Read Goddess: Inside Madonna Online

Authors: Barbara Victor

Tags: #Singer, #Music, #Nonfiction, #Biography & Autobiography, #Madonna, #Retail

Goddess: Inside Madonna (4 page)

In response, the following day, Carlos Menem appeared on television. “I am very aware,” he said to the millions of viewers, “that the Argentines who still hold Evita as a martyr and saint would not tolerate someone like Madonna portraying her on the screen, a woman who is the embodiment of vulgarity.” Within days, all the local newspapers carried a front-page story that an Argentine actor who was also a close friend of the president’s intended to make a rival version of
Evita
, starring Andrea del Boca, a soap opera star.

At the end of December 1995, after spending a morose Christmas in London, Alan Parker finally received an official response from Carlos Menem. The president wrote that he was having “great difficulty” with the fact that Eva Perón would be portrayed by a woman who had recently published a “vulgar and pornographic book entitled
Sex
.” That evening Parker summoned his cast and crew together to announce that he was almost ready to call off the trip down to Argentina.

“Even now,” he told the group, “this project continues to stumble upon obstacle upon obstacle. If it’s ever finished, it will be a miracle.”

The reaction of the company was a mixture of outrage and disappointment, with the exception of Madonna, who seemed completely unfazed by the news. Quite calmly, she told Parker that whatever he decided, she still intended to go down to Buenos Aires to meet as many people as she could who had known Evita, either from her days as a radio actress or after she had married Juan Perón. More than just interviewing people, she also intended to record her personal experiences and observations in a diary, which would eventually be published in the November 1996 issue of
Vanity Fair
. Madonna was convinced that the key to playing the character with more depth and insight, giving her pathos, softness, and vulnerability, was to retrace her life in Buenos Aires. She believed that Eva Perón, like her, was more fragile than anyone suspected, and someone who had carried around throughout her life a great deal of private pain and suffering from her impoverished past.

Parker was impressed. In fact, he was even more impressed when Madonna suggested that while she was in Buenos Aires, she could act as a kind of goodwill ambassador to convince President Menem that the film would be a tribute to the former first lady, a movie that would ultimately make the country proud. Without hesitating, Parker agreed, although privately he told the others that he held little hope that his star would succeed.

On January 20, 1996, Madonna
arrived in Buenos Aires, accompanied by her assistant, Caresse Henry-Norman. Within minutes of entering the arrival building, she realized just how daunting her mission would be. Protesters, held back by a cordon of policemen, were carrying placards and signs. The message was clear. Madonna was not welcome in Buenos Aires. Outside where the star’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes limousine was waiting to take her to her hotel, there were more protesters burning her in effigy. The scene was eerily similar to the countless newsreels she had screened that showed Eva Perón as the target of ugly demonstrations in which she, too, had been burned in effigy. Instead of becoming discouraged, from the moment Madonna stepped onto Argentine soil, she became more certain than ever that her destiny was somehow mystically and permanently linked to Evita’s.

The Plaza Hotel on Florida Street in downtown Buenos Aires is famous for playing host to visiting royalty and heads of state. The decor is very French, and Madonna’s suite in the hotel was decorated in Napoleon III style with overstuffed sofas, heavy furniture trimmed in gold leaf, velvet draperies, and massive crystal chandeliers. Upon her arrival, she found a message from one of President Menem’s closest advisers, assuring her that he was arranging a meeting with the Argentine leader. In the meantime, while she was waiting for an appointment, he encouraged her to tour the city and learn as much as she could about Evita. What Madonna never knew was that all along the question was never
if
the Argentine government would give permission, but rather
how much
it would cost the producers of
Evita
to persuade them to agree. By then, the government realized that their previous demands had been too ambitious. They were prepared to come to an agreement that everyone would finally consider reasonable.

