All language subtitles for Pretty.Baby.Brooke.Shields.S01E01.720p.HULU.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV_track3_[eng]

-How do you feel about all this
fuss that´s being made over you?

-I think it´s kind of fun.

-Do you?
-Yeah.

You´re enjoying it?
-Oh, yeah. I love it.

-You really are
an exquisite-looking young lady.

I know
you´ve been told that,

but isn´t she a pretty --
pretty girl?

To have you
sitting here with me...

[ Applause ]

♫♫

♫♫

-I think the hardest thing
for me

was really knowing who I was.

The minute you say "icon,"

it´s this, like, sort of
reverse zoom,

and you get just detached
from everybody.

It just felt so arbitrary
and not merited.

♫♫

-Brooke is a nuclear version
of what it is like

to be judged by your appearance.

She´s literally an object
to hundreds of millions,

billions of people.

-The way people talked about her

and the perception of her

isn´t really about her
as an individual.

It´s just about women.

-Girls are always under pressure
to be a perfect object.

Perfection is having
a particular kind of body,

having your hair
in a particular style,

perfect makeup,
and perfect eyebrows.

If you´re the object
of someone else´s desire,

then where are your feelings
in all of that?

♫♫

♫♫

-I had this thing about
not looking in the mirror.

Don´t think about it.
Don´t focus on it.

Because I didn´t want to be
too much of anything.

I was just born with this face,

and so I didn´t want
to think about it.

I wanted to think about
the things that I could control,

things that could have happened
without beauty.

♫♫

♫♫

[ Crowd shouting ]

-Madonna!

-Madonna!
-Madonna!

-Straight ahead.
Right there. Beautiful.

[ Shouting continues ]

-There used to be
10 famous people.

Everybody knew them. Everybody
knew everything about them.

We all saw the same five movies
every year, and that was it.

That´s done.

Now there are
a million famous people

that you and I don´t even know.

-With Brooke, there were very
few contemporaries of hers,

because fewer people
were occupying these roles

in public life, and so they were
just much better known.

You just didn´t go anywhere

that somebody wouldn´t know
Brooke Shields.

-Brooke Shields --
she´s currently one

of the hottest commodities
in the world.

-How many magazine covers
have you been on?

Because there´s got to be...
-Gosh.

-...we´re talking hundreds,
aren´t we?

-Definitely.
I don´t even have a figure.

-She is the most photographed
woman in the world

with a face
that sells like no other.

-Brooke, right here, please.
Brooke?

-I thought she really was
the most beautiful woman

in the world --
an iconic American beauty.

-She sort of represented
a femininity of that time.

There was a sense of she was
the -- the woman of the future.

-The People´s Choice Awards
congratulates Brooke Shields.

-Watching her on TV or film,

it´s hard to separate her beauty
and her history

from who she is -- actually is.

-Would you welcome, please,
Miss Brooke Shields?

-Please welcome Brooke Shields.

-Brooke Shields.
-Brooke Shields.

-And that is the fun thing

about opening the curtain
of Brooke Shields.

She´s just --
she´s not at all what you think.

-Brooke?
-Brooke!

-Brooke, right here, please?
Brooke?

♫♫

-Mm!

Do you have to go out, pups?

Do you have to go outside?
Come here. Come here. Come here.

Huh?
You want to go outside?

You stay on the porch, though.

When I go give speeches
or do Q-- like, moderated talks

to hundreds
and hundreds of women

for whatever the seminar
or whatever the event is,

it´s amazing how personal --

personally attached
the people are

to me -- like in a...
-Yeah.

-You know, my professional life
is such a life force inside me

because it´s the only thing
I´ve ever known.

-...a superstar.
She´s an icon.

-You know, sometimes I´m amazed
that I survived any of it.

-What is it like to be famous
almost since birth --

say, from 11 months old on,

and then to be a movie star
at age 11 or 12?

-The unusual beauty
was noticed

from the time
she was born --

from the baby to the little girl
to glamorous woman.

And this is the little girl
behind all those faces --

Brooke Shields.

And this is the face behind
the face of Brooke Shields --

Teri Shields,
manager and mother.

-You can´t really describe
totally what a phenomenon is.

I think mainly it happens.

And Brooke happened.
She´s always been beautiful.

The day I brought her home
from the hospital,

I just knew she´d be a star.

A star!

♫♫

-My mother --
she really believed

that I was
the most unique creature

she had ever laid eyes on,
and I was hers.

-What was her first job?
How did you decide

that she would be a model?
Did you put an ad in the paper?

