It was 1987 when Madonna bounced onto the silver screen, rocking a leather jacket, platinum bob, bright red lips and a higher-than-normal East Coast twang.
She was starring in romcom Who’s That Girl? as Nikki Finn, half of an oddball couple who fell in love and drive off into the sunset.
In terms of its star, however, the answer to the movie title’s question is not so simple.
In fact it’s just as much of a riddle now as it was 35 years ago.
For if superstar Madonna is the Queen of Pop, she must be the Empress of Reinvention. And this week Her Madgesty is at it again.
The 63-year-old was yesterday reported to have split up with her dancer toyboy of four years Ahlamalik Williams, 28, and been seen out in Beverly Hills with the same mystery date twice in 24 hours – though he is thought to be her photographer pal Richard Gomes.
The spring-cleaning of her love life came with the usual touch of shock value: a cryptic post showing her rear in Gucci fishnets holding a necklace with a rude message.
So it’s with a certain irony that her latest reinvention seems to be all about looking in the rear view mirror – back to the early days as she celebrates 40 years in pop.
She is back with her original label Warner, re-recording new versions of classic hits, re-releasing deluxe versions of her old albums and is hoping to finally get acclaim as a film director, writer and producer, by making it a subject she should know best – her younger self.
“It’s kind of like psychotherapy in a way. I realise I’ve lived a crazy life,” said the star.
It’s not the first time Madge has reinvented herself. She was on Madonna 3.0 before the 1990s.
Born Madonna Louise Ciccone, in the midwest flyover state of Michigan, the Italian American star was just five when she lost her mum, Madonna Snr, to breast cancer.
She was brought up as a ballet-dancing, cheerleading Catholic schoolgirl, who got high grades and was ambitious.
But in 1978, aged 19, she quit university, and moved to New York City, with $35 (£28), plenty of passion and no plan.
And five years later Madonna Ciccone from Bay City was gone for good.
Through grit and talent, she was now simply Madonna, the rebellious face of post-punk 80s pop. Her first UK Top 10 hit Holiday was followed by others, Borderline, Material Girl, Papa Don’t Preach, Like a Virgin. Each was a catchy pop tune, but with lyrics that were rebellious, and darker than it
first seemed.
Her fashion became the look for the 80s – fishnets, skirts over leggings, denim jackets, fingerless lace gloves, and the type of wild hair that was responsible for selling a million crimpers.
Throw in her pretty-but-bad-boy movie star husband Sean Penn, and 80s Madonna became the perfect rebel It Girl for a whole generation. It wasn’t an act, but was, perhaps, an exaggerated version of herself.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Madge made another big transition.
It started with her S&M lyrics for the Dick Tracy soundtrack (“Hanky Panky, Nothing like a good spanky!”).
Then came the Like a Prayer video, with its black Jesus and burning cross enraging The Vatican.
Soon she was really going for it: she simulated a sex act in her Blonde Ambition tour (the one with the Jean-Paul Gaultier conical bras), went full dominatrix for The Girlie Show Tour, released documentary In Bed with Madonna, starred in bondage thriller Body of Evidence, and released her first book, Sex – a photography coffee table book. This was anything goes Madonna.
“Being the vixen, the heartbreaker and the incredibly provocative girl is a very marketable image,” she once said. “But it’s not insincere. You just can’t take it that seriously.”
By 1996, it was time for another persona: Mum to Lourdes, fathered by backing dancer Carlos Leon, and Serious Musical Movie Star.
The line between her and her Eva Peron in Evita may seem distinct, but as audiences flocked to see Madge on a balcony belting out Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, there was a sense that this was her big redemption moment too.
Madge was now a mum getting critical acclaim and soon became a follower of Kabbalah. The new religion was followed in 1998 by a new dark hairdo, a new love of ashtanga yoga, and the new dark dance/electro-pop sounds of her Ray of Light album, including Frozen. “I feel like when my daughter was born, I was born again,” she told Oprah at the time.
But as ever, she knew: stay still too long and you’ll be left behind.
Having met Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels director Guy Ritchie, and married him in a Scottish castle in 2000, marital bliss and the arrival of second child Rocco ushered in the era of Lady Madonna, English gentrywoman.
Madonna was living out her To the Manor Born fantasties, riding horses and clay-pigeon shooting. The pair had six historic properties in London, a country estate in Wiltshire and London boozer The Punch Bowl.
Come 2008 and both the marriage and English fairytale were over.
Madonna later admitted: “I found myself as a wife, being as I think everybody is: You try to please another person, and sometimes you find you are not being who you really are.”
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What Madonna became next was a global supermum, saving children while saving the world.
Having travelled to Malawi and seeing families in need, she controversially adopted David Banda, now 16, then Mercy James, also 16. In 2017 she adopted Malawi twins Stella and Estere, now nine, making her a mum of six. She set up a foundation, and has built 10 schools in Malawi alone. As the years rolled past, the reinvention cycle continued – Madonna even did The Re-Invention tour in 2014.
Yet her recent period, in Portugal, was maybe one of the most surprising. Living in a castle near Lisbon, she jammed with local musicians and became Latin-inspired, eye-patch-wearing alter-ego Madame X.
“It’s quite medieval and feels like a place where time stopped in a way, and it feels very closed,” she said of the period. “I felt very cut off from a lot.”
Perhaps that’s why we’re now seeing a slightly more nostalgic side to her.
Madge is re-recording her classic hits and working on the film of her life – which currently runs up until the Blonde Ambition tour. The casting call has gone out for an actress to play the younger her, with Ozark’s Julia Garner just one of many mooted.
For as a woman who had a hit with Express Yourself, Madonna’s certainly expressed a lot of different versions.
In an interview to mark her 60th birthday, the superstar looked back on Madonna Louise Ciccone, the girl who first came to New York. “There was no pressure for me to be anything specifically, to sound a certain way, to look a certain way,” she recalled. “What I try to do now is to remember that girl.”
Who is that girl? Sounds like we’re not the only ones desperately seeking that answer.
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