"All I ever really aspired to do was to see the world.  I guess when you're on the southernmost tip of New Caledonia having lunch with a half naked Melanesian tribe.....well....mission accomplished."

Melissa Totten remembers life without Madonna.  For her, it was in Fairfax Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Trips to the Salvation Army for quirky fashion bargains were inspired by her brilliant sister, artist Angela Grey.  It was the 80's.  Seemingly overnight, Madonna took over the world, and Totten was ribbed by classmates for her likeness to the emerging Queen of Pop.

Melissa moved to Chicago in 1988, where she studied to be an advertising copywriter at Columbia College.  It was there that she was first approached (on a city bus) to do occasional lookalike work for celebrity themed corporate events.  "It felt like playing dress up for beer money.  I had no idea that there was a whole industry out there."

Back then, without Google, the internet, CD's and DVD's...making a promo kit was a nightmare. "Editing together bits of third generation video tape...hoping that your cassette tape wouldn't get eaten while you were peforming...hilarious."

In 1991,  friends started to realized that the Chicago Tribune's reported  "Madonna sightings" were actually Melissa (Madonna was in town filming "A League of Their Own"), and the amused columnists called her in for an interview.  The next day her photo hit the papers.  "I came home, and had a million creepy messages on my answering machine, did radio interviews with every station in town, an interview with a London newspaper, and got an offer from Playboy for a six page spread.  People would chase me down the street.  I could hear keys and loose change bouncing around in peoples' pockets, getting closer and closer. I was only 22. I remember a woman dropping her groceries, and oranges rolling down Rush Street.  She was a mess. People just seemed to believe what they wanted to believe.  Clearly, I am not Madonna."

How did this beginning transpire to a 20 year career? 
As the last three credits of her degree at Columbia, the head of the Public Relations Department challenged Totten to market herself as a Madonna impersonator.  At this time, a small, low budget tribute show came into town, and in a news segment, directed anyone looking like someone famous to call and audition.  "I thought it would be good for my project.  I called the number on the screen, and set up an audition.  It happened to be in the same apartment building that I lived in.  I threw on some red lipstick and got in the elevator, and came back with a six month contract on a Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship.  I was going to be singing live.  I just went with it."

Since then, Totten has been around the world, paying  tribute to this planet's indisputable, relentless, brilliant and ever-changing master of performance art.  She was with the world renowned Las Vegas production Legends In Concert for six years, and has been performing with Stars In Concert in Berlin Germany since it began in 1997.  Melissa Totten has spent years on the road, and months at a time performing in India, Korea, Thailand, Australia, England, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Japan, New Caledonia, Mexico, Singapore, Holland, Austria, Cyprus, Romania, and the United States.

Now living in the U.K., Totten has gravitated away from the big production shows, branching out to develop her own definition of what it means to be an "impersonator". 2008 brought the release of "Forever Madonna" (Klone Records), a high energy dance cd of ballads and oldies from Madonna's vault of hits, produced by John Barry and London's KlubKidz.  2009 marks the launch of the live show "Madonna, Undone", Totten's signature band project.  "This show is definitely for Madonna fans.  It's not about putting on the cones and the typical stuff you would expect from an impersonator.  It's about the music. We do the hits and the forgotten ones.  'Hung Up' is a jazz tune.  It's intimate.  It's acoustic.  It's off the cuff.  It's disco.  It's 100% live, and I love that."