On May 7 1919, Eva Maria Duarte de Perón, Argentinian actress and the 25th First Lady of Argentina was born. Eva was the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón from 1946 until she died of cervical cancer on July 26 1952.
Madonna portrayed Eva in the musical film version of EVITA, directed by Alan Parker.
On May 6 1995, the first of a two-day shoot for the music video for Human Nature took place at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California.
The video was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, while the work of S&M comic artist Eric Stanton provided inspiration. Human Nature was Madonna’s third collaboration with Mondino following his music videos for Open Your Heart (1986) and Justify My Love (1990).
“Mondino found this book by this illustrator named Stanton who did kinda S&M drawings and stuff, but we didn’t want to go with the straight S&M; we wanted to have it be more about making fun of it.” – Madonna
“All I know is…my main problem is I don’t like videos when somebody’s dancing, that the camera is moving a lot. I’m more like an old-time, classic guy, because I remember most of the video you had shot with the crane, some Steadicam, plus some panning. So you have about five different cameras shooting a performance, and after they edit like crazy. It gives you a lot of freedom, but I feel very frustrated because I like to see somebody dancing. I hate when there’s too much editing. I like the steadiness of the performance because then you can really enjoy the movement of the body. You see the skill. I like to shrink — as much as I can — the stage because I can grab her. If not, everyone is running around and I’m not good with this. So I came up with the boxes [laughs] and I knew that with the boxes I had to do with something quite unexpectable because there’s not too much stage to dance in. So there’s something beautiful about it and they looked like bees or something. And the rest of it was how to create some kind of choreography and some graphic imagery with the S&M outfits, but with humor. So she has a little dog and she has some funny moments where she drops down, there’s some Charlie Chaplin-esque moments in it. Because S&M is a game, you know? It’s dark, it looks dark, but I think people have fun. When you wear rubber like this, you better have fun. If not, you stop using it for sex and you become a diver, you know?” – Jean-Baptiste Mondino
On May 4 2016, Madonna tweeted about her long-time friend and Like A Prayer collaborator, Prince:
“It’s been 7 hours and 13 days since you took your love away……….all the flowers you planted died when you went away……….Nothing Compares 2 U.”
On May 3 1991, Madonna appeared on the cover of The New York Post with the headline, “What A Tramp!” The article focused on Madonna’s Truth Or Dare documentary. In the article, Ray Kerrison called Madonna, “vulgar” and the “degenerate queen of sleaze.”
Jay’s Note: I bet Ray Kerrison had no idea that this particular cover of The New York Post would become one of the most sought after and iconic covers of all-time. You could write just about anything alongside this image from the Justify My Love single cover and it would still be beautiful.
On May 2 2016, three of Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour dancers – Jose Gutierez, Kevin Stea & Oliver Crumes – were interviewed by Gill Deacon for CBC-Radio’s arts and culture show, Q.
The dancers were in Toronto to promote their documentary, Strike A Pose, which was being screened during the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival between April 27–May 7 and the Inside Out Toronto film festival from May 27–June 5, 2016.
For anyone who hasn’t yet watched Strike A Pose, be sure to check it out! It’s a beautiful film!
On May 1, 1990, Madonna was a guest on the Arsenio Hall Show. During her appearance, Madonna promoted Dick Tracy and made Arsenio sweat about Paula Abdul, etc.
On April 15 1991, Madonna and Michael Jackson were featured on the cover of People magazine as The Oddest Couple.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
It may have been just a one-night stand, but when Pop’s Billion Dollar Boy and the Queen of Steam strutted their stuff at the Oscars, they were, for one brief moment, the brightest star couple of all.
As anyone burdened with stardom knows, finding a date for the Oscars can be an enormo pain. After all, really famous folk simply can’t be seen with some sweet nobody who waves “Hi Mom” at the camera and spends the evening worrying about credit-card approval at Spago.
And so it was, when Madonna and Michael Jackson, Earth’s top pop stars, faced the who-is-famous-enough-to-be-seen-with-me quandary, they hit on the perfect solution. Since they were already planning a duet for Michael’s upcoming album, Dangerous, and since they both happened to be on all Hollywood’s collagen-enhanced lips anyway—he for his ballyhooed “billion-dollar” contract with Sony, she for her upcoming, already controversial self-ploitation film, Truth or Dare-why not date…each other?
Big dates can also become big disasters, however. So a week before the Oscars, the couple met at L.A.’s Ivy restaurant to plan and, perhaps, trade makeup tips. By Oscar night, all was ready. Michael looked positively legendary in gold-tipped cowboy boots, a blinding diamond brooch and—in a dramatic sartorial departure—two gloves. Madonna, awash in peroxide and pluck, diverted at least some of the attention from her low-cut, pearl-encrusted Bob Mackie gown with $20 million in diamonds, on loan from jeweler Harry Winston. They entered L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium and promptly collected their well-deserved Best Seat honors—front row, two on the aisle.
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