On January 21, her second day in Buenos Aires, Madonna received her first visitor. Tuco Paz, an Argentine diplomat for more than forty years, had known Eva Perón personally from the beginning of her political rise when she was only twenty-nine. Paz told Madonna that he had always found Eva to be shy and attributed her aggressive reputation to the fact that she talked only about politics, which was her greatest passion. One story Paz recounted particularly touched Madonna’s romantic soul. Juan Perón would coach Eva in public speaking by sitting in a chair with his back to her while he picked a series of subjects at random. In a test of Eva’s ability to respond quickly to journalists and political adversaries, she had to learn to speak on any topic without preparation or rehearsal. Madonna compared the loving way that a busy man like Juan Perón would bother to educate his wife with the concern that her ex-husband had demonstrated toward her when they had starred together in
Shanghai Surprise
. She recalled how Sean Penn would stop the action in the middle of a scene and take her aside to tell her how to play it more effectively. “I never felt more loved than when Sean took time to teach me how to be better.” At the end of his visit, Paz told Madonna that Evita’s favorite meal was pan-fried breaded veal with a fried egg on top, french-fried potatoes, and a beer. For the next week, Madonna made that her daily fare.

Madonna may have been slow
to grasp the political nuances that had catapulted Eva Perón into the people’s hearts, but her timing and sense of drama was flawless when it came to transforming herself into Evita. One of the songs she had recorded in London described Eva Perón’s own transformation into a glamorous and sophisticated first lady. The song is “Rainbow High,” and as Eva is preparing for her “Rainbow” tour of Europe, she sings “Eyes, Face, Hair, Image,” while choosing her wardrobe, furiously rifling through jewels and clothes. “Christian Dior–me,” Madonna/Eva sings as she rejects a hat and tries on another. Juan Perón had come up with the idea of the trip, using his wife as an ambassador of goodwill to charm European leaders, to change the perception of his political regime as a pariah government. When Madonna recorded the song, she immediately compared it to one of her best video performances, “Vogue”—“Don’t just stand there, let’s just do it/Strike a pose—there’s nothing to it.”

“Vogue,” filmed in 1990 in black and white with art-deco sets by Shep Pettibone, is one of the most stylish early Madonna clips. The feeling is 1930s chic derivative of the photographs that Horst P. Horst shot for
Vogue
and of his later movie portraits. In the opening montage there is a glimpse of a de Lempicka painting as well as a number of specific imitations or homages to Horst, for example, a girl photographed from the back sitting on a bed, wearing a laced corset. Madonna makes a series of transitions, from a stern figure in a man’s black suit dancing with chorus boys in similar outfits to several carefully lit and posed close-ups in which she appears as Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and Rita Hayworth, all of whom are referred to in the lyrics.

It did not escape Madonna that both she and Evita used props, clothes, makeup, sophisticated hairstyles, and jewels to entice and attract the masses. For both women, it was an example of their intoxication with fame and fortune.

More lyrics from “Rainbow High” describe how Evita justified spending so much money on clothes and jewels when her people were poor and unemployed. She claimed that she dressed up not only for the image of Argentina but also to entertain the people and make them forget their dreary lives. “They need their escape and so do I,” she sings. How similar to Madonna’s philosophy that when she cavorts onstage in suggestive outfits, singing sexually explicit lyrics, she is doing it for her fans, offering them an escape from the drudgery and rules of parents, school, and church.

Rather than descending upon Buenos Aires as a replica of the woman she would portray in the film, Madonna affected the change gradually to give the impression that as she walked around the city, she mysteriously manifested the physical traits of the former first lady. Several days after she arrived, she combed her hair into a neat chignon tied at the nape of her neck. A few days later, she began wearing brown contact lenses and a porcelain bite plate to cover the gap between her two front teeth. The lenses made her dizzy while the porcelain fill-in got in the way of her tongue, interfering with her enunciation. It took several days before she finally got used to them.

By the end of the first week in Buenos Aires, Madonna continued to change into Evita. She wore only art-deco jewelry, small clip-on earrings, large brooches, and an antique Tiffany watch surrounded by marquisettes on a thin black fabric band, an exact copy of the watch that Juan Perón had given Eva on her twenty-eighth birthday. The look was almost complete. One evening, two beauticians from the hotel beauty salon were summoned to the star’s suite. While one waxed and tweezed her heavy brows into a pencil-thin arch; the other clipped her nails short and painted them a deep red to match her lipstick.

