Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone entered a new phase of life this summer when she married – the deafening whirr of six news mongering helicopters – elusive actor Sean Penn in Los Angeles. The marriage, a first for Penn and Madonna, came after a courtship of less than a year and pushed the singer into the age of material womanhood: the house in Hollywood, the Mercedes, the family plans. Contrary to her playgirl image, the real-life Mrs. Penn is sensible, decisive and business-minded.
HD: I read that you liked the song, “These boots are made for walking – I’m gonna walk all over you.” HD: And you want that to come through in your singing, your music, that feeling that you have integrity and you’re not a fake and you’re good and you tell the truth. HD: And I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Madonna, what inspires you in your music?
M: Ultimately people want to see other people fail – another part of the life-negative society we live in.M: No, because if it were, people like you and I wouldn’t be here. If there weren’t people who had a great attitude about it, great books and great paintings and movies wouldn’t be made. There’s always going to be the adversary, the antagonist, the good and the bad, the yin and the yang, and so maybe the negative exists so we can see the positive.
M: But I always collaborate with people. I don’t think my success would be sustained as it is now if my career were only based on my physical appearance. It just shows that looks mean a lot and image means a lot. But you have to back it up. People didn’t really have any preconceived notions of me until they started seeing my image – my face, the way I moved, putting the voice with the face.