Madonna (24 page)

Quipped Mike Love of the Beach Boys, who was one of Madonna's dressing room mates, “We were looking for her clothes, but we hear she doesn't wear too much.”
¹¹⁸

The ever-funny Bette Midler got the best dig in when she introduced Madonna onstage and called her “a woman who pulled herself up by the bra straps, and who has been known to let them down occasionally.”
⁴

“I ain't taking
shit
off today! You might hold it against me in ten years,” were Madonna's opening words when she took the stage that evening.
¹¹⁹
Well, so much for Madonna acting like a lady on live television. No one expected a performer to use obscenities on the special, so there was no way that her comment could be bleeped from MTV's live broadcast. When Dick Clark ran his edited version of the highlights of the concert later that evening on network television, Madonna's expletives were deleted from the show.

Madonna sang three songs for Live Aid's global audience: “Into the Groove,” “Holiday,” and the world debut of “Love Makes the World Go Round.” She wore a brocade jacket, lots of gold jewelry—including crucifixes and peace symbols—and oddly enough her hair was dyed a brownish shade of red. She later returned to the stage to sing harmony vocals with her new friend Alannah Currie, from the rock trio Thompson Twins, during the Twins' set.

Away from Sean's side for several minutes, Madonna posed for a staged photograph for the cover of
People
magazine—with her clothes on. She shared the cover with fellow rockers Turner, Jagger, Dylan, Wood, and Hall and Oates. Aside from that photo, she remained uncooperative to press and fans alike. When she was whisked through the backstage Green Room on her way to the stage, her entourage instructed all of the stage personnel and “techs” not to look at her as she walked by. At the simultaneous London event, royal Princess Diana couldn't have been more gracious toward her rock and roll countrymen. Who did Madonna think
she
was?

Regardless, Live Aid was one of the most dramatic humanitarian and logistic feats of the entire decade. Via satellite, it was viewed simultaneously by billions of people around the world and raised millions of dollars in relief money for the starving people of Ethiopia.

The following week, Madonna was in New York City, shopping for an apartment to share with Sean. However, co-op shopping isn't as easy as thumbing through the
New York Times
real estate section. A prospective buyer not only has to have the requisite amount of cash, but a resident-led co-op board has to approve of the sale as well. Similar to the
DOGS AND ACTORS NOT WELCOME
signs that hung in boarding house windows in Hollywood in the 1920s, Madonna quickly discovered that in some posh Manhattan co-ops rock stars were instant “undesirables.”

On July 20 and 21, Madonna scoured the Upper East Side looking for suitable digs. She fell in love with a pair of connecting brownstones that had been converted into nine condo units in the $1.8 million range. The board of the building in question, 11-15 East 70th Street, was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of housing the “Material Girl” and her Brat Pack fiancé. In fact, the co-op board turned them down flat. When she was pressed for details, the building's sales director, Nancy Carter, claimed, “We have to keep our clientele very confidential.”
¹²⁰

The co-op in question was owned by actor Bill Gerber and his wife, Arlyne Rothberg, who is a television and movie producer and Diane Keaton's manager. Madonna had her heart set on that particular apartment and thought it was a bargain. C'est la vie.

In addition to everything else that was going wrong, Stephen Lewicki had resurfaced with his completed version of Madonna's debut role in the dreadful Super-8 film
A Certain Sacrifice
. Between the nude photos and this breast-exposing film, Madonna's imperfect past seemed to be coming back to haunt her.

When the “Like a Virgin” single had begun climbing up the charts eight months earlier, Lewicki realized he had a potential gold mine on film. He fully intended to capitalize on Madonna's star status. He invited Madonna and Jellybean up to his West Side apartment for a screening of the completed film. According to Stephen, Madonna was not bothered by the film and even complimented the first-time filmmaker.

