Life with My Sister Madonna (12 page)

After I wipe her body, then dress her, I make sure her hair is in position and her makeup in place, then I push her onstage. And when she comes offstage—in particular after the first set—I always tell her how terrific she was, how wonderful she looks, how much the audience loves her. And she goes back onstage again happy.

The moment the show is over, I bundle her in a towel and then into her car, and the car whisks her back to the hotel. I follow in the tour bus, along with the rest of the cast, who are all still dressed in their costumes.

Once we arrive at the hotel, I go from room to room and, in one of my least favorite parts of my dresser job, pick up all the costumes and take them to the dry cleaner's so they'll be ready for the next performance.

Then I go to my sister's room and we talk about the show and how it went. She tells me what she thinks went wrong, what she thinks went right, gives me notes for the dancers and singers—who screwed up, who didn't. If the show went well, she feels great. I reinforce that feeling. “Really great show, really great crowd, they were so happy to see you,” I say, and she is elated.

Along the way, I am getting to know my sister and to love her. I feel protective of her because of the insanity of the world swirling around her, and I want to spare her some of it, if I can.

Witnessing the crowds, the people, the fame, I realize how crucial I now am to Madonna's sense of security, of safety. She is going places, and she needs someone to depend on. Right now, that person is me, and I'm happy to be there for her.

 

F
ROM THE MOMENT
we arrive in Portland, Oregon, on April 15, it feels like one of the strangest cities I've ever visited. Outside the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, religious fanatics are picketing the show, milling around with placards proclaiming that Madonna is Satan's spawn, and that she is going to hell.

My desire to protect my sister is intensified when, after we play Portland, Freddy, who doesn't say a word to Madonna about it, tells me that death threats have been directed at her. I freak out. From that moment on, I become hyperaware of what is going on around her, extremely protective, even paranoid. Those emotions will never leave me, and even today, when I see clips of Madonna surrounded by crowds of people, or playing in a massive stadium, I am afraid for her.

After the menacing insanity of Portland, I can hardly believe that we are only at the start of the tour. Madonna performs in San Diego, in Costa Mesa, and in San Francisco, then triumphs in three sold-out concerts at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, where we learn that
Like a Virgin
has been certified four times platinum.

Then we move on to Tempe, Dallas, Houston, Austin, New Orleans, Tampa, and Orlando, and on May 11—the same day that “Crazy for You” hits number one in the charts—we play Miami. Then we move on to Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati, two sold-out concerts in Chicago, St. Paul–Minneapolis, Toronto, and finally—we end up in Detroit.

By then, in my mind the cities have all merged into one and are interchangeable. But the indisputable highlight of the entire
Virgin Tour
is playing Detroit. When the lights go up, Madonna yells, “There's no place like home.” It's a great line, sentimental, humble, and it appeals to her number one fans.

The entire stadium bursts into cheers.

For a moment, she seems deeply moved.

“I never was elected homecoming queen. But I sure feel like one now,” she says.

Then she bows her head, as if she really is overcome by tears. Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. Whatever the truth, this is obviously a moment of unrivaled triumph for her. Grandma Elsie is in the audience, and so are Christopher Flynn, Joan, my father, and all our brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Watching them from backstage, I can see that they are all stunned, proud, and not a little bemused by what has become of the little girl they all thought they knew so well.

Madonna now has living proof that all her dreams have come true. She has made it, she is now a big star, and her life will never again be the same.

Yet amid all the triumph and the applause, the massive career leap she has made during
The Virgin Tour
, some self-doubts still surface.

After the show, in her room late at night, we are watching
Mildred Pierce
together. Suddenly, Madonna switches the TV off.

“Christopher, if Mom were alive, what do you think she would say about me, about the show?”

I hesitate for a second, then, because I won't involve my mother, even the memory of her, in any falsehoods, I tell the truth.

“I don't think she'd like you bouncing around the stage, the crosses, and the overt sexuality.”

Madonna looks stricken.

“But I think she'd be very proud of you, anyway,” I quickly add.

 

T
WO DAYS LATER,
on May 27, Madonna is on the cover of
Time
. “Madonna: Why She's Hot” analyzes her global appeal. The article also includes a long interview in which she rewrites her history and that of our family and sets it in stone.

These are some of her mythmaking phrases: “I was the oldest girl so I had a lot of adult responsibilities. I feel like all my adolescence was spent taking care of babies and changing diapers and babysitting. I have to say I resented it, because when all my friends were out playing, I felt like I had all these adult responsibilities…. I really saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella. You know, I have this stepmother and I have all this work to do and it's awful and I never go out and I don't have pretty dresses.”

I know it makes a good story, and I applaud her imagination.

Of Marty and Anthony she claimed, “They would hang me on the clothesline by my underpants. I was little, and they put me up there with clothespins.” A seeming impossibility, yet a story often repeated by the tabloids, and a testament to my sister's talent for evoking potent visual imagery.

Then there is the oft-repeated tale of her first visit to New York: “I got into a taxi and told the driver to take me to the middle of everything. That turned out to be Times Square. I think the driver was saying, like, ‘Okay, I'll show her something.' I think he got a chuckle out of that.”

Then: “I got a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey School.”

Her mythmaking isn't outrageous, just interesting. And it would continue right through her career. Throughout all that time, our family listens to her reinventing history, but doesn't call her on it. Most of us are far too dazzled by her fame and all the attention it brings us and quite simply don't want to rock the boat.

 

A
FTER THE EUPHORIA
of Detroit, we play Pittsburgh, then Philadelphia, Hampton, Virginia, then Columbia, Maryland, followed by Worcester and New Haven, and finally end up where we both started on track dates together, New York. On June 6, 7, and 8, Madonna plays three sold-out concerts at Radio City, followed on June 10 and 11 by two final sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden.

