PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD CORMAN
Madonna 66
Previously boxed away images of Madonna have made it to print
The latest from Madonna is not what you think. Madonna 66 is a new book featuring photos of the singer taken on the eve of her entry to stardom. These never before seen photos of Madonna tell the story of the woman behind the celebrity.
Her beauty is forthright and the outfits are quintessentially cool. Madonna in these photos has charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent written all over her, crossed out, and then written all over her again. I picture them arriving on Cis Corman‘s desk in the early 80’s (maybe accompanied by a few demos featuring the naïve but power-house voice) and imagine the gasps — audible and not — that probably ensued.
Madonna 66 is a limited edition photo book, running just 1,500 copies and featuring 66 unpublished Polaroid images of Madonna. Taken on Friday, June 17th in 1983, the images come straight from Richard Corman, son of the aforementioned casting director and producer.
“Cis was preparing a modern day treatment of the classic fairy tale Cinderella [and] asked Richard to drop everything and photograph a performer named Madonna,” who was set to play the lead. The film was never released, but the preliminary photos kick ass. Plus, Madonna 66 includes a 14 page film-treatment of Corman’s shelved Disney adaptation.
As I sifted through the images I wrote down all of the words that came to my mind, and I found that just single adjectives weren’t doing me justice. I ended up writing sentences about Madonna, and coming from a former Miss Teen Little Monster USA, that says a lot. “Richard captures Madonna’s physical beauty, her fashion, her humor, playful sexiness and her totally accessibility. The pictures depict a 24-year old Madonna, 6 weeks before the release of her debut album.”
Needless to say, I’m really in awe of these photographs. Madonna, here in Madonna 66, looks like a reminder of a moment’s infantile quality; how when something appears for the first time, untouched and exciting, it’s already begun to slip away into something much larger than you could ever imagine.
