It all started with Tina Turner.
She was the first female artist to sign a contract to perform at the first MTV Video Music Awards 40 years ago on September 14, 1984.
And with her blonde mane and black miniskirt, the rock’n’soul legend danced across the stage of New York’s Radio City Music Hall to “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 as her first and only No. 1 solo single.
Turner, who was in the midst of a career comeback that would culminate in three Grammys in 1985, was just one of the pop icons who did much to make the VMAs the hot new music awards show just three years after the launch of MTV.
“Once you get a few big stars booked and a few other people are willing to participate, other people say, ‘Oh yeah, I can do that, too,'” Bob Pittman, co-founder of MTV and one of the producers of the first VMAs, told the Post.
“And the secret to booking a big event is to start with your A-acts. Because if you start with a B-act, no A-acts will come because they’ll think it’s for B-acts.”
But when Turner and later other stars of the ’80s such as Rod Stewart, David Bowie, ZZ Top and Huey Lewis and the News joined the field – as well as a relative newcomer named Madonna – it was clear that the VMAs had suddenly become an A-list awards ceremony.
The idea for the VMAs, which will take place on Wednesday at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, was born as a way for MTV to assert itself as the home of music videos.
“When MTV became successful, people started thinking about what our franchise was,” said Pittman, who is now chairman and CEO of iHeart Media. “And we knew we didn’t want other people giving out awards for video music and turning it into some kind of commodity.
“We wanted video music to be synonymous with MTV, so we knew we needed an awards show. And then we tried to figure out how to do one and how to afford it.”
After bringing in NBC producer Don Ohlmeyer, the VMAs became something that would go beyond cable. “In fact, the first Video Music Awards show was on MTV and simulcast on the Metromedia television stations because we needed that to reach the audience for the advertisers,” Pittman said.
When looking for presenters for the first VMAs, the band looked outside the music world for ways to engage the audience.
“The first year we had Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler,” Pittman said. “Bette was hot at the moment, and so was Dan… Somehow we got them both to agree. And they worked so hard. They both worked on the script together, so to speak.”
Then they had to design the iconic trophy – the Moon Man, who is now a Moon Person.
“We said it had to be heavy. And when people hold it, it had to feel heavy,” Pittman said. “The man on the moon was connected to the imagery of MTV… We put the man on the moon and changed the American flag to the MTV flag.”
When that first show aired on September 14, 1984, then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch opened the event and renamed Radio City “Video City Music Hall” for the evening. Presenters included Cyndi Lauper – who led the nominees with nine – Billy Idol, Roger Daltrey, Hall & Oates, Rolling Stone’s Ronnie Wood and jazz fusionist Herbie Hancock, who topped the winners list with five awards for “Rockit.” But it was the Cars who won the first Video of the Year Moonman award for “You Might Think.”
The biggest winner of the evening, however, was the future Queen of Pop – Madonna – who writhed across the stage in a white wedding dress as she performed her classic “Like a Virgin”.
“Madonna was a new artist, kind of an unknown,” Pittman said of the rising star, who was nominated for best new artist in a video for “Borderline.” “And I remember … Don said, ‘Who is that?'”
But when Madonna tossed the three-tiered wedding cake down, it was a moment that would go down in MTV history – and made the VMAs must-see television.
“Madonna knew how to shock, and she knew the moment,” Pittman said. “You know, there are people who just have a feel for it. She was one of them.”
