anything to make things happen. As planned, Madonna whisked the director and costar directly to a cocktail party at a foreign embassy. There, they received a message from one of the president’s aides that Menem would meet Madonna on February 7.
For the next week, she read everything that she could find in English about Menem. One of the things that impressed her was that he fashioned himself “a man of the people,” a passionate yet vulnerable leader who believed that he was the quintessential example of what he called the New World “caudillo,” a first-generation Argentine who had made a success of himself. It was yet another mystical sign. She saw amazing similarities between Carlos Menem and her own father. While the Argentinian president’s family had immigrated from Syria without money or family contacts, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone was a first-generation American of Italian descent whose parents had sailed from Europe to America without any resources. Like Menem, Tony Ciccone had succeeded far beyond the dreams of his immigrant parents.
The day of the meeting finally arrived. Dinner with the president was to take place on a remote island in the middle of the El Tigre River, accessible only by helicopter or boat. This was the house at which he conducted high-level political meetings. The arrangements to get Madonna to the island were straight out of a James Bond movie. Two secret service agents in charge of delivering her to Menem brought her down the servants’ elevator of the hotel and smuggled her out through the kitchen and into an unmarked government car. Instructed to lie on the floor of the backseat until they had cleared the busy downtown area, she was finally allowed to sit up only when the car was speeding down the highway. When they arrived at a small military airport on the outskirts of the city, they were waved through the gates and directed onto the tarmac. There, the car stopped near a helicopter, rotary blades whirring in the soft summer breeze. Without a word, the star followed her two minders out of the car and aboard the craft.
After a trip lasting forty minutes, most of it over water, Madonna discerned from the window of the helicopter a small patch of earth in the middle of El Tigre on which were clusters of pine trees. As the helicopter began its descent, she noticed a small concrete landing pad right in the middle of an expansive manicured lawn. Approaching its mark, swaying slowly in the breeze, the helicopter set down four minutes later and approximately ten meters from a sprawling stone house, trimmed in white, with flowers lining the large bay windows on the first floor. After one of the secret service agents jumped from the craft, a uniformed guard rolled a staircase up to the door of the helicopter and Madonna, holding tightly to the arm of the other official, exited. The noise was deafening. Madonna, dressed in a long evening gown and mink wrap, was hunched over against the wind that whipped around her. Walking quickly away from the craft and barely daring to look around, she followed her minders into the house.
Paintings of somebody’s ancestors, surely not Menem’s, adorned the walls of the marble foyer under which were two dark mahogany buffets on either wall. An enormous crystal chandelier, each crystal arm holding a candle, bathed the entrance in a soft, flickering light. A small, dark-haired woman, stern and austere in her dress and demeanor, greeted Madonna formally. The star immediately felt intimidated, as if she were already being judged based on her reputation. In reality, the woman, who would serve as the translator, was herself overwhelmed and nervous in anticipation of meeting someone she would later describe as “notorious.” Her first impression of Madonna, she would also relate after the visit, was shock at the “uncanny” resemblance that the star had to Eva Perón. Without any further conversation, the interpreter gestured toward a set of French doors,
For the next week, she read everything that she could find in English about Menem. One of the things that impressed her was that he fashioned himself “a man of the people,” a passionate yet vulnerable leader who believed that he was the quintessential example of what he called the New World “caudillo,” a first-generation Argentine who had made a success of himself. It was yet another mystical sign. She saw amazing similarities between Carlos Menem and her own father. While the Argentinian president’s family had immigrated from Syria without money or family contacts, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone was a first-generation American of Italian descent whose parents had sailed from Europe to America without any resources. Like Menem, Tony Ciccone had succeeded far beyond the dreams of his immigrant parents.
The day of the meeting finally arrived. Dinner with the president was to take place on a remote island in the middle of the El Tigre River, accessible only by helicopter or boat. This was the house at which he conducted high-level political meetings. The arrangements to get Madonna to the island were straight out of a James Bond movie. Two secret service agents in charge of delivering her to Menem brought her down the servants’ elevator of the hotel and smuggled her out through the kitchen and into an unmarked government car. Instructed to lie on the floor of the backseat until they had cleared the busy downtown area, she was finally allowed to sit up only when the car was speeding down the highway. When they arrived at a small military airport on the outskirts of the city, they were waved through the gates and directed onto the tarmac. There, the car stopped near a helicopter, rotary blades whirring in the soft summer breeze. Without a word, the star followed her two minders out of the car and aboard the craft.
After a trip lasting forty minutes, most of it over water, Madonna discerned from the window of the helicopter a small patch of earth in the middle of El Tigre on which were clusters of pine trees. As the helicopter began its descent, she noticed a small concrete landing pad right in the middle of an expansive manicured lawn. Approaching its mark, swaying slowly in the breeze, the helicopter set down four minutes later and approximately ten meters from a sprawling stone house, trimmed in white, with flowers lining the large bay windows on the first floor. After one of the secret service agents jumped from the craft, a uniformed guard rolled a staircase up to the door of the helicopter and Madonna, holding tightly to the arm of the other official, exited. The noise was deafening. Madonna, dressed in a long evening gown and mink wrap, was hunched over against the wind that whipped around her. Walking quickly away from the craft and barely daring to look around, she followed her minders into the house.
Paintings of somebody’s ancestors, surely not Menem’s, adorned the walls of the marble foyer under which were two dark mahogany buffets on either wall. An enormous crystal chandelier, each crystal arm holding a candle, bathed the entrance in a soft, flickering light. A small, dark-haired woman, stern and austere in her dress and demeanor, greeted Madonna formally. The star immediately felt intimidated, as if she were already being judged based on her reputation. In reality, the woman, who would serve as the translator, was herself overwhelmed and nervous in anticipation of meeting someone she would later describe as “notorious.” Her first impression of Madonna, she would also relate after the visit, was shock at the “uncanny” resemblance that the star had to Eva Perón. Without any further conversation, the interpreter gestured toward a set of French doors,
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