Madonna: Hindsight Is 50/50—Part 1

Who's counting?

I think I’m trapped in the ‘80s. I don’t mean this in the sense that I wouldn’t be caught dead without my leg-warmers, and I don’t even mean it in the sense that I think great music began and ended with Alphaville. I mean that in my mind, I’m still living in a time when significant numbers of silent-screen eccentrics still gulp air and many if not most of the lionesses from the Golden Age Of Film still stalk the asphalt jungles of the world.

I learned of my flawed sense of time, learned that these women are truly endangered, when I finally sat down to write this piece that I’ve wanted to write forever and realized, really realized, that one of the youngest worldwide icons we have, upstart pop tart Madonna, is (already) turning 50 years old tomorrow, August 16.

I also figured out my issue as I chose 50 incredible women who strike me as being pop culturally similar to Madonna in order to pinpoint where they were in their lives, in their careers, when they turned 50 themselves. I remembered that I’d first conceived of this effort when Madonna was turning 40, which seems like yesterday to me.

See? Sense of time = kaput.

Which is just as well, because it makes me not pay attention to arguments of "relevance." Surely Madonna must be the most pomo homo idol ever considering how often her relevance is challenged. Another thing I figured out while compiling my list of comparables is that no other woman who’s ever lived has had to defend her relevance. In the past, "First you're another sloe-eyed vamp, then someone's mother, then you're camp," to quote Sondheim. There was nothing cerebral about it, no intellectual or commercial argument—first they were young, then they were old, then you blessed them when they died, the end.

Madonna is defying these easy categories, remaining on some level youthful and viable while still aging. I think her unwillingness to “act her age” is part of what makes her so appealing to her fanbase, many of whom share her desire to live forever. It’s also what confuses outsiders, who reject her rejection of aging—check the comments on any blog post dedicated to Madonna and you’ll see what I mean.

One that I found interesting as I wrote was finding all the unexpected links between Madonna and the 50 women I chose. It reminded me of a particularly delicious Twilight Zone episode called “Queen Of The Nile.” In it, Ann Blyth plays a mysterious movie star who hasn’t aged in 40 years. A nosy journalist attempts to uncover her secret, only to discover she is literally ageless—she’s Cleopatra, and she maintains her longevity by feeding on the lives of others through a magic scarab. I’m not sure I would accuse any of these women of life-force vampirism, but there is a definite sense, reading and writing about them, that we’ve been here before, and no matter how much of an original each of them seems to be, they live or lived their lives in surprisingly similar patterns, patterns that probably helped them become not only successful, but also passionately admired.

I was even reminded that as herculean a feat as it seems in our tween-driven culture, Madonna is by no means the first famous popular star to make it to 50 while showing no signs of slowing down.

My main goal in putting this piece together is not to claim that Madonna drew direct inspiration from all or any of these 50 forebears, nor do I mean to—in my photo editing—suggest, in every instance, that any of her work is intentionally quoting these women. Instead, I simply want to gather 50 women who share various things in common with Madonna (their ability to dance, their status as singers, their notoriety, their sexual magnetism) and pinpoint where they were in their careers, and how they were perceived as women, when they turned 50. The best way to do this is to keep their bios short and present as many photographs as possible.

I wound up thinking Madonna's relevance compares very favorably to most if not all of these admittedly great, beautiful, talented women. But it's hardly fair—relevance wasn't exactly relevant when most of them were blowing out their candles...

Finally, note that I am more than sure I’ve missed some obvious ones—feel free to chime in as my series progresses, and corrections are appreciated!

***

Ann-Margret

Born: April 28, 1941, Sweden

Ann-Margret Olsson was born near the Arctic Circle, but things heated up considerably when she moved to the United States, visiting Radio City Music Hall on the day she arrived. As a teenager, she took dance lessons and acted in amateur shows. Like Madonna, she attended college (Northwestern) only briefly. While doing nightclub gigs across the country, Ann-Margret bumped into Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits in Reno…perhaps something rubbed off—she would later be described as a red-headed version of the ultimate sex symbol and even sang for JFK the year after Marilyn’s breathy “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.)