Did you run around
with your 11-month-old baby

and say,
"Hey, look what I got!"

-No, no.
Francesco Scavullo was doing --

-Famous photographer.
-Yes.

He was doing
an Ivory soap ad.

She sat on the floor

and ripped a couple
of boxes of Ivory soap.

And that´s the way
it all began.

-My mom had this creature
who people were responding to

and they kept responding to.

You know, we would go
to great locations

and do pose number ten,

you know,
maybe pose number three.

-Brooke and I went
to school together

as very young children.

And I just remember
her giggling.

She was a bright,
outward-looking child.

We were raised
by single mothers,

who were financially hustling
to get it going.

My mother was a nurse.
Teri managed Brooke.

Teri also saw something
in Brooke that was --

she -- she just could see it.

And she was determined
to make it happen.

♫♫

-My mom wanted to be fabulous.

She wanted things bigger.

She was from Newark, New Jersey,
and she came over

to the New York side
and never looked back.

She got a job at Lord & Taylor
as a makeup artist,

having never gone beauty school
or anything.

Never went to college.
And she was a spitfire.

My dad fell in love
with this bombshell of a woman,

and I think she just zeroed in

like a heat-seeking missile
to this beautiful man --

jet-black hair, dapper dressing,
very conservative man.

And my dad went away for a while
to work.

He came back and saw her
out to here

and kind of just, in a way,
forced her to marry him.

-Suburbia is a woman´s world.

-My mom wasn´t going
to be any kind of a wife

that my dad anticipated
and envisioned,

and she just fought it.

She just divorced him
without even telling him.

I just sort of grew up
knowing them apart.

-To be on your own
as a mother in those days,

you had to be incredibly strong,

and Teri was a force of nature.

-With my mom,
we just had so much fun.

There was this, like,
bohemian existence.

Then I go to my dad´s,

where it was, like, tradition,
tradition, tradition.

Dinner at 6:00 every night.

Everything was routine
and regimented.

There´s not a lot of feeling
and emotion in it,

but it was great
because it was calm.

-♫ Doo-doo-doo ♫

-A cut heals better
when it´s kept covered.

As long as your child
has a scab on her cut,

she needs a Band-Aid
brand adhesive bandage.

-I did a Band-Aid commercial.

I did hair-shampoo commercials,

where I had to run around
in a circle,

and they put a rope
around my midriff

so that they could just keep me

at the right distance
from the camera.

By the end of the day,
I had, like,

rope burns around my stomach.

My blouses don´t cling anymore.

Our towels smell cleaner
and fresher.

My dress is much softer now.

-Discover the Bounce touch.

-The sort of whispers
around the school of, like,

"She´s gone to California."

Third grade, fourth graders,
like -- like, "Where´d she go?"

And I would remember seeing
the ad campaigns come in --

like, opening the paper
and seeing her face.

And it was hard to comprehend.

I just always remember thinking,
like, "I hope she´s okay."

-She was a young girl
in an all-adult world.

-For many decades,

modeling was one
of the very few ways

that a woman
could make a lot of money.

And certainly, from
the beginning of advertising,

the ideal female body type
was curvy, often voluptuous.

-As late as the mid ´60s,

Hollywood was still working off
of a sexual idea

based on Marilyn Monroe --

a bombshell,
an exaggerated sexuality.

But that was still
an adult sexuality.

-Women who epitomized ideal
sexuality

were grown women.

They were at least in their 20s,

and they had voluptuous
women´s bodies.

Marilyn Monroe --
I think she was, what,

a size 14 or something
like that?

Sophia Loren,
Ava Gardner --

they were grown women,
and they were not children

when they were presented
as sexual ideals.

-A new movement for women´s
liberation is launched.

And once again,
protesters take to the street

to support their demands
for total freedom.

-We see Roe v. Wade.

We see sexual-harassment laws
come into being.

We see second-wave feminism.

-This revolution -- and it is
a revolution, not a reform --

is about humanizing both roles,
not exchanging.

-One of the responses
of the dominant culture

to the rise of feminism

was the sexualization
of little girls.

It´s almost as if
we´re told, "Okay,

you´re not gonna be
´traditionally feminine,´"

which traditionally meant

powerless,
submissive, dependent,

"we´ll replace you
with little girls."

-She´s got a beautiful face.

She has beautiful hair, eyes,
nose, mouth, a beautiful body.

I mean, she´s incredible.

-The modeling work that Brooke
did started very cute.

She looks very innocent,
looks very sweet.

Then everything changed.

