Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields Biography
Shields' career as a model began in the late 1960s as an infant, and she continued as a successful child model throughout the 1970s. In early 1980 (at age 14), Shields was the youngest fashion model to ever appear on the cover of the top fashion publication Vogue magazine. Later that same year (at age 15), Shields appeared in controversial print and TV ads for Calvin Klein jeans. The TV ad included her saying the famous tagline, "Do you wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."


Through the connections of her manager mother, a former model, Brooke Shields landed her first professional modeling job before her first birthday when she was selected to pose for advertisements for Ivory Snow photographed by Francesco Scavullo. Within two years, the toddler was a pro on the runways as well and was later featured as a Breck girl and in Colgate commercials shot by Richard Avedon. With her thick eyebrows, sensual pouty lips, lustrous hair and bright eyes, Shields projected the image of a Lolita while off-screen she was a conservative Catholic girl. When Louis Malle tapped her for the title role of a child prostitute in "Pretty Baby" (1978), a drama loosely inspired by the life of photographer E.J. Bellocq, she became embroiled in controversy, partly over the overt sensuality of her role and partly for her somewhat innocent nude scenes (such as a shot of the actress emerging from a bathtub).

Shields attempted to demonstrate a more wholesome persona co-starring with George Burns in "Just You and Me, Kid" (1979) and featured appearances in numerous TV variety specials headlined by veteran comic Bob Hope. Yet she reverted to teen vamp for the 1980 remake of "The Blue Lagoon" and Franco Zefferelli's overwrought adaptation of "Endless Love" (1981).

By the time she enrolled at Princeton in 1983, Shields was considered more of a personality than an actress and the few movies she made during her college years (e.g., "Sahara" 1984; "Brenda Starr" filmed in 1986 but released in 1989) merely confirmed that opinion. (It also didn't help that her beauty and modeling work had landed her on the cover of TIME magazine as "the face of the 80s".) She was equally famous for a chapter in a 1984 book she penned ("On Your Own") in which she extolled the virtues of remaining a virgin.

By the age of 16, Shields had become one of the most recognizable faces in the world because of her dual career as a provocative fashion model and controversial child actress. TIME magazine reported, in its February 9, 1981 cover story, that her day rate as a model was $10,000. In 1983 Shields appeared on the cover of the September issue of Paris VOGUE, the October and November issues of American VOGUE and the December edition of Italian VOGUE.

Shields's film career began in 1978 with her appearance in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby, a movie in which she played a child living in a brothel (and in which there were numerous nude scenes). Because she was only 12 when the film was released, and possibly 11 when it was filmed, questions were raised about child pornography. This was followed by a slightly less controversial, but also less notable film, Wanda Nevada (1979).

After two decades of movies, her best-known films are still arguably The Blue Lagoon (1980), which included a number of nude scenes between teenage cousins on a deserted island (Shields later testified before a U.S. Congressional inquiry that older body doubles were used in some of them), and Endless Love (1981). She won the People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Young Performer in four consecutive years from 1981 to 1984.

Shields put her film career on hold to attend Princeton University from 1983 to 1987, graduating with a degree in French literature. Her senior thesis was titled "The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, Pretty Baby and Lacombe Lucien." It was here at Princeton where she spoke openly about her sexuality and virginity. During her tenure at Princeton, Shields was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club and the Cap and Gown Club.

Shields' career stalled at various times, and she has told interviewers that her height (6'0") prevented her from getting roles opposite shorter male actors.

Shields has appeared in a number of television shows, the most successful being the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, in which she starred from 1996 until 2000 and which earned her a People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series in 1997.

Shields has appeared in many on-stage productions, mostly musical revivals, including Grease, Cabaret, Wonderful Town and Chicago on Broadway; she also performed in Chicago in London's West End.