She began recording in 1961, but in spite of singing at the Oscars in 1962 (which Madonna would first do 29 years later), her singing career would be eclipsed by her movie career. A screen-test led to a Fox contract and her debut in Pocketful of Miracles, co-starring Bette Davis. But her break-through role was as Kim in Bye Bye Birdie, which made her world-famous.

Ann-Margret starred in various TV specials and became known for her live shows, which played up the fact that more than a singer, more than an actress, she was an experience—an attitude, even. In 1971, she defied expectations with an Oscar-nominated performance in Carnal Knowledge, calling to mind Madonna’s unexpectedly effective turn in Evita. However, Ann-Margret—after recovering from a devastating, 22-foot fall from a Lake Tahoe stage—was able to repeat her success with another Oscar-worthy turn in the rock opera Tommy, a performance Madonna would suggest on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2005.

In 1978, the flame-haired icon causes ripples (nipples?) by unsuccessfully suing High Society, a girlie magazine, for running stills from a rare nude scene in the horror hit Magic. By the ‘80s, her film career had mostly cooled, but she continued to wow ‘em on stage.

At age 50, Ann-Margret chewed the scenery as a bigoted mother whose son is dying of AIDS in the TV movie Our Sons, opposite Julie Andrews and Hugh Grant. Just two years later, she was considered old enough to be a viable romantic interest for Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, 68 and 73 respectively, in Grumpy Old Men. Today, the 67-year-old still appears on stage, most recently as the young chickadee opposite 80-year-old Andy Williams in his Branson, Missouri, show.

Ann-Margret at 50 in Our Sons.

*****

Dorothy Arzner

Born: January 3, 1897, San Francisco, California

Died: October 1, 1979

Larely unknown today, Dorothy Arzner was a pioneering—if not the very first—female motion-picture director. She reportedly grew up around silent-screen stars thanks to a restaurant her father owned in Los Angeles. After fizzled medical-school aspirations, Arzner landed a job at Paramount writing scripts, which led to work as a film editor.

Among her most important editing jobs was the legendary Blood And Sand, starring the era’s #1 star, Rudolph Valentino. In short succession, she edited dozens of films before demanding—on threat of a walk-out—the right to direct. Paramount caved, tossing her a fluffy flick called Fashions For Women in 1927. This film made money, so she was given another and another.

She’s credited with inventing the boom mike for 1929’s The Wild Party, starring Clara Bow, an innovation created in order to accommodate Bow’s nervous inability to stay planted in one place while reciting her lines.

For reasons that no source I consulted could illuminate, Arzner gave up film directing in 1943, but continued to be employed the rest of her life helming commercials and TV shows, producing plays and teaching at UCLA.

Arzner was take-no-prisoners in her lesbianism, living with her partner, choreographer Marion Morgan (they're pictured together in this article), from 1930 until Morgan’s passing in 1971, and conducting (rumored) affairs with many of the women she directed, including Bow, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn and Claudette Colbert. Where Hepburn wore men’s suits for comfort and Marlene Dietrich wore them to provoke, Arzner wore them because she was an unapologetically butch woman unwilling not to wear what she pleased.

Dorothy Arzner at (L-R) 50 and at 40.

***

Lauren Bacall

Born: September 16, 1924, New York City

The future Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske to Jewish parents (Shimon Peres is her cousin) who split when she was six. As a teen, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic arts and worked as a theatre usher and as a model before first appearing on Broadway in 1942 in Johnny 2X4. The play was a hit, and she met Bette Davis, who offered encouragement.

A 1943 cover appearance on Harper’s Bazaar led to a screen-test with Howard Hawks, a decision made in large par to his wife’s urging. “Slim” ()Nancy "Slim" Gross Hawks Hayward Keith was so influential in Bacall’s life that her character in her first film—To Have And Have Not opposite Humphrey Bogart—was called Slim. It was said Bacall adapted her booster’s mannerisms and fashion sense to a T, something at which Madonna has proved equally adept.

