NEW YORK—In a video from late 1984 that was circulating online Friday and could severely damage his bid for the presidency, Bernie Sanders can be heard openly questioning whether Madonna was likely to succeed in the transition from making records to acting in major motion pictures. “Look, she’s an undeniable pop sensation with a promising string of top-20 hits to her credit, but let me tell you something: There’s no guarantee that kind of talent is going to translate to the silver screen,” Sanders, then mayor of Burlington, VT, says in a local public-access broadcast in which he clearly exhibits short-sightedness in his failure to anticipate the undeniable success the Material Girl would achieve in box-office smashes such as A League Of Their Own and Evita. “Madonna should stick to music. People love this Like A Virgin album, it’s a lot of fun to dance to, and she needs to build on its success. Taking time away from that to focus on what are sure to be small, insubstantial roles in lackluster films? That’s career suicide.” Reminded by reporters that Madonna had won acclaim for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan just a few months after his videotaped remarks, a visibly angry Sanders argued that Rosanna Arquette had carried that entire film and anyone who said otherwise didn’t know “a goddamn thing” about acting.

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