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| | Pop singer Madonna never has endorsed a candidate for U.S. president during the primaries ... until now. She has endorsed retired General Wesley Clark for president. There is a possibility that Madonna will host a fund raiser for Clark at her home in Los Angeles. The possible fund raiser has not been confirmed however.
Madonna biography:
Her childhood and career:
Madonna was born in Bay City, Michigan, USA. Her mother, Madonna Louise (maiden name is Fortin) was of French Canadian descent; her father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, is Italian American and worked as the design-engineer at the factory Chrysler/General Motors. Madonna is the third of six children in the family.
Madonna grew up in a Catholic family in the Detroit suburbs. She is a distant relative of Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall. The mother of Madonna died of breast cancer at the age of 30 in 1963. Her father married the family housekeeper, Joan Gustafson, and they had two children, Jennifer and Mario. Madonna convinced the father to let her take ballet lessons. Being a girl Madonna attended the school St. Frederick's Elementary School, St. Andrew's Elementary School and West Middle School. She attended Rochester Adams High School, becoming a full-fledged student and a member of the cheerleading squad. Madonna got her dancing education at the University of Michigan after graduating high school.
After her ballet teacher convinced her to continue a career as a dancer, Madonna left university at the end of 1977 and moved to New York City. She had little money and sometimes she lived in squalor, working at Dunkin' Donuts and with dancing troupes. In an interview Madonna said:
“It was the first time I'd ever taken a plane, the first time I'd ever gotten a taxi cab. I came here with $35 in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I'd ever”.
While performing as a dancer for the French disco artist Patrick Hernandez on his 1979 world tour, Madonna fell in love with the musician Dan Gilroy, with whom she later formed her first rock group, the Breakfast Club.
In this group she sang and played drums and guitar before forming the group Emmy in 1980 with the drummer and former boyfriend Stephen Bray. She with Bray wrote and produced dance songs that brought the local attention of New York night clubs. The DJ and producer Mark Kamins was impressed by her demo-records, and he acquainted Madonna with Sire Records founder Seymour Stein.
The career beginning:
At the beginning of the next year Madonna recorded new demo-records in a dancing style and tried to extend them with the help of “Gotem productions”. Madonna soon left the company, and decided to begin all over again and made one more demo record with the help of Bray. There were four “street” dancing melodies: “Everybody”, “No Big Deal”, “Stay” and “Burning Up”. Madonna started the campaign to be heard by the necessary people. For this purpose she selected “Danceteria” on Manhattan which continued traditions of places, where ways of the press were crossed, such as “Studio 54”, “Mad Klub” and “Xenon” which was opened in 1981 by Rudolf, one of the impresarios of the night life and quickly became famous as a super modern place about which all spoke and wrote. The most considerable of Madonna’s acquaintances in “Danceteria” was Mark Kamins who was a unique DJ, and soon his inflammatory style won him the glory of the king of DJs of the New wave. In some days of their life together Madonna was not ashamed to palm off to Kamins demo-records. He not simply heard it – he played back the tape in “Danceteria”. The crowd caught alight, and Kamins was convinced that Madonna was meant for stardom.
Kamins already looked for executors for the repertoire-performing department of “Island Records”. He found for them the contract with Irish group “U2” shortly before, whose records spread in the mid-eighties with the greatest numbers of all issued by this firm. He carried the cassette of Madonna to Chris Blackwell, the “Island Records” Chief Executive, which turned down this cassette at once. Then Kamins undertook the following step and delivered the cassette to “Warner Bros”. He made friends with Michael Rosenblatt who was a promising artist and a responsible person for the repertoire in “Warner Sire”. While the major label pushing away from each other chased any next punk-roker, Rosenblatt cultivated such dancing commands, as “B-52” or the English duet “Wham!” Kamins called Rosenblatt and invited him to come in “Danceteria” to get acquainted with a young singer, from whom, as Kamins has promised Michael “will be stunned”. In some days Rosenblatt as the owner arrived from England “Wham!” in “Danceteria”; the leading group vocalist George Michael noticed the nice young woman (whose light hair had already started to darken at the roots) in a stylish cap and evident unpaired stockings. Still before Kamins had acquainted them, Rosenblatt understood that this woman with the “an unimaginable look” is Madonna. He introduced himself, presented a stunned George Michael and invited her to come into his office with the demo cassette.
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