The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (50 page)

The
National Enquirer
released a statement of their own, not only denying that their reporters had plied Smith with drink but also confirming once again that they would stand by their story. Why? Because Smith had apparently been taped during the interview and the audio had confirmed that what was printed in the magazine were indeed her words. Meanwhile, officers were also not convinced by Smith’s denial and spent an hour with her, asking about the alleged comments and trying to get to the bottom of what happened, once and for all.

By this time Police Chief Daryl Gates was getting more and more frustrated with the entire episode, angry that Smith had sold an interview and anxious that their new leads might in fact be “a wild goose chase”. Reported to want to get the case wrapped up for good, he was then quoted as describing John as “a horrible person”, which provided fodder for the newspapers and caused outrage among his friends. Ten of his closest colleagues teamed up and released their own statement to the newspapers, saying that they had known Belushi well, while Gates had never even met him. Describing him as a “sweet and wonderful person who obviously made some tragic choices”, the friends then described the statement by Gates as a “callous and simplistic attack” against their friend.

The investigation continued, with police examining new evidence and re-interviewing friends and those who could possibly provide a substantial lead. Finally they decided that Cathy Smith should be charged with the murder of John Belushi, and went in search of the elusive woman. Still in Canada and refusing to return to the United States, she then gave another interview – this time to the
Toronto Sun
– where she expressed her opinion that the police were trying to find a scapegoat for the death and that the murder indictment was “no big deal”.

But a big deal it was, and on realizing that the matter would not be dropped, Smith surrendered to the authorities and was held in a Toronto prison before finally being extradited to the United States. A trial was ordered and Smith was charged not only with second-degree murder, but also thirteen felony charges related to providing and giving heroin and cocaine to Belushi. Smith was devastated at the judge’s decision, while her lawyer spoke to reporters outside the court and described the entire episode as “an absolute tragedy”, adding that he had no idea why people could not just let John Belushi rest in peace.

While Smith was initially to be put on trial for second-degree murder, by the time it all came to a head she had accepted a plea-bargain and the charge had been downgraded to involuntary manslaughter with three additional counts of providing drugs to Belushi in the days before his death. It was looking slightly better for Smith than it had before, but she still wasn’t out of the woods. By this time portions of the now infamous
National Enquirer
tape had been presented to the court, and various witnesses had spoken of her association with the actor. It was also pointed out that in spite of attending numerous drug rehabilitation programmes, Smith still had a big drug problem, which prompted her lawyer to say that he hoped his client would not end up in prison.

The Deputy District Attorney Elden S. Fox had other ideas, however, and announced that probation was not a possibility because Smith had not yet understood the gravity of what she had done. Besides, he said, the woman might run to Canada in a bid to avoid the authorities, so in the end it was decided that Cathy Smith should serve fifteen months in prison beginning in December 1986, almost five years after the death of the Blues Brothers’ actor.

The death of John Belushi is just one example of how the extremes of fast living in Hollywood can lead to pain, tragedy and destruction. Still, in spite of the terrible nature of his death, Belushi left a body of work that inspired millions and he will never be forgotten. Indeed his brother Jim and best friend Dan Aykroyd have both described how they still feel “haunted” by the actor to this very day. Aykroyd told the British newspaper, the
Guardian
, that he thinks of his friend every time he visits a blues club. Then in 2008, Jim Belushi told an interviewer that he is constantly reminded of his brother every day, particularly when people approach him in the street: “People just say, ‘I loved your brother,’ and I always go, ‘I loved him too.’ You just can’t hide from it,” he said.

When Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was not the global superstar she is now, she supplemented her income as a dancer in New York by taking odd jobs as a hat-check girl at the Russian Tea Room and a “jelly squirter” at Dunkin’ Donuts. Neither job paid well and she was quickly fired from Dunkin’ Donuts for squirting the jelly too liberally – mainly all over the equipment rather than the doughnuts.

However, her luck changed when she discovered that she could model nude for art and photography students at the New School for a lot more money than she ever could working odd jobs. When not dancing, the twenty-year-old Madonna would head to the school and pose for three hours to earn enough to buy food, which – when struggling – would often be yoghurt, nuts and occasionally popcorn.

While working at the New School, the young model would often meet budding photographers who would ask her to pose privately for them at their “studio”. Of course, these studios were mainly apartments or dingy rooms, but as long as it was above board and she got paid, she didn’t mind too much. “It was really good money and very flexible hours which is why I chose to do it – it wasn’t because I enjoyed taking my clothes off,” she told Rupert Everett during the 1998 television special,
Madonna Rising
.

But take her clothes off she did, and it went further in 1979 when Madonna saw an advert that required an actress to dance and act in a student movie being made nearby. There was no way she would ever get rich from such a role – and in fact it turned out the job was a non-paying one anyway – but hoping for a boost up the career ladder, Madonna auditioned for and won the role of Bruna, a passionate woman in a group of sexslaves who falls in love with a young, “normal” man. Even the most liberal of critics would describe the film as pretty dire, with stilted dialogue and forced performances from almost every member of the cast.

The story was not exactly pleasant viewing either and at one point the film includes some rather disturbing scenes when Bruna is raped by a man in a restaurant toilet. She decides afterwards to take her revenge and together with her group of slaves drives around New York in order to find the attacker. Eventually she tracks him down and ends up carrying out a sacrifice, complete with tomato-ketchup blood, which is smeared all around the end of the movie.

Just like her modelling career,
A Certain Sacrifice
required Madonna to disrobe and take part in scenes that at the time were described as “soft porn”. By today’s standards it is very tame, but nevertheless, the film and her modelling career were not the sort of thing she wanted her strict Italian father to know about. He had been against her moving to New York in the first place, and had begged her to come home on discovering she was sleeping in a rat-infested apartment. What he would think of this new career was anyone’s guess, but Madonna decided to keep it from him, in the hope that he would never be in the position to find out.

