On November 22 1984, Madonna graced the cover of her very first Rolling Stone magazine with issue 435. Playing with the success of Like A Virgin, the headline read: Madonna Goes All The Way. Madonna went on to achieve the most covers of any female between 1984 and 2009.
On November 13 1997, the Rolling Stone magazine Women of Rock issue, featuring Madonna, Tina Turner and Courtney Love on its cover was released.
The photoshoot took place on October 21, and according to Madonna, the ladies had fun figuring out what music to listen to during the shoot:
“There was a bit of a skirmish over who was going to play what. We finally agreed that every other CD was mine and every other CD was Courtney’s and we sort of went back and forth. But the ultimate song that we ended up dancing to all the time was the MC stereo remix of the Tricky song, which is a very good song to dance to.”
Tina had this to say about working with Madonna and Courtney:
“It was like working with kids. You know I’ve always had Ikettes for dancers, so they were pretending a few times that they were my dancers. They had all kinds of pretence going on, but it was always built around me being the mother of the two in some kind of way. In terms of ‘Tina is this and we are that,’ and I was laughing the whole time, honestly. If the photograph comes out with me really laughing seriously, it was because of their reaction to each other. It was wonderful.”
Madonna was introduced to longtime stylist, Arianne Phillips, at the photoshoot. Phillips had been working as Courtney Love’s personal stylist at the time and ended up styling both Courtney and Madonna during the shoot by photographer Peggy Sirota.
On October 28 1996, Madonna was featured on the cover of People Magazine. The story focused on the birth of her first child, Lourdes Maria Ciccone.
Labor of Love
After 12 Exhausting Hours, Madonna Gives Birth to Healthy Baby Girl Lourdes Maria Ciccone.
IT IS A WONDERFUL TIME FOR A woman, that moment when she realizes a new life is within her, stirring, growing, forcing her to think about eventually removing her gold belly-button ring. For Madonna, that revelation came in Buenos Aires last March during the shoot for the musical Evita, when she learned that, after years of talking on the Late Show with David Letterman and in similar intimate venues about trying to get pregnant, she was finally tangoing for two.
Delighted but already feeling protective of her unborn child, she at first spoke of the situation only to her sister, her personal trainer and, of course, to the baby’s father, Carlos Leon. But secrets about Madonna seldom stay kept. By the time she checked into Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles last week, there were tofu merchants in Bali who knew she was leaning away from a C-section, and the paparazzi, like contractions, were arriving every few minutes.
It was not an easy birth. Madonna’s labor began at 3:30 a.m. last Monday morning. Leon and the singer’s sister Melanie Henry, a musicians’ manager in Los Angeles, were with her through the night. But by noon the next day the only thing that had arrived was an intense hunger. “Ugh,” said Madonna, 38, from her bed in the labor room. “I just want some french fries from McDonald’s.”
Her Plan A had been to have natural childbirth with the soundtrack of a romantic 1988 Alan Rudolph film called The Moderns playing. By 3:30 Monday afternoon, however, Madonna was still in pain but showing no signs of progress, and her doctor suggested a cesarean. She reluctantly agreed and soon found herself heavily sedated and being wheeled toward the delivery room. “Goodbye, everyone,” she said. “I’m going to get my nose job now.”
From that point on, things proceeded smoothly. Her daughter, weighing 6 lbs. 9 ozs. and sporting a full head of black hair just like her father’s, was born at 4:01 p.m. No, the baby’s name is not Lola—one of the many false rumors preceding the birth. Madonna had said she needed to see her child before coming up with a proper name—and after taking one look, she pronounced the girl Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon. No hyphen, no worries, no doubt about it. “This is,” Madonna told PEOPLE, “the greatest miracle of my life.”
Leon, meanwhile, seemed just as ecstatic when he stepped out of the delivery room moments after the birth. “She’s the most beautiful baby!” he said, grinning broadly, to a group that included Madonna’s manager Caresse Norman, publicist Liz Rosenberg and several friends and personal security guards. Later, Leon was seen blissfully wandering the corridors in a T-shirt reading, “I Got My First Hug at Good Samaritan Hospital.”
For a woman who once published a picture book called Sex and scandalized millions by simulating masturbation onstage, Madonna has segued into this current stage of her life quite smoothly. Over the last few months, photos of her showed a face that was fuller and more serene. She had been sonogrammed (It’s a girl!), steeped in Dr. Spock et al (“Which baby book haven’t I read?”), and baby-showered by Rosie O’Donnell and their mutual pals (“The whole world wants to give me advice”). True, in what seemed a classic Madonna touch, her pediatrician turned out to be Paul Fleiss, father of Hollywood madam Heidi. Yet Madonna herself has lately exuded a maternal glow, and the idea of her executing pelvic thrusts anywhere outside a Lamaze class seemed, for the moment, unthinkable.
