Madonna (23 page)

On her last couple of trips to Los Angeles she had scoped out real estate. She longed to live like a movie star. “I'd like to get a house in the hills: a real Hollywood house,” she announced. “There's one that belonged to either Anna Pavlova or Isadora Duncan. I want that house! It's on top of a hill and it's very dramatic.”
¹

She was also plotting her course in the movies. “Director-wise,” she pondered at the time, “I'd love to work with [Francis Ford] Coppola, [Martin] Scorsese, Bob Fosse. Actor-wise, I'd like to work with Mel Gibson. He's a great actor and he's great looking, and he's normal. He doesn't seem like”—she paused and gave a look of disgust—”he's not like Matt Dillon! Mel Gibson is past that, he's not an arrogant snot-nosed brat.”
¹

In addition to mapping out her next career move, romance was also on her mind. “I need love and I need to give love,” she said.
⁹⁴

But was Madonna looking to “justify” her love, or was she simply seeking out her next “useful boyfriend”? From the very start of her affair with Sean Penn, the pair was a bizarre match. What did they have in common, with the exception of surly attitudes? Clearly, as an established hot young movie star, Penn had achieved the kind of stature that Madonna had in her sights for herself. In the past few months she had by far eclipsed Jellybean's fame. He was already being referred to in the press merely as Madonna's “ex-boyfriend.” She was going places, and Sean Penn was clearly the type of person who could take her there. Having had a taste of cinematic fame via
Desperately Seeking Susan
, she longed to become a movie star. What better way to be greeted with open arms in Hollywood than on the arm of an established film star? The stage was set for her next career leap.

When Madonna completed the Madison Square Garden dates on her Virgin Tour, she almost immediately headed for Nashville to be at Sean Penn's side. He was in Tennessee for location filming on the movie
At Close Range
.

“Sean to me is the perfect American male, and that's all I can say. I'm inspired and shocked by him at the same time,” she claimed at the time.
⁹⁴
When she arrived in Nashville she was about to be “inspired and shocked.”

Without the pressure of the tour on her mind, Madonna was primed and ready for romance. That week on location Sean asked her to marry him. He popped the question in Tennessee. “We were out in the middle of nowhere…. It was a Sunday morning and I was jumping up and down on the bed…. He got this look in his eye and I felt like I just knew what he was thinking…. I said, ‘Whatever you're thinking, I'll say “yes” to.' That was his chance, so he popped it.” Madonna later said, “Sean is my hero and my best friend.”
¹³

The week wasn't all champagne and roses for the dynamic duo, however. It was the same week Sean Penn engaged in his debut fistfight with members of the press. The big blowup occurred when Madonna and Sean were approached by a pair of photographers from Britain. When the photographers insisted on taking photos of the celebrity couple, Sean grabbed one of the photographic tools and “camera-whipped” the photographer and then assulted him with a rock. The press had a field day when Sean was brought up on assault charges by the Fleet Street lensmen, in addition to facing a million-dollar civil suit.

When all of the excitement was over, Madonna left Nashville and flew to Los Angeles, where she planned to kick up her heels and celebrate the wonderful year she was having. On Sunday, June 23, Madonna attended a beachside party at David Geffen's Malibu house. She was the center of attention at the party, and it was there that she made the grand announcement of her upcoming wedding. The following morning, syndicated columnist Suzy broke the news of Madonna and Sean's engagement to the world. The date was set for “sometime in August,” pending the completion of the filming of
At Close Range
. Suzy also reported, “Sean and Madonna have plans to make a movie together,
Pipeline
, set in the Alaskan oil fields.”

Just as the excitement of her wedding was sinking in, Madonna was hit with her first negative surprise of the year. On Sunday, July 7, Bob Guccione, the publisher of
Penthouse
magazine, announced that his publication was going to be publishing twelve pages of nude photographs of Madonna in the September issue. The photos were selected from sessions she had done in 1979 and 1980, when she was modeling for art classes in Greenwich Village.

