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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.
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