BIOGRAPHY

Brooke Shields has worn many labels -- and not just those designer tags. She, at age 11 months, was the Most Beautiful Baby in America for Ivory Snow soap advertisements. By 12, she was a Top Model. At 14 she was a Promising Actress. Last year she was one of Playboy Magazine’s 100 Sexiest Stars of the Century (she was number 49). She’s up for a Worst Actress of the Century Razzie this year, but she’s a People’s Choice winner. Oh yes, and she’s a Princeton University grad, with a B.A. in Honours French Literature.

Shields made her film debut, after years of modelling, at the age of 12 with Alice Sweet Alice. She went on to King of the Gypsies (1978), “the best acting of her career” with Pretty Baby (1978), Wanda Nevada (1979), and stardom with The Blue Lagoon (1980). While Shields is not considered a natural actor, but she has “something” -- it’s more than just a pretty face that keep the roles coming her way non-stop. She was cast in Endless Love (1981), The Doctors (TV - 1982 -- her first TV role had been in The Prince of Central Park - 1977), Wet Gold (TV - 1984), Muppet movies (1984 and 1985), Brenda Starr (1986), Quantum Leap (TV - 1989), Tales From The Crypt (TV - 1989), Backstreet Dreams (1990), The Diamond Trap (TV - 1992), An American Love (1992), I Can Make You Love Me: The Stalking of Laura Black (TV - 1993 -- Shields has been dealing with her own frightening stalker since a teen), Freaked (1993), The Seventh Floor (1994), Running Wild (1994), Nothing Lasts Forever (1995), Freeway (1996), Friends (TV - 1996), The Almost Perfect Bank Robbery (TV - 1996), Scratch the Surface (1997), The Larry Sanders Show (1997), The Misadventures of Margaret (1998), Sahara (1998), Speed Zone (1998), and The Bachelor (1999). Those last few years of work, including many appearances as presenter and host of various events, were completed while Shields was starring in her own successful television sitcom, Suddenly Susan (1996). All that doesn’t leave much time for “real” life but the odd thing did crop up in the news. Off-camera Shields married tennis star Andre Agassi in 1997, divorcing him in 1999. She successfully sued a British tabloid for libel in 1998, and tactfully handled the death by suicide of Susan co-star, David Strickland, in 1999. Shields is author of two books, The Brooke Book and On Your Own. She has even taken to the stage, in a Broadway revival of Grease.

Coming up for the performer are the independent films After Sex and Black and White. She’s doing just fine, it seems, for a Worst Actress. So she’s not the most natural of actors. Some of the “somethings” she does have are charisma, highly photogenic beauty and driving ambition. It’s all working very well.