Blonde ambition: A life and times

Stated ambition: "I won't be happy until I'm as famous as God."

Born Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone 16 August 1958 in Rochester, Michigan. Won dance scholarship to Michigan University but dropped out and went to New York at the age of 20 to make records.

Struggled until 1983, when her first album, Madonna, sold three million copies.

In 1985, appeared at Live Aid. Her second album, Like A Virgin, combined with a studiously vampish and feisty streetwise image, intensified media interest.

Her song "Material Girl" (1985) combined a lavish video with Marilyn Monroe iconography, exciting dance production and assertive materialism at the right moment in the Eighties. It rapidly became a role model for young women.

Two films, Vision Quest and Desperately Seeking Susan, were followed by international hits such as "Like a Prayer" and "Vogue", exploring diverse interests such as Catholicism, fashion and eroticism. Her fashion exploration included appearing on stage in Gaultier-designed cone-shaped metal bras.

In August 1985 she married actor Sean Penn, but later divorced.

In 1992 she took a tep too far. After flaunting publicity achieving relationships with other women, her misconceived coffee-table book, SEX, featured soft-porn photos and her album Erotica did badly, as her following began to have second thoughts.

Her career flagging, she begged for and won the role of Evita. She became pregnant by her personal trainer, Carlos Leon, during filming.

Daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon was born in October 1995.