Born Madonna Ciccone, native Michigander Madonna studied ballet from an early age, going on to study modern dance, jazz and ballet in college and with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. Later she moved to Paris and sang in clubs, meanwhile learning to play the drums, the guitar, and keyboards; she also teamed up with an aspiring producer, John "Jellybean" Benitez. The pair returned to New York, where they recorded her first album, Madonna, which became a smash hit and launched her into a phenomenally successful pop music career. Having appeared in the low-budget independent film A Certain Sacrifice (1982), Madonna got a role in her first major production, Vision Quest (1985), in which she played a barroom singer. Next came her first co-leading role, in Susan Seidelman's successful Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). Madonna continued getting film roles at the rate of one a year, but none of her films were successful until A League of Their Own (1992), in which she had a supporting role; she has yet to star in another hit. In 1988 she appeared on Broadway in David Mamet's Speed the Plow. She married and divorced actor Sean Penn and has made no secret of her many other romantic entanglements, including a lengthy affair with Warren Beatty.