Madonna: Warrior, genius and icon – how the Queen Of Pop defined an era and set the bar for female stars
The Queen Of Pop, a Material Girl, a gay icon and a self-proclaimed “warrior” – Madonna is many things to many people.
Rihanna, Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga have all recognised her influence on their careers, with Beyonce hailing her a “masterpiece genius”.
Pictured with Taylor Swift in 2015. Pic: AP
She’s had more top 10 hits than Elvis, sung a Bond song, met Queen Elizabeth and performed at Super Bowl half time. There’s even part of an academic discipline devoted to her – Madonna studies.
But now, following news of a stint in intensive care following a “serious bacterial infection”, fans have been left scrabbling for positive news around the pop icon’s health, not to mention the ticket-holders for her now-on-pause tour which had been due to kick off next month.
While the star is understood to be home and recovering, the media frenzy around her illness is just a small sign of the impact Madonna has had on the world, transcending the music industry to become one of the most recognisable faces of the 20th and 21st centuries – a post-modern icon playing the game by her own rules.
The best-selling female recording artist of all time, her sparkling four-decade career has earned her multiple awards and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
A master of reinvention, those of a certain age who have followed her over the years have been treated to numerous musical styles, as well as a succession of colourful personas.
Hits have ranged from her early pop tunes Into The Groove and True Blue, to the electronic dance beats in Ray Of Light, a country vibe in Don’t Tell Me and classic musical theatre in Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.
As for her physical makeovers, they have spanned the fingerless gloves and lacey look of her first number one, Holiday, aged just 27, to the much-imitated Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra and scraped back hair of her Blonde Ambition tour 10 years later.
Then there was the earth goddess hippie look for her Ray Of Light album, her first as a mother, and then the Farrah Fawcett flip hair and leotard look to usher in her 50s.
In 1985. Pic: AP
In 1987 Pic: AP
With each different phase as distinctive as the next – and each one signalling a mini-comeback of sorts – her skill at keeping herself in the headlines means she’s rarely been out of the public conscience over the last 44 years.
Always aware of the selling-power of controversy, many moments in her career have dominated the cultural conversation over the decades.
In 1989 her Like A Prayer video scandalised many featuring burning crosses, bleeding stigmata and a sexually active black saint. The Vatican condemned it and Pepsi cancelled a sponsorship deal. The resulting outcry helped the single become a massive hit and her seventh number one on the Hot 100.
In 2003 after opening the MTV VMAs with a performance of Like A Virgin, an on-stage snog with Britney Spears went viral – two years before YouTube came into existence.
And when during a performance in 2015 a wardrobe malfunction saw her pulled backwards down a flight of stairs live on stage, she picked herself up and carried on. She later denied the fall – which left her with whiplash – was a publicity stunt.
With Donatella Versace and Cher in 1997. Pic: AP
Performing in 2004. Pic: AP
And of course, she’s got another string to her bow – not just a singer, but also an actress. While many have maligned her acting ability, she has starred in over 20 feature films – including the Oscar-winning 1996 drama Evita – as well as numerous TV shows and commercials.
She’s starred opposite industry heavyweights including Rosanna Arquette (Desperately Seeking Susan); Antonio Banderas (Evita) and Warren Beatty (Dick Tracy). And she’s also performed on Broadway and the West End.
With Rosanna Arquette on set in 1985. Pic: AP
On the Slammer film set in 1986. Pic: AP
Plus, she has literature – her 1992 coffee table book Sex, featuring softcore pornography and sadomasochism – topped the New York Times best-seller list for three weeks, selling over 150,000 copies on its first day, becoming the fastest-selling coffee table book of all time.
Considered a bold post-feminist work – and featuring a naked Madonna to boot – it remains one of the most in-demand out-of-print publications of all time.
When it comes to managing her own destiny, Madonna has led the charge from the get-go, writing and producing the majority of her own music from early on in her career, succeeding in moulding and steering her career her way.
A businesswoman as well as an artist, Forbes has named her the top earning female musician 11 times, and estimates her to be worth $580m (£457m) as of 2023.
In 2013 she launched her own skincare range – MDNA Skin.
With Iggy Pop and Justin Timberlake in 2008. Pic: Jackson Lee/starmaxinc.com/AP
Unsurprisingly, as a woman at the top of her game and in financial control of her art, her business acumen has led to the Grammy, Brit and Ivor Novello-winning singer being labelled a “control freak”.
However, Madonna insists she values collaboration, saying in a 2012 interview: “I can’t work on my own… I need to hear what people think all the time.”