You can see the shift in how
she is being presented to us.

She´s wearing fewer clothes.

The posing has changed.

The mood
was shifting dramatically.

-And when you put a child
in a very sexualized position,

it sets off these attitudes
that little girls are seductive,

that they´re
deliberately provocative,

that they´re somehow going along
with all of this.

-I didn´t feel uncomfortable.
Nor did I feel embarrassed.

You know, as a model, your body
is just to be dressed

and put out there,
so I didn´t have that awareness

of my budding puberty --
do you know? --

´cause I was years away
from any of that.

-The matter of women and girls

sort of displaying sexuality
is really tricky.

We want girls and women
to have agency.

But the perception of how
that agency affects ourselves

and how it affects the culture
is not the same thing,

especially when
you´re dealing with minors.

It´s not a fair game.

-I think Brooke´s sort of like
a work of art,

and like
any beautiful painting,

I think the world should
enjoy Brooke and view her.

And you yourself have said,
and I quote,

"Ever since
Brooke was a baby,

she´s been encouraged
to be sensual."

So can´t someone say to you
that you are exploiting

the sensuality of a child?

-Well, if that´s all
I was doing, probably yes.

But that´s not all I´m doing
with Brooke

or what Brooke is doing.

Did you hurt your back?
-What am I doing wrong?

-Concentrate on reaching
the other end of the pool.

-"Stage Mother" was
her label very early on,

and at auditions, you´d hear
the stage mothers go,

"I´ll buy you a bike. I´ll buy
your bike if you go in there."

And the kids are going, "I don´t
want to go. I don´t want to go."

"Get in there! I´ll get you --
I´ll get you a bike."

And it was like
this desperation,

and she just never --
she never had that, you know?

She just had this faith that
it was going to work out for us.

My mom was always the mom
that was like,

"Do you not want
to do anything today?

Let´s take the phone off
the hook

and let´s go to the park."

There was not a semblance
of a career plan.

Our plan was,
"Oh, we got that job?

We can get a car."

"Oh, we get this job,

we don´t have to live in our
little apartment anymore."

-Brooke knew that money
didn´t come easily.

So you were always kind of
looking for the next job.

-I was the main breadwinner.

We both used the system
to get a better life.

-Do you want
to be a star?

-I think so.

-You do? What do you imagine
it´s gonna be like?

-I don´t know.
I´m not really sure. I just --

-Why do you want to be a star?
-´Cause I love acting,

and I love
other people´s acting.

And I-I´d like to, like --
I´d like to have people like me

like I like other actresses
and actors.

Since I was a little kid,

everything revolved around
getting lost in movies.

All I ever wanted to be
was an actress.

My mom and I --
we´d go to the movies,

two and three movies
a night sometimes.

And it was just....
[gasps]

[ Electronic whirring ]

"I can be that person,
and I can be that person.

And I can do that.
I can feel it."

My mom took me to art films
all the time.

We were seeing Fellini,
and we were seeing "Amarcord."

Come on.
Boobs in the guy´s face?

There was no prudishness.

It was, "This is the tableau
that we´re painting."

And I happened to have been
young, but I wasn´t clueless.

-Brooke was already starting to
get a reputation

for being
a sexualized child model.

But when Louis Malle decided
to cast her in "Pretty Baby,"

that image really blew up.

-Do you have
any misgivings

about her appearing
in "Pretty Baby"?

-No, not at all.
We discussed it prior to,

of course,
meeting with Louis Malle,

and Louis Malle
promised Brooke from his heart

that he would be very sensitive
to her as far as the scenes.

-Louis Malle was
a French filmmaker.

He had already made
quite a few films in France

that were very well known
internationally,

including "Zazie in the Metro"
and "Elevator to the Gallows."

He wanted to make his first
feature film in America.

-I´ve been trying for years

to make a film in New Orleans.

I fell upon this book
"Storyville, New Orleans,"

which is about
the red-light district.

-Louis talked about
the subject matter.

I was 11 years old,

and I may have not known
all of the nuance,

but it was
a real artistic endeavor.

-I knew from the beginning,

even before the script
was finished,

that to find the right girl
was absolutely essential.

If she was wrong,
the whole picture was wrong.

And one day I saw a photograph
of Brooke Shields in a book.

And, you know,
she´s so incredibly beautiful

and -- and so poised.

-Perhaps we could make another
one now. Would you like to?

-Yeah, why not?

-"Pretty Baby" is set in early
1900´s New Orleans in a brothel,

and an adult sex worker,
played by Susan Sarandon,

is raising her young daughter,

played by Brooke Shields.
-Do you think I´m pretty?

