Madonna

Biography

A pop diva of the 1980s, Madonna created a raunchy blonde bombshell persona that propelled such music-video hits as "Like a Virgin" (1984), "Material Girl" (1985), "Like a Prayer" (1989), "Vogue" (1990) and "Justify My Love" (1991). A Madonna naked gallery can be found here.

A high-energy performer of aggressively sexual and irreverent material who has been called "the queen of bimbo rock" and a "punk Mae West", Madonna has outraged many with her messages of assertiveness and kinky sexuality as well as her outrageously suggestive costuming.

Her champions, however, have praised her catchy, danceable music (most of which she co-writes and produces), her iconoclastic humor, her bravado in expressing female desire, her provocative assaults on such sacred cows as interracial relationships, homophobia and ignorance about birth control, her shrewd business sense and her post-modern performance style, ideally suited to the end of the 20th century.

The working-class Midwesterner moved to New York in 1978 to become a dancer, but after several false starts as a model and actress (in an underground soft-core feature, "A Certain Sacrifice", 1979), she hit the clubs and made her name as a high-energy singer. Vibrantly ambitious, Madonna propelled herself to pop stardom, becoming the first queen of the MTV era by the mid-80s.

After a cameo appearance in the film "Vision Quest" (1985), she had her first starring role as the rule-breaking, free-living, punk title character in Susan Seidelman's "Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985). It won her acclaim as a unique new screen presence and showed her talent at wisecracking farce, not unlike tough 30s comics Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd.

Madonna's subsequent film performances, however, have proven less than sensational and it has been said that she is an actress "desperately seeking a role." While never abandoning her music, she has tried to refashion herself into a modern-day Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich.

In 1986, she co-starred with then-husband Sean Penn in the flop comedy "Shanghai Surprise". Despite her charmingly kooky performance, her next film, the screwball "Who's That Girl?" (1987) also bombed. She got an "A" for effort for her Broadway debut in the underwritten female role in David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" (1988). Madonna went on to appear in a small role in the episodic period film "Bloodhounds of Broadway" (1989), then turned on the high-voltage glamour to good effect as Breathless Mahoney in the big-budgeted Warren Beatty showcase "Dick Tracy" (1990).

In 1991, Madonna returned to the character she plays best - herself - in Alek Keshishian's behind-the-scenes documentary of her Blonde Ambition tour, "Truth or Dare". A riveting, self-important and fascinating look at superstardom, it is overshadowed only by comedienne Julie Brown's dead-on parody, "Medusa: Dare to be Truthful".

Madonna engaged in unintentional self-parody with "Sex" (1992), an X-rated photo book of herself and "friends" nude. She earned her best notices since "Susan" for another tough-gal comic role, in Penny Marshall's ensemble film "A League of Their Own" (1992). As WWII baseball player Mae Mordabito, Madonna expertly played off co-stars Geena Davis and Rosie O'Donnell and once again proved what a smart, funny performer she could be.

But Madonna's hoped-for dramatic breakthrough continued to elude her: the over-wrought melodramas "Body of Evidence" and "Dangerous Game" (both 1993) quickly disappeared. She made cameo appearances as a hooker in Woody Allen's "Shadows and Fog" (1991), as a singing telegram girl in Wayne Wang's "Blue in the Face" (1995), portrayed a witch in Allison Anders' segment of the critically lambasted "Four Rooms" (1995) and briefly appears as a phone sex veteran in and Spike Lee's "Girl 6" (1996).

Madonna was cast in what many feel was a role she was born to play, the Argentine First lady Eva Peron in Alan Parker's film musical "Evita" (1996).

Pics

Naked pictures from:
Body of Evidence (1993)

Madonna nude clips and photos