Madonna (27 page)

Zarr took two photographs of Madonna that day at the studio—without being punched out by Sean. “She was getting ready to do this movie,
Shanghai Surprise
, where she was a missionary. So, she was kind of dressing strange. She was wearing glasses and had her hair up in a bun. She hadn't started the movie yet, but she was starting to get into the frame of mind of not being the ‘wild Madonna,' and trying to get into this part. So she looked kind of funny that day. And she said, ‘You're not going to show this to anybody are you?'” Fred recalls.
¹³⁴

The idea of Madonna portraying a missionary in the forthcoming movie
Shanghai Surprise
was in direct contrast to the image she had been projecting throughout the tumultuous year of 1985. Ever since “Like a Virgin” had hit the charts, she had been taking the heat as a bad influence on the youth of America. Right-wing groups from across the land were kicking up a stink about her image, her costumes, her nude photos, and the fact that teenagers worshiped the ground she wallowed on.

Kandy Stroud wrote an editorial in
Newsweek
that was titled “Stop Pornographic Rock.” In addition to lambasting Madonna's song “Like a Virgin,” Stroud also carried a torch against Prince's song “Darling Nikki,” which is about a girl masturbating with a rolled up magazine in a hotel lobby. Also indicted were Sheena Easton's “Sugar Walls” (an obvious ode to her genitals written by Prince), W.A.S.P.'s sadomaso chistic “The Torture Never Stops,” and Frankie Goes to Hollywood's orgasmic “Relax.”

Said Stroud, “ ‘Feels so good inside,' squeals Madonna on her triple-platinum album,
Like a Virgin
. Rock's latest ‘It' girl hardly touts virginal innocence, as one can gather from her gyrations and undulations on Friday-night video shows.”
¹³⁵

Other moralistic critics took a more dramatic stance. According to Margaret Scott of the California right-wing group United Parents Under God: “Our youngsters are being exploited and manipulated by Madonna. She takes a public-be-damned attitude to morals. Yet the kids worship her. She should be banned to save our children from ruin!”
¹³⁶

Madonna was quick to defend herself. “I think it's the kids' parents who don't understand, and they're frightened,” she claimed. “Most of the lyrics in my songs have double entendres or lots of different meanings, so if you're thinking in a purely sexual way—I'm not using any offensive words or profanity at all.”
¹³⁷

She defensively elaborated, “I'm definitely against violence in videos. But, I don't think that the MTV videos have any more violence than things people see all day long. So if you don't want your child exposed to violence, you shouldn't let them watch TV at all.”
¹³⁷

And to think, at this point in her career she was just warming up. The so-called Moral Majority had no idea what kind of tricks were up Madonna's sleeve!

  The most offensive people

  an the entire planet!
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  —New York Daily News an

  Madonna and Sean, circa 1986.

 

T
he year 1986 brought mixed blessings for Madonna. It seemed as though everything she was involved in with Sean turned out to be an incredible disaster—personally and professionally. At the same time, everything she touched as a solo project blossomed beautifully.

On the negative side of things came the horrendous Sean and Madonna movie
Shanghai Surprise
, the experimental theatrical production
Goose and Tomtom
, and the public hatred of Sean's childish outbursts toward the press.

When the idea of doing
Shanghai Surprise
came up, it sounded like a great joint project. According to Madonna, “We didn't actually plan on working on the film together.”
¹³⁹
She had just finished recording her
True Blue
album, and Sean was between projects. The original script was submitted to her, and she read it and liked it. Since Penn had more experience in film than she did, she asked him to give it a quick read. He ended up liking the male role, and the concept of working together seemed like a natural career progression.

It was going to be produced by HandMade Films, a company with ex-Beatle George Harrison as one of the owners. HandMade had been responsible for several box office hits, including
Time Bandits, A Private Function, Privates on Parade
, and
The Life of Brian
. With George Harrison as one of the executive producers, a production company with a strong track record, and a potentially amusing script, the Penns agreed to star in
Shanghai Surprise
.

