Brooke Shields

Christa Brooke Camille Shields (born May 31, 1965 in New York City, New York, USA) is an American actress. She achieved early fame as a child actress, and by her teens was one of the most photographed and recognized models in the world. She attended Princeton University from 1983 to 1987, graduating with a degree in French literature.

Shields' career started among much ballyhoo over her appearance in French director 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.

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 Congressional inquiry that older body doubles were used in some of them), and Endless Love (1981), both made near the beginning of her career.

Shields, who developed a strong sense of comic timing as her acting career advanced into adulthood, has played in a number of television productions, the most successful being the series Suddenly Susan.

She won the People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Young Performer in four consecutive years from 1981 to 1984 and more than a decade later she won again in the category of Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series in 1997.

Beginning with undergraduate appearances in the Princeton University Triangle Show, Shields has appeared in many on-stage productions, mostly musical revivals, including Grease and Wonderful Town on Broadway, the latter of which closed in 2005 to favorable reviews. That year she made her London stage debut in the musical Chicago.

She was married from 1997 to 1999 to professional tennis player, Andre Agassi. Since 2001 she has been married to Christopher Thomas Henchy: they are parents of one daughter, Rowan Francis, born in 2003.

In the spring of 2005, Brooke Shields spoke to magazines and appeared on Oprah to publicize her battle with post-partum depression, an experience that included depression, thoughts of suicide, disturbing thoughts, an inability to respond to her baby's needs, and delayed bonding. The illness may have been triggered by a traumatic labour and delivery, the death of Shields' father three weeks earlier, stress from IVF, a miscarriage, and a family history of depression, not to mention the hormones and life changes brought on by child birth. Her book, Down Came the Rain, discusses her experience. The title draws from the baby song "Itsy-Bitsy Spider".

In May 2005 former co-star Tom Cruise, a Scientologist whose religion maintains that vitamins can cure depression and many other illnesses, criticized Shields for using as well as speaking in favor of the 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?" At the time, Shields was starring in a London revival of the musical "Chicago" (and receiving rave reviews for her performance as Roxie Hart). Shields responded that Cruise's statements about anti-depressants were "irresponsible" and "dangerous." She said he should "stick to fighting aliens" (ostensibly a reference to Cruise's starring role in War of the Worlds, but also to Scientology doctrine and teachings), and let mothers decide the best way to treat post-partum depression.

It is widely reported that Shield's legs are insured by Lloyd's of London.

Contents

1 Family 2 Filmography 3 TV Work 4 External links

Family

Her parents are the late Francis Alexander Shields who married Brooke´s mother, Maria Theresia Schmonin, in 1964. Her paternal grandparents are Francis Xavier Shields, (a tennis star), and Italian princess Donna Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cessi, who was a sister of Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cessi, the husband of the Spanish Infanta Beatrix of Bourbon-Battenberg (aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain). Through her Italian-American grandmother, Brooke Shields is a descendant of Henri IV, King of France, the Emperor Charles V, Lucrezia Borgia, and Honore I, Prince of Monaco. Her great-grandmother, Elsie Moore, was a sister of Glenn Close's grandfather. Shields is "a 23rd generation descendant of Francesco I Gattilusio, the founder of the Lesbian Gattilusii dynasty," according to William Addams Reitwiesner's monograph, The Lesbian Ancestors of Prince Rainier of Monaco, Dr. Otto von Habsburg, Brooke Shields, and the Marquis de Sade. [1] (http://members.aol.com/eurostamm/lesbian.html)

Filmography

• 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)
• 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) (currently completed filming)

TV Work

• 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)
• The Almost Perfect Bank Robbery (1998)
• What Makes a Family (2001)
• Widows (2002) (miniseries)
• Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids (2003) (voice)
• Gone But Not Forgotten (2004) (miniseries)

External links

• Template:Imdb name
• WebMD article on Shields and Postpartum Depression (http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/104/107292.htm?pagenumber=1)
• "Regarding Ardy": an online short film with Brooke Shields (http://www.thelonelyisland.com/episodes.html)de:Brooke Shields

nl:Brooke Shields sv:Brooke Shields