The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (52 page)

In the end, away from the controversy surrounding the secret of his illness and the questions raised after his passing, the death of Rock Hudson was a tragic and sad affair but with it came a ray of hope that people could stop whispering about AIDS and begin to educate themselves and others regarding the actual facts. His death – like so many before and after – left the world a darker place, though it was not in vain. His fight helped pave the way for celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Rivers, Madonna and Princess Diana to give compassionate support to those who were suffering; it went a long way to reduce stigma, and for that alone, Hudson’s passing has helped many people over the course of almost thirty years. Perhaps without even knowing it, the man who hid his illness and sexuality from the world for such a long time managed to open the floodgates and let education about AIDS, and the acceptance of those who were suffering, finally begin.

There are some Hollywood marriages that are over in a flash; others that surprise everyone by lasting a lifetime. There are quiet marriages, loud marriages, violent and tempestuous marriages . . . and then there is the marriage of Madonna and Sean Penn.

By the time Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone met actor Sean Penn, she was already on her way to becoming a major superstar, while he was an intense actor and aspiring director. The pair met on the set of Madonna’s 1985 video for “Material Girl” and although she wasn’t overly impressed with him at first, they soon began seeing each other regularly, and were photographed backstage at Live Aid, huddled in each other’s arms.

Madonna had never appeared to be the marrying kind, but Penn eventually won her over and proposed one morning as the singer was jumping up and down on her bed. According to the singer, Sean suddenly got a particular look in his eye and she had been completely certain that he was about to pop the question. She told the actor that whatever he was thinking she was definitely going to say yes, so he took the opportunity to ask for her hand in marriage, and of course she accepted.

The much ballyhooed wedding took place on 16 August 1985 in the mountain-top garden of 6970 Wildlife Road, Malibu, the home of Penn’s friend Dan Unger, and it was a noisy affair. Although the pair tried to assure the media that the only thing happening that day was a joint birthday party (their birthdays are a day apart), they failed to convince anyone, particularly when guests started showing up wearing wedding outfits, complete with presents.

Reporters and photographers went wild, hiding in the bushes and trying to bluff their way into the house. When that failed, they finally hired helicopters and by the time the bride appeared in the garden dressed in a huge white dress with a black bowler hat and veil, there were over a dozen copters flying above her head.

“That whole time was almost too much,” she later said. She had never expected in her wildest dreams to be married with helicopters buzzing around, and declared the entire affair “a circus”. Still, she was determined not to let it ruin her day and while it is fair to say that the noise could have stressed out the calmest of brides, for Madonna it was all just too hilarious for words. “In the end I was laughing,” she said in an interview. “At first I was outraged and then I was laughing.”

But while Madonna might have seen the funny side, her groom most certainly did not, and at one point he was apparently seen on the sand, spelling the words “Fuck Off” in giant letters and waving a gun at the passing helicopters. It was not a good start, and Sean and Madonna’s life together did not get much better.

From the very beginning their marriage was one of arguments and controversy. As with many newlywed showbiz couples, Madonna and Sean thought that it would be a good experience to make a film together, but this turned out to be one of the worst decisions they could have made. During the making of the film,
Shanghai Surprise
, they fought constantly and became so aloof with other cast members that when the cast and crew landed in England, the newspapers christened them “The Poison Penns”. The film’s producer, George Harrison, was highly disappointed by the bad press and encouraged Madonna to accompany him to a conference to thwart the rumours and stories quickly spreading about the couple.

Despite the good intentions, the event did not go particularly well, especially when one reporter repeated a rumour that Madonna’s management contract was up for sale. “Did you know that, and George, would you like to buy it?” he enquired. George Harrison chewed on gum uncomfortably while Madonna tried to avoid the question.

“You’re a little troublemaker, aren’t you?” she quipped.

“I’m not the only one, there’s a room full of them,” retorted the reporter.