-And she ends up kind of finding
a caretaker...

-Don´t you like me?
-...through this photographer

played by Keith Carradine.

But it´s not an entirely
sexless, paternal relationship.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

♫♫

-A virgin -- bona fide.

-How old is she?

-Do you want to put me in jail?
[ Laughter ]

She´s just old enough.

-Is "Pretty Baby" a critique

of the sexualization
of young girls?

Or is it intentionally
ambiguous?

-I´ll bid $100.
-Yeah!

-Louis Malle does not tell you
exactly how to feel about it

and could force you to treat it
almost like a Rorschach test

and come to
your own conclusions.

-$400.

-Jesus Christ.
Who is he, Rockefeller?

-Sold to the man
with $400 cash.

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Band plays ]

-I think one thing
that the writer, Polly Platt,

was trying to do with the script
was exaggerate something

that she saw in real life

as a way of making a critique
of 1970´s Hollywood.

-Being attractive,
being pleasing is part

of what girls and women learn.

-I´m glad it´s you.

-Ultimately, that´s what Brooke
was having to communicate.

-Well...you look nice,
and you have a nice chest.

I can feel the steam inside me
right through my dress.

-I wanted to make
everybody happy

with the job that I was doing.

When it came to acting,
no one helped me.

I was there to say these lines,

to do it without any education
about how to do it.

That´s what Louis wanted.

We had a first-kiss scene.

I had never kissed
anybody before.

I felt, "Oh, my God, I´m
supposed to know how to do this,

but I don´t know
how to do this."

Every time Keith tried
to do the kiss,

I would scrunch my face up,
and Louis got upset with me.

"Don´t do that with your face.
Don´t! What is this? Mm!"

And then Keith was the one

who asked to just have a word
with me and said to me, "Hey."

He said, "You know what?
This doesn´t count."

"It´s pretend.
This is all make believe."

-I´ve been on those sets.

People are having fun.
You´re filming it. It´s art.

You don´t really think
about it until later.

There is an aftermath that then
cycles in your head

of, like, "Was that okay?"

-I would argue she wasn´t
conscious of what was wrong,

but had a feeling that something
was not good, was off.

-They say that, on the set,
you felt very uncomfortable

during all this.
Is that true?

-Well, I mean, I knew it was
gonna be done in good taste,

so, I mean, you know,
if you, like,

think about the whole thing, it
might be a little uncomfortable.

But I knew that
it was gonna be in good taste

and it wasn´t
any porno movie,

and so I didn´t feel
so bad about it.

I think I learned
how to compartmentalize

at such an early age,

and it was a --
you know, a survival technique.

You know, that´s not my life.
That´s not who I am.

-You´re in a job
that requires you

to put all your boundaries down
for the sake of art,

And then you´re also
living a public life,

which requires acceptance
of no boundaries.

♫♫

-Brooke Shields...

[ Speaking French ]

[ Crowd shouting ]

-The minute we landed there,
it was a mosh pit.

It was insane.

All of a sudden,
you are just everywhere,

and everybody
has something to say,

and it´s not all positive.

-[ Speaking French ]

-If you´re a famous girl,
you get one shot.

You come on the scene,
and whoever you are

and however you are,
that´s who you are.

It´s really hard
to change the narrative.

-From that moment on,

I was no longer
just a model who was an actress.

I became a focal point for
so many things -- good and bad.

-Do you understand, Brooke,
how parents feel

about the kind of attention
that you´re getting?

-I did it just as another job,
and I didn´t -- you know,

I didn´t take it seriously,
like I was gonna grow up

to be a prostitute
or anything.

There is nothing
in my mind that had any idea

that I would become the subject

of so much controversy,
conversation, vitriol.

-Some people labeled
it "kiddie porn."

-I could never understand how a
mother would allow her daughter

to play such a role
just for the money.

-Did you see the film?

-No, and I will never see
a film like that.

-Her mother got a lot of flack,
you know,

around how she managed her

and did she abuse her
by putting her out here.

-At the same time,

to hold just the parents
accountable

is a whitewash
of what is actually happening --

of what is happening
systemically.

-Since we live in
a fairly misogynistic society,

there´s a lot of scrutiny
and criticism

of the mother-daughter
relationship.

The male director
is celebrated.

-Many critics have hailed
"Pretty Baby" for its beauty

and for its sensitivity
and intelligence.

-On the other hand,

the mother is blamed
and castigated.

