by Holly Golightly

Created on: July 29, 2008   Last Updated: August 10, 2008

Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie, born August 16th 1958.

Madonna was originally from Detroit (Suburbs of Pontiac), Michigan.

It was following persuasion from Madonna's ballet teacher that Madonna moved to New York to progress a career in dance. She left the University of Michigan in 1977 and did various jobs and it was whilst performing for French disco artist, Patrick Hernandez that Madonna became romantically involved with musician Dan Gilroy and it was from this that she joined his band "Breakfast Club" who also included his brother Ed and Angie Smit.

Madonna left the band Breakfast Club and moved to another band called "Emmy" and whilst this was a paving stone to her singing career, it was not until she released her debut album "Madonna" in 1983 that Madonna finally started to be noticed as a serious solo artist and the album was re-packaged as "Madonna - the Firt Album" in 2001 and has now sold at least 9.5 million copies.

It was the disc jockey and record producer Mark Kamins who brought Madonna to the attention of Sire Records. It was from here that her career catapulted into stardom and her style of dress became influential amongst the young girls of the 1980's with skirts over capri pants, bleached hair, fishnet stockings and large jewellery often incorporating a Christian Cross.

Madonna throughout the early 80's and into the late 90's produced a number of hit singles including the very controversial hit "Like a Prayer" and caused chaos between Pepsi and the Vatican, resulting in a contract cancellation between Madonna and Pepsi.

Throughout this period of the 80's and 90's Madonna touched on sex in a number of her albums causing uproar in the world of pop and when she brought out her book called "Sex" which consisted of sexually provocative pictures taken by Steven Meisel it still managed to sell over 500,000 copies in the US.

Madonna has been in films such as Body of Evidence, Desperately Seeking Susan and Evita and more recently the James Bond film called "Die Another Day" to which she sang the soundtrack.

Madonna's now into her 40's has become a worldwide model for H&M, performed a worldwide tour in 2006 and more recently brought out a hit single that went straight into the UK no 1 called 4 Minutes with Justin Timberlake and Timberland

She is due to start a tour in August 2008 called Sticky & Sweet, and it just goes to show that despite all the controversial media, Madonna still has got what it takes to be a truly great performer, against all the odds and bad publicity.

One thing is for certain, and that for me although it is great to see Madonna performing with other famous artistes such as Justin Timberlake, she really does not need anyone to support her.

Her evolution has now probably evolved to the point that I am not exactly sure where she will go next. She has shocked, seduced and saddened us over the years but she still continues to come back fresh and up to date with her next chapter of her life.

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