Battling her way in the industry years before the #MeToo movement, she reportedly rejected the advances of Harvey Weinstein (whose then company Miramax produced her 1991 documentary Truth Or Dare) telling him: “Get away from me, you smell like a f****** ashtray.”
On her Sticky & Sweet tour in 2009. Pic: AP
Performing in 2012. Pic: AP
Her more recent criticism of ageism and sexism in both the music industry and society, has received widespread media coverage.
So where did it all begin? The eldest girl of a Catholic family of six children, she was born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Michigan in August 1958.
She was named after her mother, whose death from breast cancer when she was aged just five left her bereft. This early loss resulted in Madonna rejecting the idea of having children for many years, saying she “associated motherhood with sacrifice, suffering and ultimately death”.
Dropping out of college, and moving to New York in 1978 to pursue a career in entertainment, the then-19-year-old Madonna was raped at knifepoint during her early days in the city.
She has since said she never reported it to police, fearing the humiliation.
Beatles-like levels of excitement greeted her first UK concert tour in 1987. Pic: AP
Refusing to let the attack phase her, she found a series of jobs including at Dunkin’ Donuts and as a coat check girl, before segueing from a backing singer and dancer to a solo performer.
Multiple number one hits followed, across 14 studio albums. And as well as singing, she also plays the piano, guitar, ukulele and drums.
An early adopter of the hands-free headset microphone, the piece of kit has since been informally named in her honour, dubbed the “Madonna mic”.
Blonde Ambition tour in 2000. Pic: AP
A woman who clearly knows the power of fame, she’s used it for good on many occasions.
In 1998 she set up the Ray Of Light Foundation – named after her seventh studio album – promoting peace, equal rights and education for all.
In 2006 she founded the non-profit organisation Raising Malawi, supporting orphans and vulnerable children, many of whom have been directly affected by HIV and AIDS.
And in 2014 she donated money to her hometown Detroit after the city declared itself bankrupt, and in 2020 – as COVID spread around the world – she donated $1m (£788,000) to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help find a vaccine.
With Sean Penn in 1986. Pic: AP
With Guy Richie and baby son Rocco in 2000. Pic: AP
As for her personal life, she’s been married twice. First, her notoriously fractious marriage to actor Sean Penn which came to a close in 1989.
She then became an honorary Brit – buying a Wiltshire estate and a London pub and even adopting the accent – after wedding English film director Guy Richie. The couple split in 2008 after eight years of marriage.
She’s had many other well-documented relationships with stars – albeit some of them brief – including with Michael Jackson, Tupac, Vanilla Ice and Dennis Rodman.
Out for dinner in LA with Michael Jackson in 1991. Pic: AP
Alongside her performance career, she is also mother to six children – Lourdes, 26, Rocco, 22 – both her birth-children – and David 17, Mercy, 16, and twins Estere and Stella, 10, who were all adopted from Malawi.
Raised a Catholic, in the early 2000s her devotion to Kabbalah – a form of Eastern mysticism – led her to change her name to Esther, which means “star”.
One constant in her career has been her ferocious work ethic. An exercise lover, she has at times worked out for five-hours per day as well as following a strict macrobiotic diet. It’s a dedication which has allowed her to maintain a peak level of fitness and tour into her 60s.
With daughter Lourdes Leon 1998. Pic: John Barrett/PHOTOlink/AP
With son David and daughter Mercy in 2014. Pic: AP
So far, she’s completed 11 gruelling concert tours – many of them sold out – and two of those broke records.
Her Sticky & Sweet tour, which ran from August 2008 to September 2009, and her 60-date Confessions tour in 2006 both topped the most money grossed on tour by a female entertainer ($194m and $411m respectively).
However, her last few tours have been beset by illness, leaving her unable to satisfy her own brutal work ethic. Multiple dates of her 2019-2020 Madame X tour were called off due to “overwhelming pain”, with the star pictured walking with a cane and wearing knee braces.
Jogging in 1987. Pic: AP
An acrobatic performance in 2004. Pic: AP
Now of course, The Celebration tour is on hold following a “serious bacterial infection”.
Madonna has previously called cancelling gigs a “punishment”, and at the time of her Madame X cancellations told fans that despite considering herself to be “a warrior I never quit, I never give in”, she had been forced to stop performing “so that I don’t inflict further and irreversible damage to my body”.
Despite the setbacks, her tour record as highest-grossing female performer of all time was only broken last year, when she was overtaken by Taylor Swift’s The Eras tour.
