Denise Vlasis

At first glance, you'd swear it's Madonna. The cherry-red lipstick, the mole above the mouth, the crucifixes and the gold tassels are strategically in place. On stage, she tosses her bleached-blond hair, grinds her hips to the music and leans seductively into the microphone. She struts. She pouts. She rolls around on the floor. If she's Madonna, what's she doing here? Granted it's a worthy cause--a benefit sponsored by Spoons Grill & Bar for the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

At first glance, you'd swear it's Madonna. The cherry-red lipstick, the mole above the mouth, the crucifixes and the gold tassels are strategically in place. On stage, she tosses her bleached-blond hair, grinds her hips to the music and leans seductively into the microphone. She struts. She pouts. She rolls around on the floor. If she's Madonna, what's she doing here? Granted it's a worthy cause--a benefit sponsored by Spoons Grill & Bar for the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

Many swore that they have never been Madonna wanna-bes. But more than 250 hopefuls dressed like the sensational and sometimes foulmouthed pop singer and waited in line outside a Burbank casting agency Thursday for the opportunity of a lifetime: playing Madonna in a two-hour television movie about her early career. Several television and newspaper reporters were on hand at the casting call, giving the aspiring actresses a taste of what being a celebrity is all about.

"I like show business," Sandra Bernhard says. "Of all the worlds I dabble in, it's the most honest. In its harshness and phoniness, it's more real. You get what you see, and there are some good people in it." You have to watch out for someone who loves show business the way Sandra Bernhard loves it, crushing its iconic images to her scrawny breast like a homecoming queen clasping a devotional bouquet.