I remember being five years old and dancing around my aunt's living room with my older cousin to Madonna's “Like a Virgin.” I would take my mom's teddies from her drawer, so my cousin and I could put them on and parade around her house singing mature lyrics at the top of our lungs, having little clue what the words actually meant. I wondered why my mother would laugh at the sound of my five year old voice singing “Like a virgin, hey, touched for the very first time!” while dancing wildly by myself (without music) in the middle of her work. The people in the surrounding buildings would look out their windows at me and I would laugh and wave! Little did I know that these days of singing, dancing, and pretending would lead to the discovery of a true role-model who would mold me into the person I am today. I am often criticized when I tell people that Madonna is my role model, because of her habit of stirring up controversy. People either love her or hate her. The truth is, it is the story of Madonna and her dedication to following her heart and her dreams that I admire. Nobody handed her fame, she worked hard to get it. She went from a precocious girl from Michigan, to the greatest pop diva who ever lived.

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born in Pontiac, Michigan on August 16, 1958. Her childhood got off to a bumpy start when her mother, Madonna Sr., died of breast cancer. Madonna was devastated by her mother's death, and as a child in a family with 5 other siblings, Madonna began to crave attention. In Catholic grade school Madonna would hang upside-down on the monkey bars to show off her colorful underwear. This began Madonna's life-long search for attention that would make her infamous in the pop world, and bring her music to the top of the pop charts.

At about the age of ten, Madonna decided to make her own decisions about life, since she did not agree with the opinions of her father, and the nuns at school. Because of Madonna's strict father, and devout Catholic upbringing she began to seek a way out; she found this freedom in dancing. In tenth grade, Madonna realized she had outgrown her jazz classes and she felt she needed something more. So she decided to take ballet classes at the Christopher Ballet studio in Rochester, Michigan. It is here that she would meet, Christopher Flynn who would become her mentor, and her “imaginative lover.” Since Madonna had only studied jazz, she had to work twice as hard to catch up to the other girls in her ballet classes. Flynn was amazed by her drive and her discipline, and he was overall impressed with her ability to captivate an audience. With hard work and perseverance Madonna was able to successfully compete with the other ballet dancers, many of who had studied ballet for the greater part of their lives.

Madonna maintained a 4.0 throughout high school, and in her senior year at Rochester Adams High, Madonna was accepted to the University of Michigan with a scholarship to study dance. After a year-and-a-half at U of M, Madonna made a daring decision that would change her life forever. Following Flynn's advice, she decided to drop out of school and pursue dancing in New York City. The gleaming and determined Madonna waved goodbye to her family through the car window as Christopher Flynn drove her to the airport.

Young Madonna arrived in “The Big Apple” and told her taxi driver to take her “to the center of everything.” He dropped her off in the middle of Times Square with 35 dollars in her pocket and no place to go. Luckily, Madonna had a rare and enticing charm that could get her anything. Madonna decided to audition for the prestigious Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, and although she did not achieve the high-paying big break she desired, she did receive a work-scholarship so she could study dance without paying. Yet, Madonna still needed money to live, and she could not keep leading a nomadic life. She often posed nude for art and photography classes to make a few bucks to get some dinner. It was not rare for her to get her dinner from a garbage can in the back of some restaurant. Finally she was able to get her own place by working at Dunkin' Donuts. She lived alone in a pest-infested, rundown apartment in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York, the East Village on Fourth Street and Avenue B. After Months with Alvin Ailey, Madonna achieved her greatly sought after Audition With the Pearl Lang company, but Madonna was not thrilled with Lang's style of dance, and she soon realized that the competitive dance world was not searching for a hopeful and hot-headed wanna-be star like herself. Madonna states in retrospect, "I'd go to Lincoln Center, sit by a fountain and just cry. I'd write in my little journal and pray to have even one friend. I had been used to being the big fish in a little pond and all of a sudden I was nobody. But never once did it ever occur to me to go back. Never!"

Madonna began dating a man named Dan Gilroy, who would help her discover her hidden musical talent. One day, he showed her how to play a couple chords on the guitar, and something in Madonna's head clicked. She began to view music as a career. Madonna began to write songs, and she and Gilroy put together a little band. Soon Madonna left Gilroy and decided to create her own band with Steve Bray (A former boyfriend from U of M) as the drummer. This band didn't last long and Madonna knew she had to venture into the music scene alone. Madonna got Steve Bray to help her record a few demo tapes that she coaxed Mark Kamins, the deejay at the famous Danceteria, to play. The crowd went wild and Kamins arranged for executives at Sire Records to listen to the tapes. They were immediately impressed, and signed Madonna and Bray to a record single!

The final product was called "Everybody" and it soon climbed the charts and became a hit. Her Second hit, "Physical Attraction," got her her first album deal. The album was simply entitled Madonna. It included six Top Ten dance hits. Madonna’s second album, Like a Virgin, was instantly a success and launched her first nation-wide tour. It was not just Madonna's music that made listeners go wild; it was her outrageous persona. Her lacy underwear worn on the outside of her clothes, her bangle bracelets, and rosaries worn as jewelry, her just-rolled-out-of-bed hairstyle, her Boy Toy belt, and her missile-cone breasts caused a national craze among teens.

She went on to star in a few movies, and release numerous albums. Madonna had reached the top, and the public just couldn’t get enough of her. Anything with her name on it sold out in record numbers. To borrow the words of Mark Bego, the author of Blonde Ambition, “In a business that is as fickle as weather, it seems that Madonna is always in season.”

Whenever the public gets used to one of her outrageous career paths, sounds, or styles, Madonna shocks the world by showing off a new side to her. From virgin, to material girl, to confined catholic, to goth dominatrix, to Evita, to spiritual Hindu, to cowgirl, to punkrock goddess, and many countless other personas, Madonna is constantly reinventing her style, and keeping her audience on its toes in anticipation of her next gutsy move.

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