At the MTV Video Music Awards in 2021. Pic: AP
Perhaps the last word should go to the curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Howard Kramer, who said: “Madonna and the career she carved out for herself made possible virtually every other female pop singer to follow… She certainly raised the standards of all of them… She re-defined what the parameters were for female performers.”
A re-inventor, a re-definer and a role-model – Madonna may be briefly out, but as her history proves – she’s unlikely to stay down for long.
Puppetry has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years.
With the ability to tell political and philosophical stories, fairy tales and musical adventures, all with equal flair, puppeteers bringing the inanimate to life on stage is back in vogue.
A staple of the festive season, the year-round resurgence has been invigorated by hit West End shows including War Horse, The Life Of Pi, The Lion King and My Neighbour Totoro, boosting a craft that has been traced back as far as the ancient Greeks.
Pinocchio is this year’s Christmas show at Shakespeare’s Globe. Pic: Johan Persson
This year, puppets are centre stage at Shakespeare’s Globe, with Pinocchio their leading man.
The tale of a wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy, Globe associate director Sean Holmes tells Sky News: “It seemed to fit, a boy made of wood in a theatre made of wood.
“There’s something about the kind of challenge of that storytelling, the theatricality, the magic, the puppetry, that really drew us to it.”
The performers – made up of actors and puppeteers – spent 18 months workshopping the show ahead of opening night, perfecting the challenge of skilled puppetry, acting and singing all on an open-air stage. It’s no mean feat.
The show features a range of puppets, including rod, table-top, and large-scale creations that fill the stage and marionettes – small puppets with big impact.
Puppeteer Stan Middleton is a marionette specialist. Pic: Patrick Hutton
Romeo the marionette on the Globe stage. Pic: Patrick Hutton
One of the show’s puppeteers, Stan Middleton, a marionette specialist, operates a marionette Romeo puppet in part of the performance.
He tells Sky News: “I think a lot of people are scared of marionettes because they think, ‘Oh no, they’re too difficult, we can’t do them’.”
He goes on: “It’s so nice to have the marionette moment in this show, because it gives people a chance to see how beautiful they are and how enchanting…
“They’ve got a sort of delicate charm and a sort of like inner silence which I think really captivates people.”
Despite their charms, the intricate skills required to both craft and manipulate long-string marionettes mean they are under threat.
While some puppets – including War Horse-style rod and Totoro-style body ones – are enjoying success on the stage, marionettes are critically endangered.
Globe associate director Sean Holmes. Pic: Patrick Hutton
Unlike dance or circus, puppetry is not recognised in its own right by Arts Council England and is instead grouped with theatre.
It means specialist puppet venues are competing for funding in the highly saturated market of theatre companies producing for children and families, with no special recognition of their craft.
Marionette-making was added to Heritage Crafts’ Red List of Endangered Crafts in 2023.
There are now calls for it to be added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) list too, after the UK officially joined earlier this year.
Puppets are big business, but as some types thrive, others are at risk of disappearing completely. Pic: Johan Persson/Patrick Hutton
Little Angel is one of the few UK theatres to have a marionette bridge. Pic: Patrick Hutton
Little Angel Theatre, a hub for British puppetry for over six decades, is one of a handful of UK spaces where puppeteers can perform with long-string marionettes.
Boasting not one but two marionette bridges, puppeteers can walk 360 degrees all the way around the upper part of the stage, working their marionettes from a hidden vantage point above.
Trained by some of the last remaining UK makers, including Little Angel co-founder Lyndie Wright, Little Angel Associate director Oliver Hymans is a central figure in the effort to save the craft.
Little Angel associate director Oliver Hymans. Pic: Patrick Hutton
Inspired by seeing old marionettes hung up at the back of the stage and intrigued by why they were not being used, he is now committed to re-establishing traditional marionette-making.
Hymans tells Sky News: “The marionette is a series of nine different pendulums all wired together. You’re having to work against gravity to keep it in control.
“But the thing about the marionette is you can hide the puppeteer. So, you can completely design and develop a world where there are only puppets and scenery and scenography.”
He says the majority of master marionette makers have retired or are nearing retirement, and warns there may be just a handful left in the country.
He explains: “With the onslaught of AI, we know it’s coming. Jobs where people use their hands are going to be vitally important, and if we don’t protect these crafts, they are going to die out.”
Me at Little Angel Studios. Pic: Ellie Kurttz
The Storm Whale at Little Angel Theatre. Pic: Northedge Photography
Putting their money where their mouth is, Little Angel is nurturing emerging talent, upskilling people in both the art of making and performing with marionettes.
They plan to have a marionette show on stage next summer.
Also joining the fight for the overlooked craft, puppetry director Rachel Warr has organised a celebration of marionettes for the last three years, with the support of the Art Workers’ Guild Outreach Committee.