He was right, and the conference lurched from one uncomfortable moment to the next, with Madonna complaining afterwards that the press had been unbelievably vicious and rude. Her comments may have been fair but unfortunately for her they only fuelled the fire of negativity surrounding the film. This in turn seemed to send Madonna and Sean Penn into even more explosive bust-ups between themselves and others, on and off set.

Once the movie was released, the reviews were poor (and even today it only claims a rating of less than three out of ten stars on the Internet Movie Database), but Madonna did not seem to be willing to place the blame at her own door, and instead stated that while she liked the script, by the time they got on set, it was clear to her that the man at the helm of the film was a TV director who was in over his head when it came to directing a movie. “It was downhill from the second day,” she told reporters. She also complained that her scenes were cut so much that it made her “look like an airhead girl, without a character”.

Whoever’s fault it was,
Shanghai Surprise
was a box-office disaster, but Madonna pressed on with her film career regardless and went on to work on a project initially called “Slammer”, a comedy about a young woman called Nikki Finn who is trying to clear her name of a crime she didn’t commit. Even before it was released, rumours were abounding that it would be a stinker. The critics didn’t disappoint: even Madonna’s co-star, a cougar called Murray, got better reviews than she did.

To add to the frustration, the title “Slammer” became a hilarious twist for the media, as by the time it was scheduled to come out, Sean Penn was in the slammer himself after an incident on the set of his movie,
Colors
. The film was renamed out of respect for him, and it ultimately went on to be called
Who’s That Girl
, which just happened to tie in with both the soundtrack song and Madonna’s upcoming world tour.

Luckily, while her films most certainly were not burning brightly at the box office, the world tour was a big success and Madonna played for the first time to stadium audiences on many continents. Unfortunately, being away from the States for so long, combined with the time spent apart from Penn during his prison stay, put tremendous strain on the already volatile marriage. When interviewed by Simon Bates for BBC Radio One, Madonna lamented, “Love feels like a huge hand that comes around my whole body and sometimes it’s all furry and warm and it feels good, then other times it’s all scratchy and it hurts.”

Once the jail term and world tour had ended, Mr and Mrs Penn settled down to what they hoped would be a quiet life. However, wherever they went the couple were followed by fans and paparazzi, all throwing questions, flashbulbs and comments in their direction. Things grew worse when fans started ringing the couple’s doorbell every day, which infuriated Penn no end. “What do they expect, for us to invite them up for a cup of coffee?” Madonna later pondered.

Of course, the press loved Sean’s reaction to being followed, and it became a common occurrence to see photographs of the actor shouting in the street, while his wife tried to hide her face with her handbag. By the end of 1987, however, things had come to a head and Madonna filed for divorce on 4 December 1987, though it was ultimately called off when Sean managed to convince her that they could make it work. She withdrew the application on 16 December and the two were soon photographed reportedly renewing their wedding vows in an attempt to hold their marriage together.

In 1988 Madonna returned to New York in order to appear on Broadway in David Mamet’s play,
Speed the Plow
. She seemed to hate the experience of working on stage every night, but was buoyed when she began a friendship with comedienne Sandra Bernhard. The two began hanging out together after the show, frequenting nightclubs and being photographed intensively – mainly by newspapers eager to see if the two women were more than just good friends.

The two managed to cause headlines during a colourful rendition of
I’ve Got You Babe
at a charity concert, and then provoked a huge amount of scandal when they appeared together on the
Late Show with David Letterman
. Dressed identically in white T-shirts, denim shorts and white socks, their “performance” raised many eyebrows as they hinted at being intimate together and then joked that Sandra had slept with Sean Penn. “She’s using me to get to Sean,” Madonna laughed, though few in the audience thought it was funny.

Of course, the person who was the least thrilled was Sean himself, who was said to be furious about the entire episode. It was common knowledge that he disliked Sandra Bernhard intensely and the feeling was apparently mutual. By the time Madonna arrived back in Los Angeles in autumn 1988, the marriage was more fractured than ever.