The previous summer, it was
Penthouse
that caused a major scandal when they printed nude photos of the then-reigning Miss America, Vanessa Williams. Because of the stir those photos caused, Williams was forced to relinquish her crown. Guccione seemed to take great pleasure over the scandal his magazine caused; the Vanessa Williams issue ended up setting sales records for
Penthouse
. Guccione was confident that he had again struck gold with Madonna.

Many of the Madonna nudes appeared in Guccione's office around the same time. They came from many different sources, from the students and teachers she used to pose for, as well as from professionals. Guccione claimed that
Penthouse
had first choice and that they selected the best of the bunch. “She is completely nude, and the pictures are fully explicit,” he bragged to the press.
¹¹³

In a surprise move, just as word of
Penthouse's
Madonna issue was hitting the Monday morning newspapers, a publishing coup was under way. The following day,
Playboy
announced that they, too, were going to feature Madonna on the cover of the September issue and in the buff in its interior. Furthermore, the September
Playboy
, which was originally scheduled to hit the newsstands on July 30, was going to be on sale in New York and Chicago the very next day—Wednesday, July 10!

Suddenly, the war of the girlie magazines went into full swing. Scooped by
Playboy
, it was strictly “stop the presses” time over at
Penthouse
headquarters. In an emergency move,
Penthouse
quickly rushed copies of its September issue from its warehouse in Des Moines, Iowa, to hit major city newsstands on a limited basis July 10, with the bulk arriving by July 16.

Anticipating the demand for the magazines, both publishers upped the print runs. At five million copies,
Penthouse's
run was up 15 percent over their usual run, and the presses stood poised and ready in case a second printing was required. With an additional 350,000 to 500,000 copies of
Playboy
printed, the Hugh Hefner—published men's magazine was 7 to 10 percent above normal for its print run.

Playboy
published its Madonna photo feature with an accompanying editorial dig aimed at competitor
Penthouse
. “Since we turned down those nude photos of Vanessa Williams, some people will ask why we're publishing these.”
⁵¹
Playboy
said they thought Vanessa Williams didn't know what she was getting into and they had no desire to ruin her career. In a very nice, polite, and gentlemanly way,
Playboy
was in essence saying: Miss America was framed by big, bad
Penthouse
, but Madonna is a slut,
so
—hey, what the hell!? Here she is in the nude.

Guccione was pissed off that
Playboy
had beaten him to the newsstands and blasted them publicly. “The
Playboy
photographs are rubbish. I bought all of the best ones,” he argued.
¹¹⁴

In its Madonna issue, first-on-the-newsstand
Playboy
used photos from two different photographers: Martin Schreiber and Lee Friedlander. In both sessions, Madonna was indeed nude, but instead of appearing sexy, she looked bored out of her mind. In
Penthouse
, the photos by Bill Stone were much more creative. Using a soft focus and a beautiful antique camelback sofa, several of the photos look like artistic shots from the turn of the century. The Friedlander sessions depicted Madonna as a “natural woman,” with abundant dark brown underarm hair, while the other photos displayed Madonna's sexy armpits following a shave.

What was even more amusing than watching the pair of skin magazines battle it out at the newsstands, was Madonna's whole take on the situation. In response to the disclosure of the photos, Madonna's press agent Liz Rosenberg announced, “Madonna has acknowledged in interviews that she posed nude for art classes.” Liz added, “I can tell you that she doesn't feel she's done anything to be ashamed of.”
¹¹⁵

In an effort to further publicize the whole escapade, Bob Guccione announced that
Penthouse
would go to great lengths if Madonna would pose nude for him. “I'd pay as high as a million dollars for an exclusive photo session with her,” he claimed.
¹¹⁴
Not to be outdone by
Penthouse
, and eager to enter into the race to expose more of Madonna, another sexually oriented magazine,
High Society
, claimed that they would up the ante by offering Madonna $1.2 million for the same services.
Time
magazine labeled the whole episode a “navel battle of the newsstands.”
¹¹⁶

