Madonna: Finally uncovered

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Feb 4, 2001

Sitting At The End Of A Tree-Lined Avenue, There's Nothing To Distinguish 2036 Oklahoma Drive

from the rest of the homes on the street. And that's the way neighbours in this upmarket suburb of Detroit want to keep it, thank you very much.

2036 was the childhood home of Madonna, not that you would know it. In fact, driving down the street, you assume you have come to the wrong address.

Anyone expecting a "Madonna lived here" plaque or any other acknowledgement of the singer's presence will be sorely disappointed.

Residents are aghast at the very mention of the M word, saying in hushed tones that an influx of tourists or music fans would lower the tone.

Stubbornly suburban, it's the type of place that attracts prosperous couples with young children wanting to replace their home in the city for a house with a spare bedroom, garden and garage.

The ghetto it most certainly isn't - which comes as something of surprise given Madonna's own account of growing up on the streets of Detroit, America's motor city.

Times were so hard, the story goes, she was reduced to scavenging for food in the street in the shadow of the city's sprawling car manufacturing plants.

In fact, middle-class Oklahoma Drive, an hour's drive from Detroit, was Madonna's home from the age of nine, following her mother's death and her father's subsequent re-marriage. And it is here in well-heeled Rochester, Michigan, that the Madonna story really started to take shape.

Her father Silvio was one of six sons of immigrants Gaetamo and Michelina Ciccone, who arrived in the USA in 1920, fleeing the poverty of life in the farming community of Pacento in central Italy.

Silvio Ciccone (pronounced Chic-conee in Italian and Sik-onee in American) did well enough as an engineer at Chrysler Detroit to afford a housemaid Joan to help his wife, Madonna senior, in the home.

They had six children. The third, their first girl, was born on August 16, 1958 and named Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. But within the family she was little Nonni.

After Madonna's mother died, Silvio married Joan and went on to have two more children. Madonna alleged later that the marriage had taken place with indecent haste. And she painted Joan as the wicked stepmother that she rowed with constantly.

A broken home as well as a ghetto girl image was good publicity for the singer who burst on to the scene in 1983, provocatively labelled a "Boy Toy", as she belted out her first hit, Holiday.

But it was a different story a decade earlier, when Madonna Ciccone was just another well-spoken high-school girl.

Back then, she was a model student, a talented actress and dancer but respectable with it...very different from the pouting sex bomb who returned to her home town on tour in 1984.

"When the whole Madonna thing first happened, I have to say everyone here was pretty surprised," says Alan Lentz, head of music at Rochester's Adams High School.

"The ghetto stuff and the raunchy wild-child image were actually quite a shock. It was all pretty far removed from the pupil we had known at school."

Clearly a little hurt at Madonna's claim to have hated her school days, Lentz adds sadly: "From what I remember, she flourished in the environment here. She was an outstanding actress and a pleasure to teach."

Although they didn't know it at the time, the mystified staff of Adams High were experiencing the first reinvention of many in the history of Madonna, a star with a dozen images.

Wild-child on the one hand, school swot on the other; sexbomb punk one year, mystic maternal type another. As the times have changed, so has Madonna, always astute enough never to dwell long enough in any one guise to be stuck with it.

'Even back then she was a

very bright, confident

young lady who knew she wanted

To be famous'

says Nancy Mitchell, school counsellor at Adams High.

"She has just kept changing with the times. People talk about her reinventing herself. I see it more as her intelligence and curiosity driving her on for new things. She is so intelligent, she gets bored really quickly.

"But this is a pretty traditional area and people found it hard to deal with as she was burning crucifixes one minute, and wearing next- to-nothing the next."

It was particularly hard for parents who took their awe-struck children to see the local girl made good at nearby Pontiac Silverdome on her 1984 debut tour.

The support act were foul-mouthed rappers the Beastie Boys, chosen to cement Madonna's image - a dose of don't-mess-with-me New York attitude mixed with a sexy swagger.

"The Beastie Boys were swearing every other word," says Nancy. "People had brought their 12-year-old daughters dressed as Madonna look-alikes. It was very embarrassing."

Madonna had arrived and the more people who disapproved, the happier the young star was. As long as she was being talked about, she was happy.

But that was nothing new, says Nancy. Ever since she was a child Madonna craved the spotlight, always desperate to catch the eye of her busy father, a strict Roman Catholic, who insisted the entire family attend Mass together. "Madonna once said to me, 'I will do anything to get my father's attention'," says Nancy. But both Tony and Joan always treated their family the same. "They both played it very cool," adds Nancy. "They wanted people to know that there were eight children, not just Madonna."