There was a time in Madonna’s life when it probably would have been unfathomable (mostly for Madonna herself) to imagine having a close relationship with her father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone. But it seems that, with time, not only has the Queen of Pop “softened,” but so, too, has her father. At least in terms of his erstwhile strict views on how his daughter should act. The very same views that forged Madonna on the path toward becoming famous as a direct result of her perennial rebellion, her staunch flouting of “the rules.” Or, as she once put it, “I wouldn’t have turned out the way I was if I didn’t have all those old-fashioned values to rebel against.” So yes, there’s no denying the masses that came to adore and admire Madonna have none other than Mr. Ciccone to thank. A man who was himself raised with some very strict, old-fashioned values. After all, his parents were of the Greatest Generation, and “Old World” Italian immigrants, to boot.
Part of the Italian diaspora that took place from 1880 to 1924, Michelina Di Iulio and Gaetano Ciccone settled in the Beaver County area (yes, of course Madonna’s roots would have such a suggestive name), with Silvio, their youngest son, being born in Aliquippa. Eventually, “Tony” as he came to be known, thanks to the Americanization of many Italians (whether genuinely dal vecchio paese or “first generation” and beyond), started working in a steel mill in Pittsburgh. It doesn’t get more working class than that. But Tony clearly wanted to transcend this status, to take advantage of the then still believable and achievable American dream that would allow him to have the better life his parents had immigrated to the U.S. for in the first place.
As Madonna told Time in 1985, “My grandmother and grandfather spoke no English at all. They weren’t very educated, and I think in a way they represented an old lifestyle that my father really didn’t want to have anything to do with. It’s not that he was ashamed, really, but he wanted to be better.” And so, he became an optics engineer after serving in the Air Force, where his friendship with a fellow Airman led him to Madonna Fortin, a Bay City native, as her eldest daughter, Madonna Jr., would be. Though, of course, to her eventual fans, there was only ever one Madonna—theirs. MLVC: Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone.
To Madonna herself though, M Sr. would forever loom large as the idol of her own life, saying during Truth or Dare, “She seemed like an angel to me.” That opinion would only increase the more that time went on in the years after Madonna Sr.’s death from breast cancer when “Little Nonnie” was just five years old. And it was her mother’s death that seemed to harden Tony all the more, to reinforce that he had to be strict with his children. And that, furthermore, they needed a new mother figure to help light the way. Enter Joan Gustafson, the Ciccones’ housekeeper. In somewhat cliché fashion, Tony would end up marrying her because, hey, what is the ideal wife if not a housekeeper? He did so in 1966, three years after Madonna Sr.’s death. Obviously, Madonna was not a fan. Neither of Joan, nor of her father being so quick to seemingly “forget” all about his real wife.
Besides that, it was apparent that Madonna was exhibiting some classic signs of the Electra complex, which she, for all intents and purposes, openly addressed in the abovementioned Truth or Dare. This when telling her then bestie, Sandra Bernhard, “I had those dreams for, like, a five-year period after that. That’s all I dreamed about was that people were jumping on me and strangling me and I was constantly screaming for my father, and no sound would come out.” Bernhard then asked, “And what happened when you woke up? Were you crying?” Madonna replied, “I’d just be sweating and afraid and I’d have to go to sleep with my father.” This “subconscious” word choice leaving it open to plenty of innuendo-laden connotations since she didn’t opt to instead say something more measured, like, “I had to go into my father’s bedroom and fall asleep there.”
Even so, Bernhard practically invokes what follows when she further questions, “How was that when you slept with him?” Without missing a beat, Madonna says, “Fine, I went right to sleep—after he fucked me.” She starts laughing and quickly adds, “No, just kidding.” Though, of course, there was a small kernel of truth in what she said in terms of wanting to “possess” her father fully, to have ownership over all aspects of his love, in a way that she wouldn’t ever be able to from a romantic/sexual perspective. And certainly not after Joan entered the picture to kick Madonna out of Tony’s bed—literally.
