Madonna

An icon of unabashed ambition and sexual magnetism, Madonna has been making headlines since the early MTV Age for her musical talents and much more. Cosmo caught up with the Material Girl in July 1987 to talk about her rising hopes for a career in Hollywood and her then-marriage to bad boy heartthrob Sean Penn. Endearingly frank and forever flirting with the wild side, some things never change: 36 years later, she remains the star we fell for then. -

Even after her debut album for Sire Records, it took a year before anybody outside the clubs paid attention. Madonna was not discouraged. She went to David Bowie’s record producer and convinced him to produce her second album. She got a part in the movie Desperately Seeking Susan, and she embarked on a 28-city concert tour. The little girls who came to the shows wore fingerless gloves, crucifixes, and bustiers and tied their hair with chiffon rags in slavish imitation of their idol. They got the humor part of it,” she says. “For so long, people had been telling girls, ‘You have to dress to be nondescript. You have to look masculine if you want to be in control.’ And here was someone being sexy and having fun and dressing up and doing exactly what those little girls wanted to do. And making all the decisions and having power and success.”