Among the celebrities at the show are Don Johnson, John F. Kennedy Jr.—then about to start his law studies—and graffiti artist Futura 2000. After the show, all three of them pay court to Madonna in her dressing room. Don Johnson moons around like a lovesick puppy, clutching a large bunch of long-stemmed roses, which seem to be wilting by the minute. John, more handsome than even in his pictures, hovers shyly by the dressing room door. Madonna doesn't even throw him or Don a glance and, instead, focuses on Futura and fondles his hand while they exchange whispers. I get the picture at once; my Machiavellian sister isn't interested in Don, but is set on arousing John's jealousy. Her tactics appear to succeed, as down the line she will have her way with him.

After the last Madison Square Garden concert, a homecoming party is held for Madonna at the Palladium, where she is mobbed. We spend most of the evening behind the velvet rope in the Mike Todd VIP room, reminiscing about the tour and laughing and dancing. I remember feeling a rush of power by association. I am Madonna's brother. The brother of a superstar. I am so caught up in the magic of my brave new Madonna world that I don't care that I am losing myself, and that working with my sister is now my entire life.

None of my friends or family know that I am Madonna's dresser. Most of them assume that I'm just her companion. I never tell them that I actually spend much of my time picking up her sweaty underwear. It's my job, but I continue to be embarrassed by it and would be humiliated if anyone in my life knew.

 

I'
VE LEARNED A
great deal about Madonna and about myself during the tour, and she's made a crucial discovery about herself: by the third song of the show, she is usually already out of breath and exhausted.

Consequently, she decides to train for five months before each subsequent tour. I am convinced that she will tour again as soon as possible. I can tell that onstage is where she is happiest and most secure. A few years later, Warren Beatty will claim that Madonna “doesn't want to
live
off-camera.” But for once, he is wrong. For as early on as
The Virgin Tour
, I know that my sister really only wants to live—and only lives—when she is onstage.

After the euphoria of the tour, I go home to Morton Street and land in reality with a thud. I find adapting to everyday life extremely difficult. And it will become more and more difficult after every tour.

I still have to grapple with Danny's jealousy of Madonna, and that he thinks my job as dresser is demeaning. But I don't care. Although on June 24, Madonna and Sean announce their engagement, she and I are getting closer and closer. Moreover, as a result of my work on the tour, she is starting to let me into her life to a much greater extent, and to trust my creative input.

Many years later, she will pay me a backhanded compliment during an interview published in the pages of
Elle Decor
: “It doesn't surprise me in the least that Christopher is good at so many endeavors. Everyone in our family was creative in some way—we all could either dance or paint or play a musical instrument. Christopher, for some reason, could do all three.”

 

S
ECURE IN MY
role as my sister's renaissance man—a jack-of-all-artistic-trades—one morning, soon after the end of the tour, I glance at Madonna in her miniskirt and rubber bracelets and start thinking like her dresser again. But I talk to her like a brother, without fear of being fired.

“Your legs look like fat sausages in that skirt,” I tell her. “You're grown-up now; you need a cooler image, more classic, more Katharine Hepburn than Boy Toy.”

For a second, I think she is going to slug me.

She thinks about it, then smiles ruefully. “I guess you're right, Christopher. So let's go shop.”

I take her to my favorite store, Matsuda, on Madison Avenue near Seventy-second Street.

I pick out a cream silk, man-tailored shirt, grayish brown summer-weight trousers, and brown wing-tip-style shoes. Madonna Part Five is born: a grown-up, elegant woman with style.

Unfortunately for Madonna, her new sophisticated image is destined to be seriously undermined when, in July 1985, nude pictures of her are published in
Playboy.

At 6 a.m. on July 10, 5 million copies of
Playboy
—containing fourteen pages of black-and-white nude pictures of Madonna—hit the newsstands. The pictures were shot in 1979 and 1980 by two New York photographers, Lee Friedlander and Martin Schreiber, apparently when Madonna posed for photographs in the “Nude” course at the New School. A few days later, not to be outdone,
Penthouse
also hits the stands with a seventeen-page color and black-and-white spread of pictures taken by another photographer, Bill Stone.

The camera has always been Madonna's major ally, and one of her greatest passions. She loves the camera unreservedly, and the camera loves her back. After all, the camera is responsible for capturing and disseminating the multitude of visual images that contribute to her megawatt allure. Until now—apart from paparazzi shots—she has always exercised a ruthless control over the majority of images taken of her. Now, for the first time in her career, she has lost grip, and the media is now flooded with pictures whose rights she doesn't control, and from which she will not profit.

I first hear about the photographs while I am working for Madonna's publicist, Liz Rosenberg, a voluptuous, blue-eyed blonde who is still employed by Madonna today—the only employee in her life, apart from Donna De Lory, who can boast such longevity.

After
The Virgin Tour
—perhaps as a result of my insider status and the trust she now has in me—Madonna has found me a job with Liz, at Warner Records, in Rockefeller Center.

On this morning, I come into work bright and early to find Liz sitting at her desk, feet encased in pink rabbit slippers, just about to pick up her phone, which is in the shape of a large pair of red lips. Liz has a thing for lips. Even her sofa is in the shape of lips—Mae West's by Dalí. Liz's own lips are plump and luscious. She wears red lipstick and generally leaves a perfect bow-shaped stain on the marijuana cigarette she's been known to smoke at four in the afternoon—a brief respite before she resumes work unimpaired. I'm amazed by her ability to do this.