-Why would you
allow your daughter

to portray a prostitute
in a movie?

Was that a big decision for you?
-No, it wasn´t at all.

In fact, I looked at it
with the artistic value in mind.

It was
a very difficult role,

and I don´t think any other
child in the limelight today

could have played it
as well as Brooke.

-You couldn´t make
a "Pretty Baby" now,

you couldn´t make
a "Blue Lagoon,"

you couldn´t make
an "Endless Love."

-You couldn´t make
any of the films you made now.

You couldn´t make them.
-I know.

-It would be soft porn,
exploitation.

-My mom´s big complaint

was that I was working
14, 16 hour days,

wasn´t having
any tutor time,

so that was the stuff
that she put her foot down,

protected me on,
where she didn´t even bat an eye

for the other stuff --
for the sexuality stuff.

-It has to be done
in an artistic way.

-She was always there,
controlling everything

behind the scenes,
but she didn´t hover.

She didn´t go on the set with me
all the time.

-...like the Polaroid.

-You know, and my mom
was happy with that,

because she could go
to the bar and drink.

I mean....
[ Laughs ]

-Let me ask you, Brooke --

here´s a hard question
about your mother.

And it´s described
in this magazine as,

"A broad, open-faced woman
with manners to match.

Her face bears the marks
of the heavy drinker --

the drained look, the rough
skin, the sunken eyes."

Is that a fair description
of your mother as you know her?

-I don´t think so.
Well, because, you know,

as far as the dry skin
and the -- you know, her eyes,

well, she has
terrible allergies.

And that´s what causes her skin
to be the way it is.

And she is very --
she is outspoken,

and she says what she feels.
[ Chuckles ]

She´s my mama.
-Oh, she is your mom.

Why do you love her so much?
Why do you love your mother?

-Well, ´cause it´s just
been both of us.

You know what I mean?
It´s just been myself --

The two of you.
Just the two of us.

-There´s nobody else.
-I mean...

-Teri was an alcoholic.

So from a young age,
Brooke had a maturity to her

because she had to kind of
be aware of what was going on

and defend her mother if need be

and take care of her mother
if need be.

-My mom had a very,
very tough childhood.

She loved her father so much
and lost him when she was 9.

She had a very angry,
lonely, sad mom.

She was just never kind
to my mom.

It´s just a different generation
of emotions,

and she just had so much

that she aspired to
and wanted to -- to feel.

I don´t think I ever
knew her not drinking.

I just started knowing
there was my mom in the morning

and then was my mom
after school.

And then she was just hurt
and sort of, you know,

sloppy or angry or crude.

There was a pattern to it.

-With Teri, she was fun --
so much fun,

and then there´d be a moment
where you´re like, "Uh-oh,"

You as a kid got a sense like
maybe it was --

there was something going on.

-When Teri was sober,
she was raucous and fun

and loud and big
and took up space.

And when she was not
in a good way,

it was -- it was duck and cover.

-You know, I remember
kind of going, "Okay, you know,

she´s not in the house.
I came home with a friend.

She´s not in the house.
Where is she?"

-I would follow her lead.

She would know what to do,
how to do it,

how to protect herself,
what room to go into,

what doors to lock.

And -- And we could both hear --
like, the keys would rattle.

We would go to a room.
We would make sure we were safe.

Teri would come home very drunk,

and -- and then we would wait
until it got quiet.

And then we´d come out.

-I felt such a responsibility

to keep her alive.

My very life depended on it.

So I thought, you know, you just
keep the -- you keep the peace.

You keep them happy and accept
the apology in the morning

and go, "I know that that´s true
´cause she really does love me.

I know that. I know that."

-There is a pact.

You want to protect
the people you love,

even if they´re deeply flawed
and damaged and damaging.

[ Beeping ]
-Quiet, please!

-Camera mark.

Take three.

-Being on a movie set
was the safest place

that I could be, emotionally.

I craved the routine of a job

because there were
other people around,

I could lose myself in it,

and I only had to be
responsible for myself.

-3,200 miles from the heart
of Hollywood

lies the Fiji Archipelago --
300 islands of white beaches,

lava cliffs,
some jungle foliage.

A motion picture company
has come here to recreate

Henry De Vere Stacpoole´s
classic adventure story,

"The Blue Lagoon."

-I was 15
when we shot "Blue Lagoon,"

and I was on an island
for four months.

I got to live in this fantasy,

so I got to set up
my little hut.

And I was just like, "This is
the coolest thing in the world."

