From Wikipedia.
Madonna Louise Ciccone (born August 16, 1958) is an American recording artiste, actress and entrepreneur also known as the Queen Of Pop.
Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance.
After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983.
She... followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV.
Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including Like A Virgin, Papa Don't Preach, Like A Prayer, Vogue, Frozen, Music, Hung Up, and 4 Minutes.
She is widely admired by liberal people for speaking her mind and challenging cultural orthodoxy.
Her career was further enhanced by film appearances that began in 1979.
She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress In A Motion Picture Musical Or Comedy for her role in Evita (1996).
Madonna's other ventures include being a fashion designer, children's book author, film director and producer.
Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognised as the world's top-selling female recording artiste by the Guinness World Records.
In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artistes, making her the most successful solo artiste in the history of the Billboard chart.
She was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in the same year.
Considered one of the "25 Most Powerful Women Of The Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image.
Madonna's mother Louise Fortin was of French descent from Canada and a relative of Canadian singer Celine Dion.
Her father Anthony Ciccone, is a first-generation Italian American.
The Ciccone family originated from Pacentro, Italy.
She is the third of six siblings.
Her mother died of breast cancer at the age of 30 in 1963.
Madonna attended Rochester Adams High School, and was a straight-A student.
She went to New York in 1977 to learn dance.
She formed a rock band called The Breakfast Club, and served as its vocalist and guitarist.
Her debut single, Everybody, was released on October 6, 1982.
IN the same year she started developing her debut album Madonna, which was primarily produced by Reggie Lucas of Warner Bros.
It contained the chart-topping hit Like A Virgin and was released in 1983.
In 1985, Madonna acted in the film Desperately Seeking Susan which featured her hit song Into The Groove.
In the same year she married Lithuanian-American actor and producer Sean Penn.
They were divorced in 1987.
True Blue, Madonna's third studio album, was released in 1986. It spawned three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100: Live To Tell, Papa Don't Preach and Open Your Heart.
It also had two top five singles, True Blue and La Isla Bonita.
In 1990, Madonna starred as Breathless Mahoney in the film Dick Tracy, with Warren Beatty playing the title role. To accompany the film, she released the soundtrack album I'm Breathless, which included songs inspired by the film's 1930s setting.
In 2000, Madonna starred in the film The Next Best Thing, and contributed two songs to the film's soundtrack: Time Stood Still and American Pie, a cover version of Don McLean's 1971 song.
She released her eighth studio album, Music, in September 2000.