“As she was getting ready to leave she shook my hand at the door, and said, ‘Well, Stephen, thanks and fuck you.' ‘What's that supposed to mean?' I asked her. And, she replied, ‘Well, you and I always had an antagonistic relationship, so I've decided to maintain that.'”
⁵⁶

When Lewicki announced that he was going to market and sell the film, Madonna alerted her lawyer, Paul Schindler. In turn Schindler attempted unsuccessfully to purchase the rights to the film for a paltry $10,000. Lewicki refused and furthermore produced a signed copy of the release form to which Madonna had affixed her signature. According to Lewicki's lawyer, Alvin Deutch, the said release “fully authorizes our client to use her name, photography, and likeness in the film and in connection with its advertising and promotion.”
¹²¹
While Schindler couldn't stop the film from being marketed and sold, he attempted to stop Lewicki from advertising the film using Madonna's name. On Friday, August 2, 1985, Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman refused to block Lewicki from using Madonna's name in his ads. Gammerman claimed that Stephen “has the right to identify the artist who participated in the work.”
¹²²
With that,
A Certain Sacrifice
went on sale at video stores across the land.

Purchasing a copy of
A Certain Sacrifice
cannot exactly be likened to obtaining a rare print of Greta Garbo's silent film debut. In fact, it was purchased by hard-core Madonna devotees alone and was critically panned by the press. Still, Lewicki made a tidy amount of money from the film. A British magazine called
Hot Talk
reviewed Madonna's performance in
A Certain Sacrifice
by stating: “As in her other movies, Madonna shows no sign of knowing how to act, walk, wear makeup, dress or, for that matter, how to get gang-raped properly. She doesn't even scream on key.”

Defending her role in the film, Madonna told the press that it was something she had done a long time ago and that she wasn't ashamed of her part in the film, or the nudity.

The part of the summer she spent in Los Angeles, Madonna stayed in a $1,350-a-month, two-bedroom apartment she had rented in the hills, not far from the massive
HOLLYWOOD
sign. She felt quite at home there and quickly established her own day-to-day routines. For her own daily workout, she regularly attended aerobics classes at the prestigious Hollywood health club, The Sports Connection, on Santa Monica Boulevard. Located in the vicinity of several gay bars, it is often jokingly referred to as “The Sports Erection.”

With several stars among its clientele, The Sports Connection is not the type of place for a star to act like a diva—or word will be all over town.

“She was ‘The Material Bitch,' and that's how people would refer to her,” says John McCormick, who managed the health food bar at the club. According to him, the staff found Madonna to be unfriendly, rude, and stuck-up. “We dealt with a lot of celebrities there, and some of them have bad reputations, and some of them are normal, and average, and just get along with everybody, and aren't necessarily pretentious. And there are those that have their moments, and they get a reputation.”
¹²³

McCormick remembers regularly encountering Madonna in one of the exercise classes, held with several of his co-workers. “She used to take aerobics with us,” he says, “and she used to stand in the middle of the aerobics room, with her arms straight out, and spin, and that was her space, and no one was to enter that. The aerobics room is a public domain—except, of course, her space. She had her space, and no one was to go into it, and she wasn't even Madonna then, she was still up and coming, but she knew who she was. She used to do this every class; that was her routine for exercise. I assume that she didn't want to be bothered, but there are other ways to achieve that. That was how she got ready for her classes. That was her space, and pity anyone who was near her.

“She was in great physical condition then,” he recalls. “I don't think she ever showered there. She just came in and took the classes, and left. I don't think it was a major social event for her. She never really associated with anyone beyond that. It was that one little idiosyncrasy that everyone picked up on.”
¹²³

McCormick fondly recalls meeting several other stars while working at the health bar, including Brooke Shields and Bruce Springsteen, and he found them to be warm and outgoing. He was also on staff when John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Laraine Newman filmed the movie
Perfect
at The Sports Connection, and he remembers them as being friendly and down to earth. However, Madonna was another story. “She was a star in her own mind,” he says. “Although, I have to say, she had a lot of success at that point. People knew who she was, there was no mistake about that, even though she changed her hair color from week to week. “
¹²³

Meanwhile, the invitations to Sean and Madonna's nuptials went out in the mail to a select number of their family and friends. Everyone was still trying to figure out what the hell she found so appealing about the elusive, eccentric Penn. “I don't think she needed Sean in opportunistic ways. Movie people are already beating down her door,” Susan Seidelman surmised. “It's got to be love.”
¹²⁴