Shields made a couple of guest appearances on That '70s Show. She played Mrs. Burkhart, Jackie's (Mila Kunis) mother, who later was briefly involved with Donna's (Laura Prepon) father (played by Don Stark). Shields left That '70s Show when her character was written out. Shields recorded the narration for the SONY/BMG recording of The Runaway Bunny, a Concerto for Violin, Orchestra, and Reader by Glen Roven. It was performed by the Royal Philharmonic and Ittai Shapira.

As the 1990s rolled around, Shields worked hard to dispel those images. She effectively portrayed a stalking victim in the 1993 CBS movie "I Can Make You Love Me: The Stalking of Laura Black" and surprised many with her Broadway musical debut as bad girl Betty Rizzo in a revival of "Grease" in 1995. A well-received guest turn as a rabid soap opera fan on a two-part episode of "Friends" awoke many to her capabilities as a light comedienne and Shields soon was fielding offers for sitcoms. She opted to portray a San Franciscan journalist coping as a single woman in the NBC series "Suddenly Susan" (1996-2000). While the sitcom had a promising beginning, it quickly deteriorated into banality becoming the butt of jokes and critical derision.

The actress was unstoppable, though, and during each hiatus squeezed in at least one feature. Shields offered a nice turn as a snooty socialite at first willing to marry Chris O'Donnell until she learns of the terms in "The Bachelor" (1999). She also offered a strong turn as a documentary filmmaker following a group of white urban kids enthralled by hip-hop culture in James Toback's messy and uneven "Black and White" (also 1999).

In "The Weekend" (filmed in 1998 but released in 2000), she was cast as a daughter who constantly disappoints her critical mother (Gena Rowlands) while the 2001 Lifetime TV movie "What Makes a Family" offered her a juicy role as a lesbian single parent. Shields was next seen in a pair of miniseries: "Widows" (ABC, 2002) as the low-rent actress Shirley, one of the widows of three men killed while trying to steal a famous painting who join forces to find their husband's killers and finish off the job of stealing the painting; and "Gone But Not Forgotten" (2004), as a female lawyer who defends a mogul accused of being a serial killer. She also enjoyed a recurring role as the vain Pamela Burkhart, mother of Mila Kunis' character Jackie on the popular Fox sitcom "That 70s Show" beginning in 2004.

In 2005, Shields released her memoir Down Came the Rain, which chronicled her struggles with post-partum depression, including becoming dependant on anti-depressant Paxil, following the birth of her daughter Rowan in 2003. The sparked an odd public war of words with her one-time "Endless Love" costar Tom Cruise, who in an interview with "Access Hollywood" denounced Shields' use of medication--in line with the teachings of the Church of Scientology, he suggested that "vitamins" would have been a sufficient cure--and took a swipe at the state of her career. Shields fired back, calling his comments "dangerous" and suggested that people shouldn't take advice from someone who devotes his life to a worship of aliens.

The actress also had a string of successful stints on stage, beginning with her off-Broadway debut performance as Suzanne in "The Eden Cinema" in 1986. Later in her career, she wowed skeptical crticis with her replacement stint as Rizzo in the revival of "Grease" in 1995. Following a 2001 Los Angeles performance in the "Vagina Monologues" Shields was tapped to play Sally Bowls in "Cabaret" with Broadway's Roundabout Theatre Company that same year. In 2003 Shields appeared, while pregnant, in the off-Broadway production of "The Exonerated", a piece based on interviews with death row inmates. She next starred as Ruth Sherwood in the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of "Wonderful Town" at the Martin Beck Theatre in 2004 and made her London stage debut playing Roxie Hart in the West End production of "Chicago" in 2005, then returning to Broadway in the same later that year.

