Madonna Louise Ciccone

1958–81: Early life and beginnings
Madonna Louise Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan on August 16, 1958. Her mother, Madonna Louise (née Fortin), was French Canadian descent, and her father, Silvio Anthony Ciccone, was a first-generation Italian American. The Ciccone family originated from Pacentro, Italy; her father later worked as a design engineer for Chrysler and General Motors. Madonna was nicknamed "Little Nonni" to distinguish her from her mother. The third six children, her siblings are Martin, Anthony, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie. Madonna was raised in the Detroit suburbs Pontiac and Avon Township (now part Rochester Hills).
Her mother died breast cancer at the age 30 in 1963. Months before her mother's death, Madonna noticed changes in her behaviour and personality from the attentive homemaker she was, although she did not understand the reason. Mrs. Ciccone, at a loss to explain her dire medical condition, would ten begin to cry when questioned by Madonna, at which point Madonna would respond by wrapping her arms around her mother tenderly. "I remember feeling stronger than she was," Madonna recalled, "I was so little and yet I felt like she was the child." Madonna later acknowledged that she had not grasped the concept her mother dying. "There was so much left unsaid, so many untangled and unresolved emotions, remorse, guilt, loss, anger, confusion. I saw my mother, looking very beautiful and lying as if she were asleep in an open casket. Then I noticed that my mother's mouth looked funny. It took me some time to realize that it had been sewn up. In that awful moment, I began to understand what I had lost forever. The final image my mother, at once peaceful yet grotesque, haunts me today also."
Madonna eventually learned to take care herself and her siblings, and she turned to her grandmother in the hope finding some solace and some form her mother in her. The Ciccone siblings resented housekeepers and invariably rebelled against anyone brought into their home ostensibly to take the place their beloved mother. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Madonna commented that she saw herself in her youth as a "lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn't rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn't shave my underarms and I didn't wear make-up like normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades.... I wanted to be somebody." Terrified that her father could be taken from her as well, Madonna was ten unable to sleep unless she was near him. Her father married the family's housekeeper Joan Gustafson, and they had two children: Jennifer and Mario Ciccone. At this point, Madonna began to express unresolved feelings anger towards her father, that lasted for decades, and developed a rebellious attitude. She attended St. Frederick's and St. Andrew's Elementary Schools, and then West Middle School. She was known for her high grade point average, and achieved notoriety for her unconventional behavior: she would perform cartwheels and handstands in the hallways between classes, dangle by her knees from the monkey bars during recess, and pull up her skirt during class—all so that the boys could see her underwear.