Bacall’s relationship with Bogart—25 years her senior—led to their marriage in 1945 and to their status as the most memorable on-screen couple in movie history. Bacall was known for her deep voice and come-hither eyes (she was said to give “the look”), even if her delivery had been invented to help her stop quaking visibly on her first movie. Bacall was always outspoken and choosy in her career, not to mention political—she campaigned publicly for Adlai Stevenson in 1952 (Madonna has officially supported General Wesley Clark and unofficially supported Hillary Rodham Clinton for president and was behind Governor Mario Cuomo of New York, among others).

Bacall didn’t court controversy, nor did she always manage to avoid it—when she sat on a piano being played by then-veep Harry S Truman, it was world news, and she played a lesbian in the 1950 film Young Man With A Horn.

One of Bacall’s most famous roles outside her work with Bogie was in How To Marry A Millionaire in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable—it’s hard to believe now that she was less than 30 in the role. In 1957, Bogart died and Bacall had an affair with Frank Sinatra. Not averse to using publicity to her advantage, she and her agent leaked Sinatra’s marriage proposal to Louella Parsons, leading to Sinatra reconsidering. She married actor Jason Robards and had three children, still managing highly respected appearances on Broadway in vehicles like Applause (1970) and Woman Of The Year (1981).

In 1974, at age 50, a brittle if still intimidatingly stylish Bacall was one of an all-star cast capable of Murder On The Orient Express. Her career tapered off after that, with noteworthy films including a high-profile homophobic flop called The Fan (1981) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), the latter of which was directed by fellow icon Barbra Streisand and for which she was considered a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar…only to lose to The English Patient’s Juliette Binoche.

Two years ago, Bacall was one of the first recipients of Bryn Mawr College’s Katharine Hepburn Medal.

Lauren Bacall at 50 in Murder On The Orient Express.

***

Josephine Baker

Born: June 3, 1906, St. Louis, Missouri

Died: April 12, 1975

Freda Josephine McDonald was born into poverty at a time when no black parents were telling their children, “You can be anything you want to be.” She had to leave school at 12 to help support her family, and was an accomplished street dancer by the following year. At 15, she took off for New York City, where she was influenced by the ongoing Harlem Renaissance, joining a chorus in 1921. 

Frustrated with the lack of opportunity in the States, she relocated to Paris in 1925, where she became an almost immediate sensation in highly theatrical nude shows. Ernest Hemingway declared her, “The most sensational woman anyone ever saw.” She performed in hit shows and recorded hit songs, becoming a muse to a generation of artists and everyday Parisians. When she took her show on the road—back to the U.S.—she drew scathing, racially insulting reviews.

By 1937, she was married to a French native and back in France. Baker was not content to make opportunity for herself, she was compelled to demand it for others in the form of a lifelong devotion to civil rights. She adopted 12 orphans from various backgrounds—her “Rainbow Tribe”—and was at the center of a huge contoversy when New York’s Stork Club refused to serve her (in 1951) due to her race.  Actress Grace Kelly rushed to her defense and the two became fast friends.

Baker retired at age 50 in 1956 to tend to her brood, divorcing her husband the following year. It’s said she was asked by Coretta Scott King to take her late husband’s place as the leader of King’s mission, but refused out of concern for the fate of her children should she be assassinated. Instead, Baker was lured back to performing, making a splash at a 1966 show in Havana, Cuba, she she was 60 years old. 

She continued touring sporadically from then until her death from a cerebral hemmorhage in 1975, immediately following a successful appearance at the Bobino in Paris to celebrate five decades in show business.

Josephine Baker at 50.

***

Lucille Ball

Born: August 6, 1911, Jamestown, NY

Died: April 26, 1989

Lucille Désirée Ball, born to a telephone lineman, grew up in several different small towns across the United States, her family following his work. Her father died when she was just four years old, leaving Lucy and her pregnant mother.