An industry-focused free event, it brings the puppetry community together – with particular relevance to those who work with marionettes – or who aspire to.
Puppetry director Rachel Warr (R) with Alicia Britt and Anna Smith. Pic. Tom Crame
Some members of the community appear in a forthcoming short documentary about puppets, Untangling, by filmmaker Hester Heeler-Frood.
Warr told Sky News: “People are often more affected by a puppet dying on stage than an actor pretending to die in character. It doesn’t have the artifice of getting up and walking away and getting on the tube at the end of the night.
“There’s something quite vulnerable about the puppet in that sense… We know that it’s not really alive, and yet we’re able to project on to it our own thoughts and feelings. It’s a blank canvas – a powerful tool.”
Meanwhile, as Pinocchio plays at the Globe, the theatre is running accompanying puppetry workshops, encouraging children to get involved in the craft – maybe inspiring future stars of puppeteering.
With their future hanging by a string, the training of the next generation is key to breathing life back into an overlooked craft, reinstating marionettes to their rightful place on the stage.
Pinocchio runs at Shakespeare’s Globe until Sunday 4 January.
The Storm Whale at Little Angel Studios runs until Saturday 24 January, and Me runs at Little Angel Theatre until Sunday 25 January.
Kate Winslet says she never set out to become a director – but after reading her son’s first screenplay, she simply “couldn’t let it go”.
In 2023, Joe Anders, whose father is director Sam Mendes, signed up to a screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School.
His mother read one of his assignments and insisted it was worth making into a film – so they did.
Anders created a story around adult siblings who reunite around Christmastime to say goodbye to their dying mother.
Abiding by Mark Twain’s phrase “write what you know”, it was inspired by the death of Winslet’s mother Sally Bridgers-Winslet from ovarian cancer in 2017.
Helen Mirren (left) as June and Kate Winslet (right) as Julia in Goodbye June. Pic: Netflix
Speaking to Sky News, the Titanic actress says they learned “how to develop a completely new relationship” as colleagues”.
“I’m incredibly impressed by him and really proud of him, not least because he wrote this screenplay and started writing it when he was 19,” she says.
“But he had to adapt and learn very, very quickly that when you’re developing something, you take notes, you take feedback.
“Netflix became involved at some stage that they were also giving notes to, and then I was sort of playing the role of kind of protecting the project and also protecting him at the same time from things that, you know, may necessarily not have been useful, things that actually were great ideas.”
Winslet speaking to Sky News
Anders isn’t her only child to have got their start alongside their famous parent.
Mia Threapleton, who most recently starred in the Wes Anderson film The Phoenician Scheme, made her on-screen debut in the 2014 Winslet-led movie A Little Chaos.
They worked together again in the series I Am… which won Winslet a TV BAFTA award for best leading actress.
Goodbye June stars (L-R) Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spall, Kate Winslet and Fisayo Akinade, among others. Pic: Netflix
An actor’s director
Winslet has starred in some of the biggest films of all time, with Titanic, Avatar and Sense And Sensibility, to name a few.
She says it’s that experience in front of the camera that helped her tailor the on-set experience to help its actors explore their emotions and creativity.
“We know what works for us as actors from a director,” she says. “We know what does not work, and we also know what’s actively destructive and sometimes that can mean the environment, the working environment.
“Film sets are very busy places it can often be frantic, sometimes it’s hard to kind of follow what’s going on or what you’re doing next, and it mattered to me enormously that everybody always felt extremely safe, completely informed, and very free.”
Read more from Sky News:
Actors demand AI protections
Celebrities who died in 2025
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(L-R) Andrea Riseborough, Johnny Flynn, Kate Winslet and Timothy Spall in Goodbye June. Pic: Netflix
Winslet adds: “In this country, we’re not necessarily so good at processing, especially when it comes to talking about grief.
“And so hopefully through this film, which is also very funny, hopefully through this film, people might see something of themselves and connect with it in that way.”
Timothy Spall, next to co-star Toni Collette, says it is not surprising Winslet is such a good director
‘One of the greats’
Co-star Timothy Spall says “it’s not surprising she’s such a good director” – and calls her “one of the great actresses in the world.”
“I worked with her when she was 20. She was impressive then, just before she got Titanic… and she’s paid attention. She’s listened. She’s a great actress,” Spall says of Winslet.
“She knows how it works, and she helps other actors to do the best they can. And she’s all over the crew. She’s great with them. She’s paid attention in every department.”
Goodbye June is out on Netflix on 24 December
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