Madonna's longtime friend Martin Burgoyne thought Madonna's relationship with Sean was healthy. He said that their relationship was “fifty-fifty. She can learn from him, and he can learn from her.”
⁹⁷

The bride-to-be publicly defended her choice. “We have so much in common. He's really smart and he knows a lot.”
¹²⁴
On several occasions she said she thought Sean resembled her father. “Maybe that's why I feel really close to Sean.”
²⁴

While she was in New York in July, Madonna was the guest of honor at a traditional bridal shower, hostessed by her East Coast friends. Attending were Alannah Currie and Mariel Hemingway, in addition to half a dozen of Madonna's male friends—in full drag. The event was held at the apartment of Nancy Huang, who was Nile Rodgers's girlfriend.

Nothing was conventional about Sean and Madonna's wedding, beginning with the cryptic invitations. Printed on shocking-pink paper, they featured a sketch of a demonic-looking Sean and Madonna on one side, depicted as the man and woman with a pitchfork in Grant Wood's famed painting,
American Gothic
. The illustration, drawn by Sean's brother Michael, had many amusing details including a
SEAN TOY
belt buckle on Madonna.

The wedding date was set for Madonna's twenty-seventh birthday, and the day after was Sean's twenty-fifth birthday, so it was destined to be quite the double-Leo event in astrologer's terms. What was about to ensue, however, was to rival the best of Hollywood's disaster films of the seventies, complete with insane plot twists and star-studded casts.

Not only did everyone want to know what the bride was going to be wearing, but they also wanted to know where the hell the event was going to take place. This wild goose chase of a wedding was destined to go down in history books as one of the maddest marital events of the century.

The rumors were flying for weeks about details of the event. One press report claimed that Madonna was going to poke fun at her snow-white “Like a Virgin” wedding gown by wearing an all-black “widow's wedding gown.” Because she had only known Sean for several months, there was also speculation as to whether or not Madonna was with child.

All the publicity she was getting from the wedding helped keep Madonna-mania running high on the record charts. The week of the wedding, her latest single, “Dress You Up” was in the Top Forty in America, on its way to Number Five. In England, where she was revered as well, Madonna had three songs in the Top Twenty: “Into the Groove” at Number One, “Holiday” at Number Two, and “Crazy for You” at Number Nineteen. “Into the Groove” was Number Seven in West Germany, and “Crazy for You” was Number Three in Australia, and the Japanese Madonna album
Into the Groove
was Number Ten in that country.

On Monday, August 13, Madonna and Sean were accompanied by a bodyguard as they arrived at the Los Angeles Civil Courthouse, where they took out a marriage license. They were waited on by clerk Gloria Guerra, who recalls, “Most of the time she tried to hide her face. She didn't want people to recognize her. It seemed like she wanted to leave very soon.” Sally Chavez, another clerk at the courthouse added, “They were chuckling, that I did notice.”
¹²⁵

Two days before the wedding, the future bride and groom were feted by their respective friends. Ten of Madonna's girlfriends gave her a bachelorette party. It was held at a sleazoid mud-wrestling emporium called the Tropicana, in Hollywood. To avoid being recognized, Madonna wore minimal makeup and put her hair up in a neat little bun. On the other side of town, Sean and the boys whooped it up in a private room upstairs at the rock club the Roxy, on Sunset Strip. Penn was joined by a host of his friends and family, including Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Cruise, David Keith, Robert Duvall, and screenwriter Cameron Crowe. The stag gathering was entertained by stripper Kitten (42-24-36) Nativ-idad.

That week, details slowly leaked out to the press. Designer Marlene Stewart announced that Madonna's gown “is somewhat in the fairy-tale category.”
¹²⁶
Meanwhile, Wolfgang Puck, chef-proprietor-celebrity of the restaurant Spago, revealed clues about the menu he was creating for the wedding of the season. In addition to Madonna's favorite—Spago pizza and curried oysters, the buffet would also feature lobster ravioli, swordfish, baked potatoes stuffed with caviar and sour cream, hot and cold meats, and a vintage champagne. “It will be one of the most lavish spreads I have ever prepared,” claimed Puck. “No expense has been spared to make it a party to remember.”
¹²⁷