The trouble began the first week in January 1986, as Sean and Madonna left Los Angeles and headed to the Far East to begin filming. They spent a week in Hong Kong, and everything went smoothly. They drew little attention as they traveled to the nearby island of Cheung Chau by boat and dined at a local restaurant. Madonna was able to do her jogging in the morning in the parking lot of their hotel, and it looked as if their stay was going to be uncomplicated.

The Penns arrived in the Orient in the middle of the night. Because of the long flight across time zones, they found their mental clocks were turned upside down, and neither of them was ready for sleep. “We ended up just walking around in the streets on this steel-cold morning,” recalls Madonna.
¹¹²
As dawn broke, the couple wound their way through the twisting streets; they found themselves fascinated with the signs of life: people doing tai chi, readying shops to open, or scurrying toward their homes with cabbage and meat to feed their families.

Madonna was immediately struck with her virtual anonymity. She noted that people stared at her merely because she had blonde hair, but then went on about their business. The concept of her celebrity status never crossed their minds. Unfortunately, it was not a phenomenon that lasted long.

The following week, as production went into full swing, the Penns traveled forty miles west to the Portuguese port of Macao, and that's where the fireworks began. Accompanied by two assistants and a bodyguard, on January 16 Sean and Madonna were ambushed by a press photographer as they returned to their suite on the eighteenth floor of the luxurious Orient Hotel. The photographer was Leonel Borralho, owner of two newspapers in Macao, who was determined to scoop everyone else by getting the first exclusive photos of the couple since their arrival.

As they neared their suite, Borralho leaped out from behind a service door and began shooting. With that Sean and the bodyguard attacked the surprised lensman. According to reports, Sean and the bodyguard proceeded to “punch out” sixty-one-year-old Leonel, but in reality it was more of a scuffle than a pummeling session.

Borralho recalls of Sean's actions, “He was like a madman. He was screaming at his bodyguard, ‘I want that film. Don't let him get away. I want that camera.'” Sean grabbed the photographer's arm, and the bodyguard attempted to remove his camera, which hung from a strap around his neck. Borralho struggled and refused to surrender the camera. Penn and the bodyguard demanded that he give it up. Realizing the consequences that could arise from physically seizing the camera, Sean offered to barter with Borralho. If the journalist gave up the roll of film in the camera, Sean swore that he would be granted an exclusive interview with Madonna. “I decided to agree to this, because I knew there was no chance for me,” Borralho remembers.
¹⁴⁰

Borralho gave up his film and threatened that if he didn't get a call that night regarding the promised interview with Madonna, he was going to press charges. When no phone call was made, the police were brought into it. Penn and his bodyguard were summoned to the local police headquarters, and they were questioned for two and a half hours. To top off the affair, the photographer and newspaper owner filed a $1 million lawsuit against Sean.

According to Paul Campbell, an editor at the
Hong Kong Standard
, Sean had opened quite a can of worms by attacking the photographer: “Macao is a small place, and apart from owning two newspapers, [Borralho] also has a lot of local influence.”
¹⁴⁰
As a former legislative member Borralho was not going to let the case drop until he raked the Penns over the coals in print.

Madonna and Sean's living conditions on the set were apparently less than luxurious. “There were big black rats underneath our trailers,” says Madonna with disgust. “I kept saying, ‘I can't wait till I can look back on this, I can't wait!'”
¹¹²
For the duo, the film turned into one massive survival test. Madonna was especially vexed by the ordeal. She realized that the entire nightmare experience was not only going to put her acting talents to a test, but it was also going to add undue stress to her marriage. As the shooting began, Madonna found herself doubting her own capacities. Instead of concentrating on her screen portrayal, she spent more and more mental energy assessing her own insecurities. She kept telling herself that if she failed as an actress in this film, it could also signal the end of her marriage to Sean.

As the filming progressed, so did the problems. Two days following the Borralho fiasco, reporters and photographers in hot pursuit of the Penns embarked on a wild chase scene, causing a huge traffic jam. Trapped in their car in the jam, Madonna was cheered by the mob of pedestrians that surrounded their vehicle.