-The surprise blockbuster movie
of the year

is "Blue Lagoon,"

in which a 15-year-old
Brooke Shields

learns all about
life´s little mysteries.

While millions of
impressionable teenagers

and oftentimes startled adults
looked on fascinated.

-"Blue Lagoon"
was one of the first movies

that parents
let their children see

that had to do
with coming of age,

loss of virginity, sexuality
in that way.

-There are some things
you have to see

in order to be
a functional conversationalist.

And "Blue Lagoon"
was one of those.

-I thought it was
the greatest movie.

Me and all my friends would get
pictures of "Blue Lagoon,"

like, on our notebooks.

-There were wonderful
fantasies for teenagers.

You know, you´re on an island

and falling in love
for the first time.

-Promise you´ll always
be with me.

-I promise.

-[ Sobs ]

I´ve seen it four times,
and I love it.

-It was unrealistic.

I mean, I liked it ´cause
I have a lively imagination.

-It teaches a lot of things.

-"The Blue Lagoon"
is almost like Adam and Eve.

Brooke Shields is both innocent
and treacherous.

-Kiss me.

-You´re all sticky.

-So what? Kiss me.

-[ Chuckles ]
Stop! I can´t breathe!

-But I don´t want to stop.

[ Laughs ]

-Aah!
What are you doing?

-The director, Randall Kleiser,
told a newspaper, "It´s real."

She´s going from a child
to a woman during the filming.

-They wanted to make it
a reality show.

They wanted to sell
my actual sexual awakening.

-The audience could engage in
erotic fantasies

about somebody
who´s way underage.

They could not recognize
the transgression

while they experienced it
at the same time.

-I feel so funny
in my stomach.

[ Breathing heavily ]

-Me too.

The irony was,
I wasn´t in touch

with any of my own sexuality.

I was raised Catholic.

With sex,
they sort of taught me,

"Wait till you´re married.
You wait until you´re married."

And it was put into my brain.

I had a lot of shame
around all of it.

My dad always tried to pretend

that I didn´t do any of
the things that I had done.

He just buried his head.

I don´t know if he ever saw
one of my movies.

-I don´t remember
any controversy

because we just -- we didn´t
talk about it in our house.

And I don´t know why.

I think -- you know, I never
even asked my stepfather why.

-Well, Diana, um, there´s been
a lot of controversy

about, um, you being
Brooke Shields´ sister.

Tell me, um
what is she really like?

-I couldn´t tell you.

-"Pretty Baby" was kind of the
first movie she was known for.

Maybe he just was
turned off by that?

I think he just
didn´t like show business.

-What is her --
what are her hobbies?

-But he adored her.

He just thought she had, like,
the best sense of humor.

-I have a daughter
that everybody just says,

"You look just like
Brooke Shields."

[ Laughter ]

And, um, you know,

it´s the eyebrows, I think --
the eyes, yes.

-With Brooke and Teri,

they were, you know,
it was just the two of them.

So she was treated
very much like an adult.

-With my mom,
there was this overtness

of talking about things
and being brash,

but not teaching me
or telling me it´s okay

or telling me it didn´t
make me tainted in some way.

-You know, we´ve talked
about this image

that is portrayed
of Brooke Shields --

a sensuous, sexy,
woman-child image,

and yet in your real
personal life,

you don´t have that much freedom
to just run around

and do what you want to do.
You don´t date alone yet.

-Well, just like a regular kid,
I don´t really.

-Mm-hmm.
-I do every once in a while.

-Well, it´s gonna be tough
for me to walk away from here

thinking of you
as just a regular kid.

I´m telling you.
[ Laughter ]

-When I was a child...

[ Sighs ]

...I thought as a child...

...I spoke as a child...

I understood as a child.

But now I´ve put away
childish things,

and I´m ready for Calvins.

♫♫

-Calvin Klein jeans.

-I think I was 16.

Richard Avedon was doing this
campaign, and Calvin wanted me.

...to make jeans.

They had said,
"We´re gonna do a series

of cinematic commercials.

It´s going to be a play
on what a jean is."

The secret of life lies hidden
in the genetic code.

Genes are fundamental
in determining

the characteristics
of an individual

and passing on
these characteristics

to succeeding generations.

Occasionally, certain conditions

produce a structural change
in the gene,

which will bring about
the process of evolution.

This may occur in one
or more of the following ways.

Firstly, by selective mating

in which a single gene
proves superior

and transmitting its genes
to future generations.

Secondly, by gene drift in which
certain genes may fade away

while other genes persist.

