Life with My Sister Madonna Read Free Page B

terrific. Her voice, however, is another matter. My sister’s unwillingness to submit to the drudgery of regular singing lessons is a by-product of the supreme self-confidence with which she was born. That self-confidence has overridden any lack of training. She’s a showman—some may have better voices, but she is the living embodiment of the fact that discipline, vision, ambition, determination, drive, and, of course, self-confidence are what make a superstar. Her legendary self-confidence also seems to be a family trait that I’ve inherited: I relish testing myself and I always embrace a challenge. Although I’ve been a designer, an artist, and am now a director, I have eschewed any formal training in these disciplines. Moreover, like my sister, I rarely submit to authority and prefer to plunge into a career and learn as I go along.
    Until now, our strategy has worked for both of us, but now Madonna is starting to realize that the lack of a strict regimen of vocal training means that her voice is too thin for the demands she now places on it. One of her solutions is to hire Donna to be one of her backup singers, as her voice mirrors and supports Madonna’s. In contrast, Niki is on hand to provide the soul. Most of the time, Donna and Niki compete over who gets to sing which harmony, who is closest to Madonna, and who gets the most attention from her.
    Niki has a better voice than Madonna. Her voice is fully trained, and Madonna fights to keep her at bay because Niki is fully capable of drowning her out and often does. When that happens, Madonna sometimes orders Niki’s mike to be switched off.
    Once or twice, Madonna has even raised the possibility of firing Niki. Not that she would ever do it herself. A remarkable chink in my sister’s dominatrix-style armor is that—although she makes a big show of screaming orders to her underlings during rehearsal, on the road, and, in particular, when she is playing to the cameras as in Truth or Dare —she is utterly terrified of confrontation, avoids it at all costs, can never bring herself to fire anyone face-to-face, and always delegates that task to one of her minions, usually me.
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    M ADONNA IS SINGING “Holiday” now and, transformed by her blond Afro wig and sequined clothes, is every inch the seventies disco queen, skipping around the stage, joyful, euphoric, completely relaxed and happy. For the first time tonight, I catch her eye and wink. She winks back at me. A few moments later, she throws me a quick, triumphant smile, a tacit acknowledgment that all our work together has paid off, and that The Girlie Show is a success. I smile back, elated by our complicity. She ends the show on “Everybody”—her first hit and the first song she ever cowrote—the audience goes wild, and the stadium floor heaves with the dancing crowds.
    Madonna exits the stage. After a few minutes, a performer in the blue satin Pierrot costume and sad-clown mask reappears. This time—although the audience won’t know it until she removes her mask—Madonna is playing the clown.
    As children, we were rarely taken to the circus, but as adults, Madonna and I loved seeing Cirque du Soleil in Battery Park, Manhattan. We both loved the Cirque du Soleil because of the sexy, bizarre, and fresh way in which they approached the concept of the circus. The Cirque went on to become a great inspiration on our future work together and, in particular, on The Girlie Show . There is, however, something of an irony in my sister dressing as a clown, because she is the world’s worst joke teller. I cringe whenever she attempts to tell a joke, either in private or in public, because she always botches the punch line.
    I understand that her basic inability to be truly funny stems from the childhood loss of our mother. For even in the midst of the upbeat Girlie Show, amid the worship of the crowd, the intoxication of the night, the sad clown eyes