Beyonce Knowles was born on September 4
Brooke Shields was born on May 31, 1965 in New York.
Despite her efforts to be taken seriously as an actress, Brooke has been unable
to escape her youth, during which time she found herself in the precarious
position of simultaneously being idolized as a late '70s icon of adolescent
wholesome virginal innocence and being constantly photographed in manners
verging on the mildly pornographic. Brooke's early career was managed and pushed
by her mother, who placed her daughter in front of the camera before she was
even one. As the Ivory Snow baby, Shields was once hailed the "most beautiful
baby in America".
Brooke made her feature film debut in "Alice Sweet Alice" (1976), but did not
become a bonafide star until French director Louis Malle cast her as a
12-year-old New Orleans prostitute who becomes the romantic obsession of a much
older painter in "Pretty Baby" (1978). The film was released amidst great
controversy because of the scenes in which Brooke, or a body double representing
her, appeared nude. But while she did participate in some adult scenes, those
moments were handled with taste and discretion by Malle and his cinematographer
Sven Nyquist and the general consensus that Shields was not exploited in the
film.
Through her teens, Brooke was among the world's top fashion models and her
countenance was everywhere. Controversy again stirred when she did some
provocative ads for Calvin Kline in which she was seen wearing a too tight pair
of jeans and cooed, "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins." This was in
contrast to her other ads in which she advised young girls to abstain from sex
and a different campaign against smoking. At the peak of her fame, Brooke
appeared three times on the cover of Life Magazine and once on the cover of
Time. Her film career picked up around this time with appearances in such
vetoplesss as "King of the Gypsies" (1978) and "Wanda Nevada" (1979), but her
best known film is the so-bad-it's-good "The Blue Lagoon" (1980) in which she
and Christopher Atkins find themselves shipwrecked for years on a desert island.
In 1981, Brooke tried her hand with a more serious role in Franco Zeffirelli's
tepid teen romance "Endless Love", but did not succeed. Brooke decided it was
time for college and so enrolled in Princeton, where but for the occasional
appearance on a Bob Hope television special, made for TV movie or other special
event, she immersed herself in college life. While there, she majored in French
Literature and also became interested in the theater, gaining experience in two
regional productions of "Love Letters". Brooke graduated from Princeton with
honors. Upon her graduation, she returned to acting full-time and appearing in
films that can most kindly be described as mediocre.
In 1996, Brooke Shields was given her own situation comedy on the ABC network,
"Suddenly Susan". Playing a single career girl struggling to reassemble her life
following her break-up with her wealthy fiance.
Misspellings & aliases:
Brouke, Brook, Bruke, Broke, Brouk, Brokk, Brock, Broock, Sheelds, Shilds,
Shiels, Shills, Shiells, Sheilds, Sheels.
