press immediately jumped on the situation, having fun with the puns that the ironic song sung by the “Boy Toy” represented.
PRIMA DONNA MADONNA
proclaimed
Us
magazine, with the subhead: “The lady didn't become a phenom by obeying the rules of Emily Post.” “
VIRGIN TERRITORY
: How Madonna Straddles Innocence and Decadence,” wrote
The New Republic
. And Britain's
19
magazine headlined its take on Madonna:
VIRGIN ON THE RIDICULOUS
!

Madonna was on the top of the world, and her romp was just beginning. But from the start, some of the press coverage was less benign. It was asserted more than once that she had slept her way to the summit, using sex as a tool of trade. She was publicly incensed by the allegations.

“The fact of the matter is that you can use your beauty and use your charm and be flirtatious, and you can get people interested in you,” she claimed while plotting how she was going to have the last laugh.
⁷⁶
While beauty may buy you a ticket, it can't guarantee that the show will last. Ultimately, talent is all that matters. Although it took time for some people to figure out that Madonna was as much talent as she was beauty, her videos, records, and movies more than proved her skill.

The criticism only enhanced her tough-as-nails survival attitude. She's been called every name in the book, but she doesn't seem to care. “I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want—and if that makes me a bitch, that's okay.”
¹²

The video version of “Like a Virgin” represented a hallmark for Madonna; her video productions were to grow more and more elaborate as time went by. This time around she was seen as a hip chick in Venice, lolling, writhing, and undulating in a gondola in the Grand Canal. In intercut segments, she poses as a classic virginal bride, being laid down on the nuptial bed, obviously anticipating the loss of her “pure” status. One of her co-stars is a furry lion, whose role as anything more than an impressive feline is never quite established. But then, videos don't have to make any sense.

According to Madonna, the filming process was quite entertaining. “I had such a wonderful time there,” she says of her on-location filming. “We just felt that Venice symbolized so many things—like virginity. And, I'm Madonna, and I'm Italian.”
⁸³

They used a live lion in the video, teeth and all. Despite the fact that the lion tamer assured her the lion wouldn't bite, Madonna remembers the experience as a scary one. The lion didn't follow directions as well as Madonna had hoped. While she leaned against a pillar, the lion was supposed to walk past her right side. The lion tamer tried to lure the lion in that direction, but the next thing Madonna knew, the lion was nudging against her left leg. “I looked down and the lion was RIGHT THERE with his head in my crotch! So, I lifted my veil and had a stare-down with the lion!” The two stared at each other for nearly one minute, then the lion opened its mouth and roared. “I got so frightened my heart fell in my shoe,” Madonna recalls. By the time the lion moved on, Madonna was so shaken, she took a short break. She says, despite the scare, “I could really relate to the lion. I felt like in a past life I was a lion or a cat or something.”
⁸⁴

Amid the tidal wave of Madonna excitement, Warner released an album filled with rare B-sides by some of its top artists, including Fleetwood Mac, Talking Heads, and the B-52's. Entitled
Revenge of the Killer B's
, the album also included one of the three existing versions of “Ain't No Big Deal”—the Reggie Lucas—produced rendition of the song. Although an interesting curiosity, had it been included on the original
Madonna
album it would definitely have had the distinction of being the weakest cut on the album. The
Killer B's
album went on to become a collector's item, totally eclipsed by the excitement created by the release of “Like a Virgin.”

Madonna had been courting fame for the past three years, ever since she zeroed in on Mark Kamins at Danceteria and signed with Sire Records in 1982. In December 1984 she was the most talked about female in the record business. Her running mates on the record charts were sleek British pop/jazz singer Sade and kooky Brooklynite rocker Cyndi Lauper. However, the tarty “Like a Virgin” controversy pushed her even further up the scale of notoriety. With fame came changes.

One of the first new pressures was the fact that she was immediately recognizable on the streets of New York City, or—thanks to MTV—everywhere else in North America. Whether walking down the street or shopping in a store, Madonna realized people recognized her. She was often approached with questions like, “Are you really Madonna?” While shopping, fans would take note of what the star would buy. “It really bothered me,” she says.
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