Meanwhile, the international press was having a field day reporting the daily scores from the media war in the Far East. So far the score was: Photographers - 2; Sean - 0.

Paula Yates, the wife of Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof and hostess of the popular British television show “The Tube,” traveled to Hong Kong to film a documentary on Sean and Madonna. Madonna had gladly consented to the interview by Paula, but Sean flatly refused to allow his wife to cooperate with the press in any way. “She didn't pose any problems at all, but Sean laid down the law,” recalls Geoff Wonfor, Paula's producer. “He decided he just didn't want her to talk.”
¹⁴¹
After every scene, Sean led Madonna back to her trailer and forbade the journalists to talk to her.

It wasn't long before the planned documentary was sabotaged by Sean. “Every time he saw us take our cameras out to film what was going on he screamed and yelled and demanded that all the footage be scrapped,” said Wonfor of Penn's daily tantrums.
¹⁴¹
One morning, while Sean and Madonna were filming a scene in a boat a quarter-mile out in the bay, Wonfor had his cameramen shoot some long shots of the couple that could be used without their approval. However, even that seemingly harmless footage was scrapped at Sean's insistence.

Madonna later revealed that in addition to Sean's bouts with the press, the entire experience was one long ordeal. She found herself in a foreign country in cold winter weather walking around in cotton blouses, as though it was summer. There were also communication problems on the set, she was constantly getting sick from the food, and it was such hard work, she couldn't believe that she had willingly consented to this project to begin with. “It was very grueling, and there was a lot of tension on the set between the director and all the actors. It was just endless tension,” she complained.
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In an effort to call a truce between the press and the Penns, the film's unit publicist, Chris Nixon, suggested that the pair should host a media photo session. That way, the press would get all the shots they needed, and there wouldn't be a need for the surprise confrontations. As soon as he had made his suggestion, Nixon was immediately fired, at Sean's insistence.

The situation between the Penns and the press was beginning to distress the executives at HandMade Films, and they began to worry about their $15.5 million investment. As part of an emergency mission, George Harrison flew to Hong Kong, where he reportedly gave Madonna and Sean a stern lecture about their behavior and told them about the stories that were appearing in the papers in London.

When Madonna was later asked if George had imparted any acting advice, she replied that he had given her more advice on how to deal with the press than how to make movies.

Somehow the location filming was finished within the scheduled six-week stay in Hong Kong and nearby Macao. Filming was scheduled to resume in London. On February 20, Sean and Madonna landed in Germany to attend West Berlin's International Film Festival. When they arrived at the airport, Madonna wore dark glasses, and Sean pulled his jacket up over his head. The resulting photos, which ran in that afternoon's
New York Post
, look like Madonna is out on the town with the Elephant Man.

The following day, when the Penns arrived in London, they were mobbed by members of the press. To make for further bad press, Madonna's Mercedes limousine ran over the foot of one of the photographers. Apparently he had been sprawled across the hood of the vehicle only seconds before. Regardless, war had been declared between the Fleet Street journalists and “the Poison Penns,” as they were dubbed.

Madonna recalls of the experience, “When we got to England, it was like the Third World War!”
²²
While interior shots were filmed in a studio in London, news reports of press photographers wresting with Sean Penn and/or bodyguards were arriving on a daily basis.

Finally, something had to be done to calm down the volatile atmosphere on the set. In an unprecedented move, George Harrison stepped forward to call a cease fire between the press and the Penns. On March 6, Madonna and George appeared at a press conference to answer the questions of the fourth estate.

One of the most glaring questions was the obvious “Where's Sean?” Defensively, George replied, “He's busy, working.”
¹⁴²
“I don't think he's into talking to press,” Harrison continued in his olive branch of a press conference.
¹³⁸
“I happen to like Sean very much. Apart from all the bullshit that's been said, he's actually a human being and he's very nice, and he's a very talented actor.”
¹³⁹
According to George, all of the sensationalism came simply because he happened to be married to Madonna.