Arrangements were made for Madonna to have two permanent bodyguards who would work eight-hour shifts to accompany her around Buenos Aires. A section of the regular Buenos Aires police force that provided security for visiting heads of state and other high-profile personalities took charge of Madonna’s security as well. Each morning, her personal bodyguards, along with Caresse Henry-Norman, her assistant, would sit down and work out Madonna’s schedule, which, when it was firm and complete, they would hand over to a representative of the special security force. Before Madonna appeared anywhere in Buenos Aires, the police would already be waiting for her, barricades would be in place, and several undercover agents would be mingling with the crowd.

When Madonna’s transformation into Evita was almost complete and she appeared in public for the first time, wearing seamed stockings, stiletto heels, and a vintage 1940s suit nipped at the waist with a straight skirt that fell almost to midcalf, she was literally surrounded on four sides by burly policemen in civilian clothes. The security force expected the worst, not only because she was Madonna, but also because she had successfully made the transition into Eva Perón. The first day she set out to explore Buenos Aires, Madonna wore a black veil that covered the upper part of her face and carried a tape recorder and a small notepad. Everywhere Madonna went, the reaction was predictable. People gasped, astounded at how much the actress looked like their beloved Evita. Her fans pushed and shoved to get as close to her as possible, some of them intent on tearing a piece of fabric from her suit as a souvenir, while others actually tried to kiss her hands. Curiously, her detractors were much better behaved and their anti-Madonna demonstrations were organized and contained in specific areas of the city. The biggest problem that the security had was not the crowds but rather the paparazzi, who had their own sources to inform them where Madonna would be in advance and enough experience to hide until she arrived, when they would pounce on her and take photographs.

In addition to her bodyguards and the police who protected her, Madonna was always accompanied by a young history student, who also acted as her translator. She found the most appealing part of the city to be an area along the Riachuelo Canal called La Boca, where sheet-metal houses were surrounded by old-fashioned New Orleans–style wraparound porches, painted in primary colors, with birdcages hanging over the doors. Originally made famous in the late nineteenth century when Genovese sailors roamed the docks, La Boca had become a landmark because of its massive street murals. The well-known Argentine artist Benito Quinquela had painted dark, stooped figures scurrying like ants set against the florid background of the canal. Madonna not only fell in love with the offbeat area but also with Quinquela’s works and was disappointed that he did not paint on canvas. Transporting an entire wall was too difficult a task even for Madonna!

In La Boca, Madonna had her first religious experience in a small church along the canal. Venturing inside, she watched a procession of local residents walking slowly up the aisle. Several of the men carried a life-size statue of Jesus Christ high above their shoulders. Madonna was mesmerized by the figure of Christ, which had heavy chains and medals hanging over the chest and deep gashes, bloody wounds, and other lurid stigmata graphically painted on the plaster body. It was an image that could have been used in Madonna’s controversial video “Like a Prayer.” This was another sign that Madonna was destined to portray Eva Perón. According to her student guide, Madonna reached into her purse and took out a turquoise rosary, a treasured gift from her maternal grandmother, and began to pray. Following the procession out to the street, she stood quietly as it made its way along the colorful canal. Turning to her guide, she said, “I just had an uncontrollable urge to thank God for allowing me to see Buenos Aires and learn about the woman who gave so much love to her people. I’m convinced that President Menem will give us permission to film
Evita
here.”

Despite all the adverse reaction to her presence in Buenos Aires, Madonna felt comfortable with the attitude that the Argentines had toward Catholicism. She also related to the sense of mysticism that was so prevalent throughout the country, as well as to the people’s genuine belief in astrology. From the most sophisticated upper-class salons to the most poverty-stricken barrios, from laborer to doctor, from high-ranking military leaders to the president himself, almost everyone carried icons, good-luck charms, religious medals, crystals, or worry beads to ward off evil spirits. Business appointments, romantic rendezvous, and professional and political decisions were made based on favorable indications by astrologers. Even the words to the tango music had mystical innuendo, both violent and dramatic in its meaning. Partners would be chosen according to the compatibility of their sun or moon signs. Madonna spent a great deal of time learning the tango, not only because she was first and foremost a dancer, but also because Evita had been a dance-hall girl in a tango parlor before going on to become a calendar model, radio star, and celebrity. In fact, the path that Evita had chosen nourished Madonna’s superficial notion that she had taken similar steps toward stardom.

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