Brooke Shields Personal life

Shields, whose middle name, Camille, is the name she adopted for her Confirmation at age 10, was born in New York City into a well-known American society family with links to Italian nobility. She was delivered by the New Jersey obstetrician, Dr. Frederick A. Small. Her father was Francis Alexander Shields, and her mother was Teri Shields (né Maria Theresia Schmonn). Shields' parents divorced when she was a child, and her father later married Diana Lippert Auchincloss, the former wife of Thomas Gore Auchincloss (a half-brother of Gore Vidal and a stepbrother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). The actress has three half-sisters: Marina (who married Thomas William Purcell), Olympia, and Christiana Shields. Also, she has two stepsiblings, Diana Luise Auchincloss and Thomas Gore Auchincloss Jr.

Her paternal grandparents were Francis Xavier Shields, a tennis star of Irish descent, and his second wife, Donna Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, a half-Italian, half-American socialite who was a sister of Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi, the husband of Infanta Beatriz of Spain (an aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain). Shields is a second cousin once removed of the actress Glenn Close. Shields's great-grandmother Mary Elsie Moore (wife of Don Marino Torlonia, 4th Prince di Civitella-Cesi) was Close's great-aunt, a sister of Close's maternal grandfather, Charles Arthur Moore.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Shields' romantic relationships were the subject of many tabloid articles. Among the celebrities she dated were Ted McGinley (her high school prom escort), Dean Cain (her Princeton roommate and the first man with whom she had sex, according to an article published by the Associated Press), John F. Kennedy Jr., Michael Bolton, Prince Albert II of Monaco, and Michael Jackson (his date to the 1984 Grammy Awards).

Shields was married from April 19, 1997, to April 9, 1999, to professional tennis player Andre Agassi; their marriage was annulled. Since April 4, 2001, she has been married to television writer Chris Henchy. They have two daughters: Rowan Francis (b. May 15, 2003) and Grier Hammond (b. April 18, 2006). Coincidentally, Shields' second child was born on the same day and in the same hospital as the first child of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, Suri.

Postpartum depression

In the spring of 2005, Shields spoke to magazines (such as the Guideposts shown here) and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to publicize her battle with postpartum depression, an experience that included depression, thoughts of suicide, an inability to respond to her baby's needs, and delayed maternal bonding. The illness may have been triggered by a traumatic childbirth, the death of her father three weeks earlier, stress from in vitro fertilization, a miscarriage, and a family history of depression, as well as the hormones and life changes brought on by childbirth. Her book, Down Came the Rain, discusses her experience.

In May 2005, Tom Cruise, a Scientologist whose religion frowns upon psychiatry, condemned Shields both personally and professionally, particularly for both using and speaking in favor of the antidepressant drug Paxil. As Cruise said, "Here is a woman, and I care about Brooke Shields because I think she is an incredibly talented woman, you look at and think, where has her career gone?" Shields responded that Cruise's statements about anti-depressants were "irresponsible" and "dangerous."

She said he should "stick to fighting aliens", (a reference to Cruise's starring role in War of the Worlds as well as some of the more exotic aspects of Scientology doctrine and teachings), "and let mothers decide the best way to treat postpartum depression." The actress responded to a further attack by Cruise in an essay War of Words published in The New York Times on July 1, 2005, in which she made an individual case for the medication and said, "In a strange way, it was comforting to me when my obstetrician told me that my feelings of extreme despair and my suicidal thoughts were directly tied to a biochemical shift in my body. Once we admit that postpartum is a serious medical condition, then the treatment becomes more available and socially acceptable.

With a doctor's care, I have since tapered off the medication, but without it, I wouldn't have become the loving parent I am today". On Thursday, August 31, 2006, according to USAToday.com, Cruise privately apologized to Shields for the incident, and Shields accepted, saying it was "heartfelt". Three months later, she and her husband attended the wedding of Cruise and Katie Holmes in November 2006.

Since writing her book, Shields has guest-starred on shows like FX's Nip/Tuck and CBS' Two and a Half Men.

Brooke Shields Photos

Brooke Shields in Black and White Movie

Brooke Shields in The Weekend Movie

Source: Yahoo! Movies, Wikipedia