As an escape in her later childhood, she would take in Vaudeville shows, developing a passion for attention that she would later lampoon while simultaneously feeding on her classic television series. By the late '20s, she was studying acting at the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in Manhattan alongside Bette Davis. But no sooner had she started, Ball was sent packing—she was deemed talentless.

Back in the city within a few years, she subsisted on modeling assignments until a debilitating bout of rheumatoid arthritis knocked her out for two years. In the early '30s, Ball had returned to the city—harder to get rid of than pigeons—to model and perform. Famously, she was fired from many of her first jobs as a dancer and showgirl before giving up on New York and relocating to Hollywood.

Ball's good looks and persistence paid off, earning her several paying if otherwise inconsequential roles in pictures starring the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers. Perhaps her first significant appearance was in Stage Door (1937) with Katharine Hepburn and her good friend Ginger Rogers.

Despite her omnipresence in a slew of B movies, Ball never truly made it as a movie star in spite of appearing in a few memorable films. Film was not her forte—she was perfectly competent but did not rise about the ordinary. Married in 1940 to younger Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz, she became part of a notoriously temptestuous and yet nonetheless creative and career-driven couple. The Ritchies of the '40s and '50s, Ball and Arnaz filed for divorce but kissed and made up before going their separate ways...imagine what would have been lost had they split for good in 1944?

After excelling in My Favorite Husband on a 1948 radio program, Ball was asked to bring her act to TV. When execs balked at her desire to work with her real-life (Latino) husband, the couple toured with a show that played up the idea of Lucy as a bonkers housewife who longs to be the star of her spouse's show. This was a sensation, causing execs to cave to her demands—she became the first female head of her own company, Desilu.

I Love Lucy (1951—1957) revolutionized television in format, content, comedy and technical achievement (use of multiple cameras and high-grade film stock). Ball's slapstick approach was endearing—she'd obviously finally found her niche. Through the course of the show, Ball, Arnaz and co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley created classic comic situations that endure to this day in reruns, reruns that made the Arnazes extremely rich and turned them into powerful studio heads. Desilu branched out to offer such shows as I Spy, Dick Van Dyke and Mission: Impossible.

The most daring content on I Love Lucy revolved around Lucy's real-life second pregnancy in 1952 and 1953. For the first time, a pregnant woman was shown on TV and her condition discussed...even if censors demanded the use of "expecting" over "pregnant." The plot was even more daring considering that in real life, Ball had a string of miscarriages—what would have happened had she lost a baby in real life only to be forced to play a young mother week after week on TV?

After I Love Lucy ended in 1957, the Arnazes continued with The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, the last episode of which was filmed the day before they filed for divorce.

At age 50, Lucille Ball starred in the hit Broadway musical Wildcat with Paula Stewart, from which her "Hey, Look Me Over" became a standard. Her co-star introduced her to comic Gary Morton, who she married in 1961 and stayed with until her death

She continued her run on TV in The Lucy Show (1962—1968) and Here's Lucy (1968—1974); her only misstep on television came at age 75 with the regrettable Life With Lucy.

Lucille Ball's fame as a TV icon did not translate to film, though movies like The Facts Of Life (1960—see image at left of Lucy at age 49 with co-star Bob Hope) and Yours, Mine and Ours did capitalize on her larger-than-life persona more than her earlier work had, and 1974's critical and commercial bomb Mame is nonetheless probably her most-watched and most-remembered silver-screen outing. The 1985 TV drama Stone Pillow—who can forget Lucy the bag lady?—earned her good reviews and ratings.

Ball died in 1989 after suffering two aortic aneurysms over the course of 10 days.

Lucy at 50, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show.

***

Tallulah Bankhead

Born: January 31, 1902

Died: December 12, 1968

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born into a famous Democratic poltical family in Huntsville, Alabama, only to become an orphan when her mother died three weeks after her birth. At 15, she entered and won a beauty contest in a movie magazine and relocated to New York City, where she landed a small role in the Broadway play The Squab Farm.