And finally,
by natural selection,

which filters out those genes
better equipped

than others to endure
in the environment.

This may result in the origin
of an entirely new species.

Which brings us to Calvins
and the survival of the fittest.

-Calvin Klein jeans.

-I jumped at the chance
because it was acting.

[ Harmonica plays ]

It was just an exercise
in memorization,

in literary reference,
and I had to be smart to do it.

♫ Many a heart is aching... ♫

-When it came out,
it was very shocking

because she´s so young,
because it´s so overtly sexual,

and also because of the way
that the camera

lovingly caresses her body.

-There was nothing in me
that ever had the idea

that it was sexual.

Like, I mean,
that´s slightly naive.

-Does it surprise you,

given the nature
of the commercials,

that a lot of people
would see you as a sex kitten?

-No, ´cause people see me
in all different lights.

They see me --
really, however a person

wants to see another person,
they can see them that way.

-Some say these commercials
have brought the selling of sex

out of the porno houses
and into our living rooms.

-[ Whistling
"Oh, My Darling Clementine" ]

♫♫

♫♫

You want to know what comes
between me and my Calvins?

Nothing.

-This has to do with
power relationships

and power imbalances.

Child molestation
is on the increase.

Pornographic images are
filtering into the mainstream

and thereby legitimizing
this kind of thing.

-♫ The people are marching... ♫

-Calvin Klein is more than just
a successful fashion designer.

Some feminists say
his commercials are an outrage,

their seductive, soft sell,
just a masquerade for soft porn.

-I try to do -- to provoke.
I try to interest.

I try to excite people.
I don´t deny that.

And I will take chances with --
with advertising.

And I-I will maybe sometimes
step beyond

what is considered
to be good taste.

And maybe I -- maybe I do
stir up some trouble.

But -- But it works.

-No ambivalence
on your part

about using
very young teenagers.

-So I´m a bad boy.
What do you want?

-See...

-For Brooke, it was a job.

It was just fun.
It was posing.

-...miraculous transformation.

-You have to ask the adults
why they made the decision

to use a child to do that.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Klein seems unconcerned about
defending his commercials,

all the way to the bank.
[ Cash register dings ]

-Sales at many stores
shot up last month,

some by more than 30%.

-Those billboards were huge.

You couldn´t not see them.

We had to get the jeans

to be, like, seen as
a potentially interesting girl.

Those Calvin Klein ads
totally affected our wardrobes.

-My school wardrobe --
probably about $1,000.

-Maybe $2,000, maybe $3,000.

-More, probably.

-People became obsessed
with these jeans.

It was like
I was part of a movement.

-In just 90 days,

these ads boosted Calvin Klein
sales by 300%.

♫♫

[ Crowd shouting ]

-When I met Brooke,
she was doing this movie

that I wrote the song for,
and it wasn´t,

"Hi, Mr. Ritchie.
And, "Hi, Brooke."

It was, "Oh, my God, Lionel."
"Hi, Brooke."

We´ve known each other forever

based on the familiarity
of the television.

She would show up
on everybody´s television show

no matter who it was.
-Up, up, up, right!

-There´s Brooke.
Hi, Brooke.

Hey, there´s Brooke.
Hey, Brooke.

-Hi, I´m Brooke Shields.

[ Laughs ]

-If you don´t know
who Brooke Shields is,

you have been living somewhere
in a cave all by yourself.

-I heard you got your picture
on the cover of a magazine.

-Yes, uh-huh.

-She gets hundreds of letters
every week from teenagers.

-She is, of course,
the most celebrated teenager

in the country.

-The ´80s was like a rocket,

and there´s no class you can
take to prepare you for it.

-The People´s Choice
is Brooke Shields.

[ Applause ]

-I had so many covers of
"TV Guide" with Brooke Shields.

She was very much in my orbit
and my heart,

like, saying a wave
at a Studio 54

and see her
and, like, Baryshnikov

and Grace Jones.

Good times, man.

-What about Brooke Shields?
I mean, I see her everywhere.

-She was just being projected
into some other stratosphere.

-I was on the cover
of "Time" magazine

as the face of an entire era.

Who decides that? Like, I don´t
do anything to my eyebrows.

Why do my eyebrows
have to be a thing?

Like...really?

-I met Brooke Shields in 1986,

and she is so approachable
and warm.

We´d walk through the city.

People would yell at her, "Hey,
Brooke, what about those Mets?"

And she would go, "I thought
they were gonna win."

And strangely enough, that´s
a rare commodity in this world,

to not treat people like
they are less than you.

