Seymour Stein, the man who helped launch Madonna’s career, has died aged 80 after a long battle with cancer.
The powerful music executive co-founded Sire Records with Richard Gottehrer in 1966 and they helped put the likes of Talking Heads, The Ramones and The Pretenders on the road to stardom, as well as the burgeoning Madonna in 1982, who then went on to enjoy a stellar career.
He famously signed her, then an unknown Manhattan club act, when she visited him at the side of his hospital bed after he was recovering from having open-heart surgery.