The couple struggled on for a few more weeks but it was clear to both Madonna and Sean that any relationship they may have had in the past was more than over now. However, it would take a violent episode in December of that year to finally bring an end to the marriage once and for all.

Stories vary on what really happened that night, but most agree that on the evening of 28 December 1988, Sean entered the family home and began abusing and threatening his terrified wife. According to media at the time, he “bound and gagged Madonna for 9 hours” before she finally escaped and headed to the sheriff’s office where she filed charges of “corporal injury and traumatic conditions” and “battery”.

Neither Sean nor Madonna ever spoke publicly about what really happened on that evening, so we must rely on the thoughts and observations of “friends”, but whatever events unfolded within the mansion, they were most certainly enough for Madonna to go through with a divorce, though she did eventually drop the charges against her ex. Just months later, she laid her heart bare on the failure of her marriage in the highly personal album
Like a Prayer
, which included song titles such as “Till Death Us Do Part”, while the video for a song called “Oh Father” showed the star being slapped by someone presumed to be her husband.

In spite of dealing with the break-up through her work, Madonna has never publicly slammed Sean Penn in interviews or comments, and in fact her quotes on the subject have always been the complete reverse. Shortly after the marriage break-up she told an interviewer that while she might have twinges of regret, she felt sad more than anything. She had learned a great deal about herself during the years with Sean, and chose to concentrate on that rather than the bad feeling that had ultimately erupted. She even addressed her broken marriage in the 1991 documentary
Madonna: Truth or Dare
(also known as
In Bed with Madonna)
, when backing singer Donna DeLory asked, “Who has been the love of your life, your whole life?” Madonna immediately replied, “Sean . . . Sean.”

It would take Madonna another eleven years to dive into matrimony again, this time with director Guy Ritchie. The marriage brought two children – Rocco and David (in addition to Madonna’s daughter Lourdes by ex-boyfriend Carlos Leon) – and while it eventually ended in divorce, it was clear to see by this time that the singer was calmer, quieter and far more open to sharing her life with another person.

Sean Penn, meanwhile, began a relationship with actress Robin Wright who bore him two children before going on to marry the actor in April 1996, days after Madonna had announced that she was pregnant with Lourdes. The Penn – Wright marriage was ultimately not a successful one, though the couple did stay together for fourteen years – on and off – before finally agreeing to divorce.

As for Madonna and Sean, unbelievably there are still fans and supporters who wonder if they will one day reunite. They have been seen together on several occasions, and when Madonna won the Most Fashionable Artist 1995 at the VH1 Fashion Awards, it was Sean who unexpectedly presented her with the trophy. During her speech she exclaimed, “That was really dirty!” but the affection they still had for each other was clear when they hugged tightly for several seconds before Sean finally left the stage.

In October 2012 the rumours of reconciliation began again when Penn was spotted outside the Los Angeles Staples Center, while Madonna was due to perform on stage as part of her
MDNA
tour. Sean apparently watched the concert and afterwards was said to tell fans that he thought it was “okay”. Did he meet up with Madonna while he was there? Who knows, but one thing’s for sure, while they are both still around, the rumours of reconciliation will always swirl, and hope will never fade in some camps that “The Poison Penns” may one day get back together.

Zsa Zsa Gabor has been the subject of numerous headlines and scandals over the years, including her many very public marriages (and even more public divorces.) Over the years newspapers have loved her for her outspoken views on a variety of different topics, but unfortunately in recent years her appearances in the newspaper headlines have been of a sad nature due to her ever-increasing illnesses and poor health.

Who can forget the photographs of the once glamorous star, confined to bed while trying to celebrate her ninety-fifth birthday? Then there were the rumours that her husband was the secret father of Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter. He wasn’t, of course, but headlines such as these have not been the kind of articles Zsa Zsa would surely ever want to see. However, back in 1989 Zsa Zsa was at the peak of her scandal-making ways when she made headlines around the world after a highly publicized encounter with a traffic policeman . . .