When Molly Meldrum first met Madonna and it was not what you saw on TV
MOLLY Meldrum’s first meeting with Madonna wasn’t exactly what you saw on the hit Channel 7 miniseries. We asked him to explain.
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MADONNA and Molly Meldrum’s first meeting didn’t go exactly how it was portrayed on Channel 7’s hit TV miniseries.
In the TV show Madonna, played by Jacinta Stapleton, was shocked when Meldrum abruptly ended their first interview in New York — he took a phone call mid-chat to tell him his house in Melbourne was on fire.
The fire did happen — and in the same year that first Madonna interview took place, 1984 — but Meldrum was in London and no interview was curtailed.
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Insane clown Posse.....................🎉🎉ðŸ¾ðŸ¾â€¼ï¸ðŸ˜‚ðŸ‘ðŸ»âŒðŸ·ðŸ’˜ðŸ’˜ðŸ¿ðŸŽ‰ðŸŽ‰ðŸ‘ðŸ»ðŸ’ƒðŸ»https://t.co/iIdVbVY3cY
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 9, 2016
Rather the first meeting went something like this.
“I’d gone over to New York to interview Van Halen,” Meldrum recalled. “I’d gone to a club called the Ritz where Eurythmics were playing, and Real Life, the Australian band, were opening for them. In-between bands they played videos and they put on both Madonna’s Burning Up and Holiday. I remember thinking ‘These are great, who the f*** is this? How have I missed these songs?’
“Someone told me she was on Warner, so because I was over there I said I had to interview Madonna. I interviewed Real Life that day, presented them with an award, and I was running late to get back to the Rockefeller Centre to interview Madonna. When I got there I had a bit of a clash with Peter Ikin from the record label because I was late, so I apologised and said ‘Who the f*** is Madonna anyway?’
“And then this head poked around the corner and said ‘I’m Madonna. And what the f*** is a Molly?”
“So we started the interview and for the first minute or so there were very curt replies. But I was telling her how much I loved Burning Up and Holiday. I said that Holiday could go to No. 1 in Australia. Madonna said ‘Well, how long would that take?’ And I said ‘Six weeks?’ As soon as I got home we played Holiday and it was at the top of the charts in three weeks.
“Then she played me some of the new album she’d just finished, which was Like a Virgin. We became friends after that.”
In September 1984 Meldrum was back in New York and was front row at the MTV Music Awards with Tina Turner and her Australian manger Roger Davies.
That was the award show where Madonna, still not a huge star in America, premiered Like a Virgin wearing a wedding dress and writhing on the floor. She came out on the top of a giant wedding cake and had her notorious ‘Boy Toy’ buckle over the dress.
“Madonna’s come out and Tina Turner was slightly horrified and went ‘What is this woman doing?’,” Meldrum recalls. “Then Madonna was crawling on the floor and she came over near us, I think she’d seen my hat. Tina said ‘She’s coming near you Molly, she’s waving at you!’ So I waved back. But that was her breakthrough performance. The rest is history after that.”
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Meldrum ended up befriending Madonna’s first husband, Sean Penn, as well as Madonna’s long-term publicist Liz Rosenberg.
“They were awesome together,” Molly said. “Madonna and Sean and also Madonna and Liz. Liz was one of the best publicists I’ve ever met.”
All the World loves a clown.........a small gift for Australia for being so patient!🎉😂. â¤ï¸ #rebelhearttour pic.twitter.com/zsgLCfjF4E
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 8, 2016
Meldrum also got his first tattoo after a dinner with Madonna, Penn and John Mellencamp.
“I’d said at the dinner how I’d always wanted a tattoo. So Madonna said ‘Go and get one now with Sean, he’ll take you down to the tattoo parlour’. Then John Mellencamp said ‘Come on, join the tatt club’. So they took me to a place on Sunset Boulevard. I was shitting myself. I got a heart tattoo and Sean and John said ‘Put ‘Molly’ on it’. So that’s how that happened.”
“A few years later I got a tattoo on my arse and I had to go and interview Madonna just after I’d had it done. So I was sitting very awkwardly on the couch, it was still really sore. She said ‘Why are you sitting like that?’ So I told her. Then she reached over and pushed me back into the couch and said ‘Sit down properly!’ That really hurt.”
Madonna plays Rod Laver Arena on Saturday and Sunday, then Brisbane Entertainment Centre March 16 and 17 and Sydney’s Allphones Arena March 19 and 20. Tickets from livenation.com.au
EMAIL:cameron.adams@news.com.au
FOLLOW CAM ON TWITTER:@cameron_adams
Originally published as When Molly Meldrum first met Madonna and it was not what you saw on TV
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