Certainly she approached maternity in mature fashion. “We talked about having children while we were making A League of Their Own,” says Rosie O’Donnell. “Both of us lost our mothers at an early age, and so being a mom was important to us.” After Evita wrapped in May, Madonna, who was 5 when her mother died, put her pink Hollywood Hills mansion on the market and bought a more baby-friendly, single-story house in lower profile Los Feliz. For a while, the nursery has been ready for its raison d’être. The room, decorated in soft florals, has a crib and a changing table piled high with stuffed animals—some given to her, some purchased, then tossed on the heap. Says Madonna’s younger brother, video director Christopher Ciccone: “There’s a certain serenity in her newfound chaos.”
There has also been much joy. “She’s been in a great mood,” says her trainer Ray Kybartas. The first time she felt the baby kick, in May, Madonna says, “I felt like laughing out loud.” During the amniocentesis that same month, “she was very emotional,” says manager Norman. “When Madonna watched the monitor and saw the needle go in, there may have even been a tear on her cheek.”
Until labor started, Madonna says, she had a relatively easy nine months. She never had morning sickness, and except for a craving for poached eggs in her fourth month, she didn’t have much trouble adhering to her usual low-fat diet. As for working out, she did an almost daily hour of aerobics and some weight training with Kybartas, who adds that “we also did a lot of stretching, especially leg work that would help her in the delivery room.” In her last month, she cut back from six sessions a week to three.
One part of her life she hasn’t phased out is Leon, 30, the handsome personal trainer and aspiring actor she met while running in Central Park two years ago. Despite reports of their breakup, the pair are living together, though Madonna dodges the question of how involved Leon will be in raising their child. “He is definitely in the picture,” says publicist Rosenberg.
Madonna lately has displayed a strong sense of family. Two weeks ago she had dinner at her home with Leon, Christopher, sister Melanie and her 6-year-old son Levon. Afterward she did something that one relative says he hasn’t seen her do in years: the dishes. Now that she’s a mother, she has no plans beyond doting on her baby. Because of problems with a stalker last year, Madonna says she won’t be releasing a baby picture soon and “I won’t be doing anything in public with my daughter until she’s much older.”
Rosie O’Donnell assured her life will be different. “I told her,” she says, “it’s going to change her in the best possible way.” With Lourdes Maria on her hip, Madonna’s wants are few. “I just can’t wait,” she says laughingly, “to wear anything with a waistline.”
Written by Todd Gold
On October 1 1990, Madonna was named the top-earning female entertainer of 1990 by Forbes magazine with an annual income of $39 million.
Here’s an excerpt from this issue:
By Matthew Schifrin with Peter Newcomb
October 1, 1990
SHE HAS JUST FINISHED a rigorous song and dance routine in Nice, France. Madonna Ciccone, the 32-year-old bleached-blonde pop star, walks across the stage and pretends to rough up her background vocalists. Clad in an ivory-colored bustier and trousers from a business suit, Madonna then looks out at the crowd of 35,000 fans, grabs her crotch, raises her fist and yells, “I’m the boss around here.” The crowd roars.
This routine was repeated at almost every Madonna performance this summer, but it’s more than play-acting. She is the boss. She is the president and sole owner of a multi-million-dollar corporate organization that in peak season has hundreds of employees and operates through nearly half a dozen entities, including Boy Toy Inc., Siren Films and Slutco.
Congratulations, Madonna. The critics may attack you, but you are one heck of a moneymaker. The nation’s top-earning female entertainer for 1990, Madonna brought in an estimated $39 million in pretax earnings. She has staying power, too. While performers like Whitney Houston and Cyndi Lauper rise fast and fade fast, Madonna has stayed near the top for all five years FORBES has compiled its list of America’s highest-earning entertainers. Since 1986 Madonna has earned at least $125 million.
On September 26 2003, a Madonna special collector’s edition of Q magazine hit newsstands in the UK.
On September 2 1985, Madonna and Sean Penn are featured on the cover of People Magazine with the headline: Madonna Weds Sean.
Here’s a snippet of the article inside People:
The World Watches (From Afar) as the Pop Princess Takes Reclusive Film Star Sean Penn on a Walk to the Altar. From above the bluffs of Point Dume, Malibu, a half-dozen choppers filled with photographers sent down a windy backwash and a constant din. Below, at the huge wooden gates fronting real-estate developer Dan Unger’s $6.5 million home, blue-blazered guards oversaw an I.D. check of all who entered, while inside others prepared for the evening ahead by arming themselves with infrared binoculars to scan the perimeter for intruders. One interloper—an Italian photographer in camouflage gear and blackened face who had been hiding in the shrubbery since 1:30 in the morning—was ejected and his pictures of the blessed event were destroyed.
On August 25 1985, Madonna appeared on the cover of Big Comics For Men (Japan).
Today In Madonna History 