The friction Madonna experienced with Joan, who she had nothing but contempt for as a teenager, based on comments about Joan making her wear the same exact dress patterns as her sisters and refusing to let her use tampons, only compounded the friction she already had with her father, who she undeniably resented for bringing a strange woman into their home. A woman who was now not only replacing Madonna Sr., but also Madonna, with the latter taking on the “wife role” as the eldest daughter. With Joan in the mix, it appeared as though Madonna’s drive to “get the hell out of Michigan”—or, for the time being, at least out of her father’s house—became only stronger. Breaking out of there at eighteen to attend the University of Michigan on a dance scholarship, Madonna dropped out after a year to answer the apparent call of destiny by moving to New York in 1978, a maneuver that caused a major rift between her and her father, who couldn’t understand why she would throw away a college education and a solid path to that “better life” his own parents wanted for him, and all because of some whim. A whim that even Madonna herself couldn’t fully explain, apart from taking Christopher Flynn’s advice to go where it was all happening, get on a faster track to becoming a professional dancer through Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Once she moved to the proverbial big city, Madonna’s ties to her father grew frayed, something she reflected on in that ‘85 Time article with the assessment, “When I moved away for a long time we weren’t really that close. He didn’t understand what I was doing when I first moved away. First I was a dancer and I would call him and say, ‘Well, I’m dancing.’ He never, well, he’s a sensible guy, and what’s dancing to him? He can’t imagine that you can make a living from it or work at it or be proud of it or think of it as an accomplishment. He could never really be supportive about it.” And yes, there were many times when he urged her to just give up and come back to Michigan, but the thought of doing that is what actually kept her going during some of her darkest days in New York, vowing that to return home would be the ultimate failure—the ultimate way to prove that her father was right.
After Tony started hearing his daughter’s songs on the radio, however, he couldn’t deny that it was Madonna who had been right. That she did “make something of herself” as she says in Truth or Dare. But as Madonna’s star rose, so, too, did her penchant for pushing buttons, for stirring up controversy. One of the apexes of that occurring in 1989, with the “Like A Prayer” video, which no doubt gave Tony a shock as much as any devout Catholic. And yet, despite stating, “More than anything, I want my father’s approval, whether I want to admit it or not,” that has never prompted Madonna to shy away from doing “scandalous” things, mainly of a sexually-charged nature. This infamously reaching an apex in the 1992-1993 era, with the back-to-back unleashing of Erotica, the Sex book, Body of Evidence and The Girlie Show. And yes, even before this point, Tony was obliged to ask his daughter of the Blond Ambition Tour, “You undress in this performance?” She balked, “No, of course I don’t.” But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have other people undress later on in The Girlie Show. What’s more, Tony is also recorded asking Madonna if she would “tone down” her performance during the night he chose to come see the Blond Ambition Tour. She immediately replies, “No, because that would be compromising my artistic integrity.”
Her unwavering devotion to her craft, her work, however, is something that has always innately bonded her to Tony, who she credits for her incredible work ethic. And then, later on in life, when she had children, it seemed that she could better understand where her father had been coming from with all of his strictness. With Madonna herself turning out to be quite the “stickler” for the rules she made for her own children to abide (including, most illustriously, not letting them watch TV).
In more recent years, as Tony entered his nineties (indicating that Madonna, too, might have the same longevity—something she’s alluded to in her Madame X Tour, during one of the banter sections), it seemed that Madonna grew ever more protective of their relationship, of keeping him close. This even more important after the back-to-back deaths of Joan and Madonna’s younger brother, Christopher (at one point a frequent artistic collaborator of hers in the late 80s and 90s before the pair had a falling out), in September and October of 2024, respectively. This just a year after Madonna’s oldest brother (and overall sibling), Anthony, died in February of 2023.
So yes, the sense of loss in the Ciccone family has been palpable of late. Which is surely part of why Madonna had a Thanksgiving with Tony at the table in ‘24, sharing pictures of her children and father, along with a caption that read, “Watching him cry in the cemetery when we buried my brother Christopher—right after he lost his wife—was a moment I will never forget. Spending time with him and all my children on Thanksgiving was Medicine for the Soul.”
In June of ‘25, Madonna shared another post featuring an image of herself and Tony (plus Madonna’s current much younger boo, Akeem Morris, for an added bit of freaky-deaky cachet) in honor of his 94th birthday (June 2, 1931), captioning it, “Congratulations for riding the roller coaster of life with humor and sanity intact. Thank you for sharing your mantra in life with me, which is: ‘I’m gonna go until the wheels fall off.’”
This year, as Madonna turns sixty-seven, not only does she herself continue to adhere to that mantra despite all the naysaying against her (she’s too “old” to keep putting out music, she should just pack it in, etc., etc.), but she also appears as in touch with her father’s Italian roots as ever, spending yet another birthday in Italy. The place that essentially helped give her what Norman Mailer called “a heart built out of the cast-iron balls of a hundred peasant ancestors.” Madonna’s own patriarch being a very integral one of those hundred “peasant ancestors.” For, yes, life truly is a circle, as M sings on 2019’s “Extreme Occident” (or, as she says in a different way on 2003’s “Easy Ride,” “I go round and round/Just like a circle/I can see a clearer picture/When I touch the ground, I come full-circle/To my place and I am home/I am home”). And it’s a circle that has led her right back to the father she once so vehemently rebelled against. But whose love and approval she still so badly wants.
Genna Rivieccio
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