However, not even Madonna could have predicted the huge amount of global publicity and stardom she was to achieve in the mid-1980s, and after hitting the big time it was not long before the associates of her past were crawling out of the woodwork. The first came in 1985 when two of the photographers she posed for – Martin Schreiber and Lee Friedlander – decided to cash in on Madonna’s fame and sell their photographs to
Playboy
.

Much to Madonna’s dismay, the photos were snapped up and the offending issue went to print on 10 July 1985. Then just three days later,
Penthouse
got in on the act by publishing seventeen pages of nudes by photographer Bill Stone. As if that wasn’t bad enough, along came a video version of
A Certain Sacrifice
, and while Madonna tried desperately to stop the release, she lost the fight and the film was seen by millions around the world. Madonna tried to play it down by joking that she didn’t want
A Certain Sacrifice
to be released because of the quality of her acting, not the nude scenes, but in private she was absolutely furious that her past was coming back to haunt her.

The nude scandal embarrassed and upset her family in Michigan; her father was furious and her grandmother apparently burst into tears on hearing the news. However, the show had to go on, and at exactly the same time as the photos were released, Madonna was scheduled to perform at the Philadelphia concert for Bob Geldolf’s “Live Aid”.

Many predicted that the star would not perform; that she would cancel because of the embarrassment of her nude pictures going public. However, in true Madonna style, she declared she was not ashamed, and travelled to the gig with her then fiancé, Sean Penn. Describing her as “The woman who has pulled herself up by her bra straps, and has been known to let them down occasionally”, Bette Midler introduced Madonna and she danced on to the stage as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

However, while Madonna had previously been known to wear her lacy underwear in public and little else, on the occasion of Live Aid the singer chose to cover up completely. Wearing flowery trousers, a cut-off shirt and a long jacket, she laughed when chants of “Take off your coat” were heard from the audience. “I ain’t taking shit off today,” she squealed. “You might hold it against me ten years from now.”

Madonna’s good humour and wit during the entire nude episode won fans over, and in the end nobody seemed to care what she had done before fame had come her way. However, people were not quite so forgiving seven years later when she decided to go one step further and release a book entitled
Sex
, which was full of pictures of the singer in all kinds of provocative positions – most of which were nude or semi-nude. Then in the same year she also released an S&M-inspired video for the song “Erotica”, an album with the same name, and finally landed the lead role in
Body of Evidence
, an erotic thriller which required her not only to disrobe, but also to perform in various revealing sex scenes.

While fans had been quick to forgive the nude scandal, many people decided they had had enough of the sex being pushed down their throats by Madonna and her overexposed body. Her album sales plummeted and reviews for
Body of Evidence
were dire, though in truth many people still went to watch the movie, just to see for themselves how far the superstar had gone this time. Though still hugely famous, for several years after the
Sex
book her career floundered and many began writing her off as a has-been. She wasn’t, of course, and her re-emergence in 1996 as both Evita (in the film of that name) and mother to baby Lourdes ensured her life and career were both back on track.

Madonna declared that the
Sex
period was a rebellion, “a statement on the hypocrisy of the world that we live in”. She had no regrets about doing it, but by the time she reached her fifties, it was thought that her desire to express her art through her own nudity had come an end. Little did anyone know that in 2012, just a week into her successful MDNA tour, the almost fifty-four-year-old singer would do it again when she was performing her 1995 hit, “Human Nature”.

While standing close to fans at the front of the stage in Turkey, Madonna stripped off her costume right down to an elaborate bra made up of two layers. The outer layer was taken off, and then out of the blue, the singer suddenly pulled down the cup of her remaining bra, exposing her right breast fully to the amateur cameras in the front row. Then, as fans applauded loudly, she turned her back to the audience, unzipped her trousers and thrust her hand into her groin, where it stayed for a number of seconds before order – and clothes – were finally resumed.

Whether or not this was a premeditated action remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: the episode was beamed worldwide on YouTube, where it was picked up and repeated in newspapers around the globe. Unfortunately the comments were not positive and at times downright insulting, but Madonna had achieved what she may have wanted: publicity not only for her tour but her also new album. By the time the show hit the next stop, Rome, people crowded into the auditorium, wondering if the last show would be repeated. It wasn’t; “Human Nature” started up but no breast was revealed. However, the crowds did get a little peep-show moment when the star turned her back to them and took down her trousers, revealing her lacy panties underneath. Once again it hit the headlines; once again it gained publicity for the tour.

The tour carried on in such a fashion for the rest of 2012, with every night being a moment of will she/won’t she? Some days she did flash her body to the waiting fans, and others she didn’t, but whenever a breast was revealed, it was certain that someone would take a picture that would be transmitted around the world.

The tour ended in December 2012, and was quickly named the biggest grossing tour of the year, beating Bruce Springsteen into second place. Some cynics claim that it was only because of the nudity that the tour sold so well, but this is not so, as most of the concerts were sold out long before the tour hit Turkey and no doubt long before the idea of flashing her breast came into the singer’s mind.

In spite of what the doubters and cynics say, it would seem that Madonna’s continued success is as a result of her body of work, not her physical body. Yes, her love of nudity has caused controversy from the very beginning of her career and has brought her many headlines along the way, but the notoriety of such acts can only go so far on the journey to continued longevity. Once at the peak of a career, only a mixture of ambition, talent and determination can keep you there, and no matter what anyone says, it is clear that Queen of Pop Madonna has all three in spades. Long may she reign.