From an early age, the flamboyant Bankhead was known for wild love of all things extreme—cocaine, public nudity, off-color stories. Her London debut led to a steady succession of plays, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning They Knew What They Wanted. Tallulah sure did—she wanted fame and fun, not necessarily in that order. She became known for outrageous interviews and for conducting indiscreet affairs with men and women both (the latter of whom were said to include Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and dancer Alla Nazimova). She was also known to have had numerous abortions.

Her 1931 film debut, Tarnished Lady, was undistinguished—her larger-than-life talent was generally thought to translate poorly to film.In 1933, she almost died from untreated gonorrhea, and underwent a hysterectomy. In 1939, was thought to have a shot at the plum role of Scarlett O’Hara, but was nixed for being too old at 34, even if her role in Little Foxes helped make that one of the biggest theatrical hits of the year.

Bankhead’s best-known and probably her best-executed film role was as a cynical reporter stranded with a motley crew of survivors in Lifeboat, an Alfred Hitchcock thriller whose action is contained to a tiny lifeboat. In 1950 and 1951, nearing 50, Bankhead hosted The Big Show and The All Star revue on TV; she was praised for her efforts, but both series flopped, as did her attempt to revive A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche DuBois I 1956.

The following year, she made a famous TV appearance on Lucille Ball’s show, but for the remainder of her life the work was infrequent and often beneath her, whether an engaging try at camp villainy on Adam West’s Batman (she was the Black Widow) or an unforunate appearance opposite Stefanie Powers in the 1965 fllm Die! Die! My Darling.

Bankhead predicted her own death—as a lifelong smoker, she’d been gifted with a unique speaking voice, but cursed with emphysema, which led to her death after a bout with pneumonia.

Tallulah Bankhead at 50.

***

Theda Bara

Born: July 29, 1885, Cincinnati, Ohio

Died: April 13, 1955

One of the more mysterious divas of the silver screen, Theda Bara was marketed as a highly sexed menace whose name was an anagram for “Arab Death.” In reality, this exotic beauty was a nice Jewish girl from the Midwest whose love of school plays had translated into an incredibly lucrative career as a sex symbol on film.

Bara is known to have made about 40 movies, but only a handful of them still exist thanks to the highly volatile nature of celluloid stock and to the carelessness of her studio. Bara’s pre-Hays Code vamping helped found Fox, especially her phenomenally successful Cleopatra, stills of which are famiilar to many of us today, but footage of which exists only in one small, rescued fragment.

Despite her provocative image, like Madonna she not known to drink to excess or to indulge in drugs, which killed many of her peers.

For a time in the teens, Theda Bara was third only to Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford in popularity. In 1918, she was adopted as the “godmother” of a regiment of troops fighting in World War 1, which she counted among her proudest achievements. A nostalgic woman, she kept massive scrapbooks of her exploits—mostly imagined by her PR men—as Hollywood’s most notorious femme fatale. After her last Fox film in 1919, she made only two more features, years apart in the twenties, before retiring from film. She may have had a successful Broadway career—a run in The Blue Flame in 1927 made money despite garnering abysmal reviews—but she seemed content as the wife of director Charles Brabin, and as a popular society hostess throughout the rest of her life.

She died at age 70 in 1955 of stomach cancer. Just before her death, she told Hedda Hopper:

“To understand those days, you must consider that people believed what they saw on the screen. Nobody had destroyed the great illusion. Now they know it's all make-believe...

"It's the stars themselves who have been failing the fans. People have always been hungry for glamour—they still are. But it takes showmanship and a constant sense of responsibility to hold their interest. A star mustn't allow her public to see her in slacks. She should dress beautifully at all times—I don't mean in a bizarre way.

"She must live their dreams for them and remain a figure of mystery. Glamour is the most essential part of Hollywood.”

Theda at 50 has stymied me, but this is Theda Bara at 60.

