Madonna (a.k.a. Esther) (born Madonna Louise Ciccone; Veronica is her chosen confirmation name; on August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan) is a famous American pop singer and actress.
As of December 2005, Madonna had 11 multi-platinum albums certified by the Recording Industry Association of America, which, in all, had certified her for shipments of 60 million units. In a 2005 statement, her record label, Warner Bros., said she had sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.[1]. Madonna's highest-selling albums are 1984's Like a Virgin and 1990's The Immaculate Collection, each certified 10-times platinum by the RIAA.
Madonna currently resides in Wiltshire, England with her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, her daughter, Lourdes (b. Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, 14 October 1996) and their son, Rocco (b. Rocco John Ritchie, 11 August 2000).
Madonna was born to an Italian-American Chrysler engineer, Silvio "Tony" P. Ciccone, and Madonna Louise Fortin (from a French Canadian family in Bay City, Michigan) and identifies herself as an Italian American. She was raised in a Catholic family of twelve children in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Rochester Hills.
Her mother died at the age of thirty, of breast cancer, on December 1, 1963, when Madonna was only five. The singer has frequently discussed the enormous impact her mother's death had on her life and career. Following his wife's death, Silvio brought in a housekeeper, Joan Gustafson. He later married her and had two children.
Silvio required all of his children to take music lessons. After a few months of piano lessons, Madonna convinced her father to allow her to take ballet classes instead, and she proved to be a gifted dancer.
Madonna attended James Madison Memorial High School, where she was a straight-A student and excelled at sports. She was a member of the cheerleading squad, honing her dance skill. After graduating from high school in 1976, Madonna received a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan. At the encouragement of her ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn, Madonna left college at the end of her second year and moved to New York City to pursue a dance career. She studied with modern dance legend Martha Graham, as well as a Graham disciple, Pearl Lang. Madonna later performed with several modern dance companies, including Alvin Ailey and the Walter Nicks dancers.
After performing as a dancer for French disco star Patrick Hernandez on his 1979 world tour, Madonna abandoned her fledgeling dance career to pursue music. She formed several bands, including "Breakfast Club" and "Emmy". She also wrote a number of songs that brought her local fame in New York dance clubs, particularly Danceteria. It was in the band Emmy that Madonna found herself at the lengendary underground NYC club called Max's Kansas City. http://www.maxskansascity.com: it was there that she saw and adopted the sexual stance of Andy warhol's superstar Cherry Vanilla, who served as a blueprint role model for Madonna's 80s antics. http://www.cherry-vanilla.com
In 2000, at the age of 42, Madonna released the album Music. A bona fide commercial and critical hit, it saw Madonna abandon her earlier sexual and religious themes for throwaway lyrics and the "party" spirit of dance, pop, and house. Music was produced partly by Orbit and partly by French techno musician Mirwais Ahmadzai. It spawned her twelfth number one single, "Music", plus the hits "Don't Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like for a Girl". Madonna was pregnant with her second child, Rocco, during the shooting of the "Music" video, parts of which contain animation. The controversial "What It Feels Like for a Girl" video was directed by Madonna's husband, film director Guy Ritchie.
Madonna married Ritchie on 22 December 2000 at Skibo Castle in Scotland.
She released her second Greatest Hits album, GHV2, in 2001; unlike her previous greatest hits compilation, GHV2 featured a selection of her hits from the 1992?2001 period, but did not contain any new songs. In June 2001, she appeared in Star, a short commercial film directed for BMW by Ritchie, and then began working on Swept Away. The film, released in 2002, was critically panned and went on to become yet another in a string of acting flops.
In 2001 Madonna went on her "Drowned World Tour". It was completely sold out and was Madonna's first world tour since 1993's "The Girlie Show Tour".
In 2002, Madonna performed the theme song to the James Bond film Die Another Day, a worldwide top-ten hit (number eight on the Billboard Hot 100). She also had the opportunity to have a cameo in the film as a fencing instructor named Verity. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