One of the best takes on the whole episode is a now famous front page of the ever-colorful
New York Post
, which, with a photo of Madonna, in inch-and-a-half-high letters brandished the headline,
MADONNA ON NUDE PIX: SO WHAT
! On the cover of its metro edition the
Post
offered an alternate headline, which read,
MADONNA: “I'M NOT ASHAMED
”.
¹¹⁷

To top it all off, on the Saturday following the newsstand arrival of the nude Madonna mags, the singer was scheduled to appear on the “let's feed Ethiopia” mega-concert of the century: “Live Aid.” Here she was to perform for a satellite-broadcast, semi-dignified humanitarian charity while nude photos of her were on sale at the local 7-Eleven store.

Madonna herself was not the least bit amused. According to her, “I think when I first found out about it, the thing that annoyed me most wasn't so much that they were nude photographs but that I felt really out of control.”
¹¹²

With regard to the photos themselves, she explained, “When they were taken seven or eight years ago, they weren't meant for publication in
any
magazine. They were done by these guys who took pictures of nudes for exhibits and showings and stuff. At the time I wasn't a known person and it didn't really occur to me that I was setting myself up for scandal for years to come…. I consider the nude a work of art. I don't see pornography in Michelangelo, and I likened what I was doing to that. It was a good way to make money.”
¹³

Although she wished that things hadn't unfolded quite the way they had, she accepted the events. “I'm not ashamed of anything that I did.”
¹³

Two years after, the whole thing had blown over and Madonna was able to reflect on the trauma it had caused.

“When
Desperately Seeking Susan
came out, and I was going with a well-known actor, then I announced my marriage,
then
the
Playboy
and
Penthouse
pictures came out—everything sort of happened at once, one big explosion of publicity,” she recalls.
“Penthouse
did something really nasty—they sent copies of the magazine to Sean.”
⁸¹

With huge all-star concerts in London and Philadelphia, the Live Aid concert, held on Saturday, July 13, 1985, was heralded as the grandest and most unified rock event ever staged. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Mick Jagger; Tina Turner; Hall and Oates; Paul McCartney; Bob Dylan; Ron Wood; Joan Baez; Keith Richards; the Beach Boys; the Four Tops; Sade; Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats; Teddy Pender-grass; Eric Clapton; and reunions by The Who and Black Sabbath highlighted the twenty-one-hour rock extravaganza to end all extravaganzas. And, sandwiched into the middle of it came a three song performance by Her Virginness herself.

The concert was her first public appearance since the photos appeared, and she was still smarting. “Part of me felt this big,” she said as though she had shrunk with embarrassment. But Madonna wouldn't let the negative press get her down. She said, “I'm gonna get this dark cloud out from over my head.”
¹¹²

The concert was a mere six months after the all-star recording session that yielded the Number One hit “We Are the World.” That fateful night in January, producer Quincy Jones had instructed a virtual who's who of the rock world to “Check your egos at the door.” It was anticipated that Live Aid would be a selfless, attitude-less event as well, and 99 percent of it was—except for Madonna.

Calling her a “prima donna,”
USA Today
reported that “the only artist who acted like a superstar was Madonna.”
¹¹⁸
Breezing into the backstage area, and clutching Sean Penn's hand for dear life, Madonna was surrounded by a phalanx of over a dozen bodyguards. Several of the bodyguards held their hands in front of Madonna's face to obstruct picture-taking by the press photographers assembled there. It was a new ploy she had just learned from the obnoxious Penn.

Remaining difficult, Madonna switched dressing rooms twice so that the press couldn't find her. This was a decided change of pace for her. Up until her engagement to Penn she gladly posed at public events for anyone within lens distance.

Madonna ended up sharing a dressing room with the Beach Boys, Ashford & Simpson, and Eric Clapton. Several people found her to be stuck-up that afternoon, and she became the brunt of several jokes onstage and off, especially in light of her nude photo spreads.