***

Pat Benatar

Born: January 10 1953, Brooklyn, NY

One of Madonna’s immediate musical predecessors, Pat Benatar was born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island. As a kid, she studied opera (following in her mother’s footsteps). Upon graduating high school in 1971, she married her boyfriend, Dennis Benatar, and would keep his name even after a later divorce and re-marriage to her guitarist Neil Giraldo.

Benatar had varied experiences on stage, including a 1976 stint in Harry Chapin’s rock musical The Zinger with fellow future stars Beverly D’Angelo and Christine Lahti. But it was an amateur night in 1977 at Catch a Rising Star that would help define her persona. Wearing a Catwoman costume on a lark, she realized the crowd was responding to her in a whole new way. She would spend the bulk of her career playing up an image enhanced by feline eyes and skin-tight wardrobe.

Signed to Chrysalis Records, Benatar debuted with In The Heat Of The Night, a record packed with hits including “We Live For Love.” Her brand of aggressive rock was unusual in the Top 40, but had arrived at just the right time in music history to maximize reaction. Within a span of just a few years, she would release unforgettable rock classics as diverse as “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” “Heartbreaker” and “Love Is a Battlefield.”

Pat Benatar seemed to seek controversy even as she sought commercial success, examples of which include the child-molestation anthem “Hell Is For Children,” appearing in a straight-jacket on the cover of 1982’s Get Nervous and a prostitute-themed video for “Love Is A Battlefield.” One of the first stars of the video age, Benatar’s “You Better Run” was the second music video ever played on MTV. She did not shy away from the visual demands of video; in fact, her carefully constructed stage attire only benefited from the medium. Like Madonna after her (with “Material Girl,” “Bad Girl,” and others), she used serious actors in her music clips, including Bill Paxton and Judge Reinhold in her WWII-themed “Shadows Of The Night.” Also like Madonna, she dabbled in film herself, her most memorable role coming in 1980’s Union City alongside Blondie’s Debbie Harry.

By the mid-‘80s, Benatar’s act was wearing thin, and I would argue she lost a burning desire to move forward in music as she was happily married, becoming a mother for the first time in 1993. Nonetheless, she continued recording somewhat regularly—exploring blues—until the ‘90s, when her output decreased dramatically.

In 2003, at 50, it had been 15 years since her last Top 40 hit. Benatar re-emerged after a long absence with the respectably reviewed album Go, which contained a 9/11 single called “Christmas in America.” She is said to be recording a follow-up and recently showed up on The Young & The Restless.

Pat Benatar at 50.

Find the other parts here.

Comments

[Ben]

Neat article, although I'd say Madonna is still in a class all to herself. Like Tori Amos once said about her, "It is oddly important that a woman with her name came along and did all that she's done."

[Tom S.]

Thanks, Matt. I'm so glad someone out there appreciates Madonna as much as I do. I've been visiting your site for about a month now and I'm hooked. I LOVE all the in depth Madonna coverage. I'm convinced the writers at Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly couldn't pen something like this.

[david]

matt i'm LOVING this piece... can't wait to read the next bits.

[Matthew Rettenmund]

Thanks, Tom, that means a lot. The other 43 will be that much easier!

[Dino]

You should be teaching a Madonna course, Matt.

And where did you get them pictures? !

[Matthew Rettenmund]

...the key to all things is understanding Madonna! Advanced Madonna Course. Thanks! Pix are hard to find but findable. But I never keep them! Thanks, guys.

[Blah!]

I loved this post Matt! Seeing all the photos of the other dames at 50 makes me feel a WHOLE lot better about how well Madonna is aging. Holy frijoles!

[Matthew Rettenmund]

Hey, Blah!—Don't get too cocky or I'll include Christie Brinkley and make you cry!

[Rico]

excellent piece and very good written, I enjoyed it a lot, I hope to find the legendary miss Swanson aswell I think Madonna found a lot of inspiration from that diva, the picture you used with Theda Bara of Madonna is I think actually inspired from a Swanson picture, (see my url link here) and check out this cool lady, keep up your excellent work love it!

[Rico]

http://www.yourshot.eu/blog/gloria-swanson-by-edward-st.jpg