Madonna Louise Ritchie

Madonna is known for her Job works that explore religious symbolism and sexual themes which also drew criticism from the Vatican in the late 1980s. In 1992, she founded an entertainment company, Maverick, which published a book of photographs (Sex), (Erotica) and starred in a film (Body of Evidence) with erotic themes. These works generated negative publicity and coincided with a fall in commercial sales in the 1990s. Madonna's career was revived in 1998, when the release of her album Ray of Light garnered critical acclaim.

Madonna was born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Bay City, Michigan. Her mother, Madonna Louise , was of French Canadian descent, and her father, Silvio "Tony" P. Ciccone, was a first-generation Italian American Chrysler/General Motors design engineer. Madonna is the third of six children.

Madonna was raised in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac, Michigan and Avon Township. Her mother died of breast cancer at age 30 on December 1, 1963. Her father married the family housekeeper, Joan Gustafson, and they had two children. "I didn't accept my stepmother when I was growing up," Madonna said, "in retrospect I think I was really hard on her." She attended Rochester Adams High School, becoming a straight-A student and a member of the cheerleading squad.


Madonna received a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan after graduating from high school. Madonna's ballet teacher persuaded her to pursue a dance career, so she left the University of Michigan at the end of 1977 and moved to New York City.

Madonna has been regarded as "one of the greatest pop acts of all time" and dubbed the "Queen of Pop" by various sources. She is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as the best-selling female rock artist of the twentieth century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States with 63 million certified albums.Guinness World Records list her as the world's most successful female recording artist of all time and the top-earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of US$490 million, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.