MADONNA: THE WORLD'S GREATEST FEMALE IMPERSONATOR

In the Eighties, Madonna donned diamonds and a pink taffeta gown and became the bumping, breathless sex siren MARILYN MONROE, playing the quintessential man-eating golddigger in the 1953 movie, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."

In the Nineties, she dressed in drag in manly tails and a top hat, flirted and planted kisses on girl singers and chorines, and became the gender-bending MARLENE DIETRICH in the 1930 German flick, "The Blue Angel".

But the charismatic chameleons latest act, copping a feel from ANGELINA JOLIE's heartfelt philanthropy to Third World tots, is a brand new twist in her repertoire.

MARILYN MONROE proved an inspired first choice for Madonna to emulate in her unrelenting march to immortality on the trails blazed by iconic women.

Madonna's video of her first hit, "Material Girl", is an identical re-enactment of Marilyn's musical number "Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend" from the 1953 movie, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", right down to the hot pink gown and even hotter choreography with slavish men vying for the sexpots attention. This slyly salacious video put Madonna on the map and led to a meeting with her Hollywood prince, Sean Penn, and a subsequent regal wedding.

Both Marilyn and Madonna had much in common: the will to do whatever it takes to achieve superstardom. Nude photoshoots. Sleeping with hordes of men who could help get them there. And sharing the same one true love: posing for the camera unto eternity. They both had a recurring fantasy of being naked in a church and delighting in the shocked congregation silently admiring their concupiscent wonders.

For over a decade, Madonna's been shocking the congregation with her titillating, quasi-religious send up of "Like A Prayer", doggie style. Recently, she attempted to put the Pope in the Pissed Off Group of Congregants by inviting him to her "Confessions" concert in Rome to witness her "crucifixion" on a disco-mirrored cross, while wearing a tiara of thorns over her blonde tresses. Mercifully, he declined.

MARLENE DIETRICH and her bisexual shtick in the 1930 German film, "The Blue Angel", playing nightclub singer Lola-Lola, a jaded, slutty cross-dresser who tips her top hat to a pretty lady sitting ringside, pulls a long stemmed rose from her tuxedo and plants a long, wet one on the lady's kisser, AND Fraulein Dietrich's real life AC/DC lifestyle, inspired Madonna to even greater sybaritic, shocking heights.

In her 1993 stage spectacle "The Girlie Show", Madonna dressed as a whipcracking dominatrix from the Weimar Republic, surrounded by topless dancers. Later in the show, taking yet another raunchy page from Dietrich's act, Madonna appears in mens clothing outrageously flirting with the dancing girls, pumping, grinding and kissing them while singing "Like a Virgin".

About this time in her life, Madonna horned in on Dietrich's bisexual personal life and began rumored affairs with comedienne Sandra Bernhard and lesbian nightclub queen Ingrid Casares.

Madonna has crafted her femme fatale persona as carefully as Dietrich, who provided her the blueprint. Madonna's also channeled Marlene's Prussian iron will. Nothing can stop these ubermensches in their quest for world domination.

Dietrich fell off the stage at age 70, her wig stapled to her head, her facial skin pulled back with tape, her swollen legs bloodied and bandaged and stuffed into her high heels. She broke her leg. The next night she turns up on stage, smiling, singing, camping it up in a tight sequined gown despite excruciating pain and her leg encased in a cast. Hows that for Teutonic toughness?!

A middle-aged Madonna fell off her horse at her country estate and nearly broke half the bones in her body. Witnesses report that she cried out in pain in a perfect British accent. Now thats steely resolve. Less than a year later, the sinewy filly dances her ass off in her latest stage show "Confessions". Writhing down a dance pole in a tight black leather outfit while belting out "Like a Virgin", shes got a skeptical world eating outta her leather gloved hand, while holding an S&M apparatus attached to a human "horse" with the other. She mounts the muzzled, muscular male dancer. Then she reminds us just how indestructible she is. She flashes MRI images and x-rays of her broken bones on the huge screen behind her.

Oy vey, she's out-Dietriched Marlene!!

In what we can only hope is a final homage to her androgynous show biz benefactor, Madonna chose the 2003 MTV awards for her piece de resistance in her "shocking" gender-bending oeuvre. Madonna dressed herself up in a black tux as a groom while former Mouseketeers turned Lolitas, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, were outfitted in faux bridal gowns. After the three did a titillating gyration in sync, Madonna slipped the tongue to Aguilera and then planted a Sapphic smooch on Britney. Their lesbian romp earned thunderous applause from the aroused crowd. And the congregation sat in shocked disbelief

And now Madonna is mimicking yet another beautiful bisexual, ANGELINA JOLIE.

Oscar winner Jolie donates a third of her mega-million dollar income to philanthropic causes, including the UN agency (UNHCR) that assists 20 million refugees in 120 countries. She candidly gave CNN's Anderson Cooper the compelling reason for her largesse: "Yes, well, I have a stupid income for what I do for a living." And who can argue with that?

It looks like the Hollywood pendulum is swinging the other way. Conspicuous consumption is now morphing into conspicuous philanthropy.

After Jolie's two-hour CNN interview, Madonna announced her plans to raise at least $3 million to care for orphans in the AIDS-afflicted African country of Malawi. The former Material Girl will visit Africa this fall and credits her faith in reinvention, oops sorry, her faith in Kabbalah with shifting her priorities.

Now if those rumors we hear about Angelina splitting up with Brad are true, you better watch your ass, hubby Guy Ritchie.

(c) 2006 Sistarrs International