Brooke Shields started her acting career quite early and is well known for her role in the 1978 film Pretty Baby, featuring Keith Carradine and Susan Sarandon. Brooke, who is now 58 years old, spoke about her experience of having to kiss a grown man on set as an 11-year-old back then.
In the movie, Brooke played a girl raised in a brothel with her co-star Keith, who was 28 then. In one of the scenes, Brooke’s character had to kiss Keith, and looking back, Brooke wonders why her mother allowed her to play such a part. Brooke’s mother, Theresia ‘Teri’ Shields, was an actor as well as a model and socialite in those days.
She tried to defend her mother
Shield’s daughters, Rowan and Grier, have refused to watch the movie. “It’s child pornography! Would you have let us do that at the age of 11,” Rowan said. In her two-part documentary named after the ‘70s film, Brooke’s other family members said the same.
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In an interview with The Sunday Times, Brooke shared how difficult it was to explain their grandmother’s decision to them. “That was hard for me to not justify my mum to them. But when they asked, I thought ‘Oh God, I have to admit this,’” she said. “I mean, I could say, ‘Oh, it was the time back then,’ or ‘Oh, it was art.’ But I don’t know why she thought it was all right. I don’t know.”
Brooke was featured in another controversial role
After her role in Pretty Baby, Brooke landed another role at 14, involving lots of pornographic content. Even though a 32-year-old stunt coordinator did her nude scenes in Blue Lagoon, Brooke did many topless scenes with her hair glued to her chest.
In Brooke’s book, There Was a Little Girl, the actress further shed light on how her mother struggled with alcoholism and would often drop her at a neighbor’s house to go partying and, worse still, organized dates for Brooke with famous men. “Even though I understood her better than anybody else, I’m not sure I ever understood her fully,” she wrote about her mum, Teri, who died from a dementia-related illness at 79.