Brooke Christa Camille Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and former fashion model.

Biography

Career

Shields' career as a model began in the mid-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, "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins." 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.

Shields' 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 more nude scenes, but 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."

In 1984, she was Michael Jackson's date to the Grammy Awards and also dated him for a brief period.

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 (Mila Kunis)' mother who later was briefly involved with Donna's (Laura Prepon) father (Don Stark). Shields left That 70s Show when her character was written out.

Personal life

Shields was born in New York City into an aristocratic family (on her father's side); her father was the late Francis Alexander Shields and her mother is Teri Shields (born Maria Theresia Schmonn). Brooke's parents divorced when she was a small child. Her father remarried Diana Lippert, the former wife of Thomas Gore Auchincloss (half-brother of Gore Vidal and of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis).

Brooke has three half sisters: Marina Torlonia Shields (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 are Francis Xavier Shields, a tennis star of Irish descent, and Italian princess Donna Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, who was a sister of Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi, husband of the Infanta Beatriz of Spain (aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain). Their granddaughter, Sibilla Weiller (b. 1968), Brooke's cousin, married Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg (b. 1963), the youngest brother of Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, in 1994.

Through her Italian grandmother, Shields is a descendant of Lucrezia Borgia, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Honoré I of Monaco and Henry IV of France. Shields is "a 23rd generation descendant of Francesco I Gattilusio, the founder of the Lesbian Gattilusii dynasty," according to the monograph "The Lesbos Island Ancestors of Prince Rainier of Monaco, Dr. Otto von Habsburg, Brooke Shields, and the Marquis de Sade."[1]

When Shields was a young starlet in the 1980s, her romantic relationships were the subject of many tabloid articles. Among the celebrities she dated in her youth were Ted McGinley, who took her to her high school prom, Prince Albert II of Monaco and Michael Jackson, who took her as his date to the Grammy Awards. She was married from April 19, 1997 to April 9, 1999 to professional tennis player Andre Agassi. 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). Ironically, Shields' second child was born in the same hospital and on the same day and year when Katie Holmes and Shields-critic Tom Cruise had their first child.

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 fertilisation, 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. ^[1]

In May 2005 former co-star Tom Cruise, a Scientologist whose religion frowns on psychiatry, excoriated Shields for both using and speaking in favor of the antidepressant drug Paxil. Cruise also 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 (perhaps unknowingly) some of the more outlandish aspects of Scientology doctrine and teachings), "and let mothers decide the best way to treat postpartum depression." Shields responded to a further attack by Cruise in an essay published in The New York Times on July 1, 2005, in which she made a scientific and individual case for the medication. [1]

Filmography

Film

• Communion (1976)
• King of the Gypsies (1978)
• Pretty Baby (1978)
• An Almost Perfect Affair (1979) (Cameo)
• Tilt (1979)
• Just You and Me, Kid (1979)
• Wanda Nevada (1979)
• The Blue Lagoon (1980)
• Endless Love (1981)
• Sahara (1983)
• The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) (Cameo)
• Speed Zone! (1989) (Cameo)
• Brenda Starr (1989)
• Backstreet Dreams (1990)
• Running Wild (1992)
• Legends of the West (1992) (documentary)
• Freaked (1993)
• I Can Make You Love Me (1993)
• The Seventh Floor (1994)
• Freeway (1996)
• Scratch the Surface (1997) (documentary)
• Junket Whore (1998) (documentary)
• The Misadventures of Margaret (1998)
• The Weekend (1999)
• Black and White (1999)
• The Bachelor (1999)
• After Sex (2000)
• Massholes (2000) (Cameo)
• Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003) (documentary)
• Rent-a-Husband (2004)
• The Easter Egg Adventure (2005) (voice)
• The Outsider (2005) (documentary)
• Bob the Butler (2005)
• The Last Guy on Earth (2006) (post production)

Television

• After the Fall (1974)
• The Prince of Central Park (1977)
• Wet Gold (1984)
• The Diamond Trap (1988)
• I Can Make You Love Me (1993)
• An American Love (1994)
• Nothing Lasts Forever (1995) (miniseries)
• Suddenly Susan (1996 - 2000) (also producer)
• Friends (2000)
• The Almost Perfect Bank Robbery (1998)
• What Makes a Family (2001)
• Widows (2002) (miniseries)
• Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends (2003) (voice)
• Gone But Not Forgotten (2004) (miniseries)
• That 70's Show (2004)

Publication

• 1970's Movies
• 1980's Movies
• 1990's Movies
• Today Movies

External links

• Brooke Shields' Fansite
• Brooke Shields at the Internet Movie Database
• Brooke Shields at TV.com
• WebMD article on Shields and Postpartum Depression
• "Regarding Ardy": an online short film with Brooke Shields
• William Morris listing
• Brooke Shields' Official Website
• Photos and biographical profile
• Brooke Shields at NNDB
• Brooke Shields at Yahoo! Movies