-Not too many people understand

the front-row experience
at the Grammys, at the Oscars.

I mean, she´s not only a friend,
but she´s a war partner.

It was fun, but it was taxing.

Stay right there. Don´t move.
Don´t you dare move.

-For the most part,
the fans themselves

were just more adoring
and sweet.

But there´s just a frenzy
that surrounds it.

People just want a little chunk
of you, you know?

And so it just became
that, sort of, I was the symbol.

-A symbol is something
which goes

over and above the real thing.

People have a sense
of deep connection

to the representations
around them.

That´s why celebrities
are used for endorsements.

-Check out the label.
It´s the Brooke look.

-´Cause if they touch something,

their magic comes off
on that thing.

-Brooke lookers and look-alikes

and look-to-be look-alikes,

straining at the stanchions
to look at the real thing.

-What´s the best part of Brooke?

Her eyes, her body.
She´s -- She´s perfect.

-As a public figure, you get
into this world of --

of other people´s madness
all the time.

You know, that´s a hard thing
for any public figure to manage.

But to be a young girl and be
managing it, it´s not easy.

-Gavin ran my security detail
for years and years and years

and was the first person to say,

"You know, that kid is gonna
need protection.

The crazies are going
to come out, you know?"

And he became my ultimate,
ultimate confidant, my brother.

-But if you´re Brooke,
every single person

you ever see
already has seen you,

every person your eyes
ever land on,

their eyes have already
landed on you,

and so people had a belief
that --

that Brooke belonged to them.

-♫ Brooke Shields,
she´s a beautiful doll ♫

-With the Brooke Shields
Glamour Center,

you can pretend to make her up
for a TV commercial,

then pretend
she´s on a magazine cover.

With play cosmetics, make
believe she´s a glamorous model

or a beautiful
16-year-old schoolgirl.

-Brooke Shields.
She´s a real living doll.

-When you first
saw the doll,

you almost disconnected
yourself from it.

-I did.
The minute I saw it,

there were a whole bunch
of little me´s.

There was --
it was it was very strange.

And then I just sort of forgot
that she was supposed to be me.

-If you´re perceived a certain
and branded a certain way,

you know,
then you become a product.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

-I didn´t revel
in that success in the ´80s.

I didn´t think,
"Oh, I´ve made it."

All of those things
that were sort of associated

with being these sexy personas

just didn´t feel like
who I really was.

You know, and my mom --
I didn´t blame my mom,

but I wish she had had
a little bit more, um...

"Oh, let´s see what this is
gonna mean,

and if -- and would this
come back to bite us?"

♫♫

-It´s not all glitter
at the top.

Right now, Brooke Shields
and her mother are involved

in a bitter lawsuit
trying to block the distribution

of nude photos taken of Brooke
when she was just 9 years old.

-Gary Gross was
a real friend of the family.

I remember going to his studio,
doing my homework in his studio,

doing catalog work.

I was 9, and he said,

"Listen, we´re doing this book
for Rizzoli.

It´s Playboy Press."

It was this dual look at young
girls in two different settings.

One was childlike, and the other
was reserved for adults,

Book comes out.
There´s no controversy.

There´s no uproar.

Cut to I´m 16, and Gary Gross --
he was gonna make a mint

by selling these photos as
famous Brooke Shields now nude.

We didn´t think they would
ever be used again.

So my mother was just outraged,

and so she sued him,
and we went to court.

When I walked in the courtroom,
there was a man.

He looked at me, literally,
at one point and went...

And I was like [gasps].

What?
I couldn´t believe it.

I was on the stand
for two days straight.

It was just --
it was so hurtful to me.

♫♫

My public image is
what was actually on trial.

It should have just been about,
"Here´s the document.

This is why he owns the photos."
Why put me through that?

And then the prick won.

-New York´s highest state court,
the Court of Appeals,

ruled today that a photographer
may publish nude pictures

of Brooke Shields --
photos that he took of the model

when she was only 10 years old.

-This just came out
in the paper.

You decided that these pictures
of you when you were 10

and you were nude, they now can
be republished or something.

How do you feel
about that?

It´s hard to say.
I mean, I´m just --

I´m confused, you know,
just like everybody else is,

I think now.
I don´t know.

Things happen
for the best, I guess.

-It seems almost like
a rite of passage

that teenage girls are the ones
who get their asses kicked

in the public square.

If we know that a girl
is a tomboy,

we know how to talk to her.

If we know that she´s a whore,
we know how to talk to her.

If we know that she´s a virgin
and she´s pious and she´s sweet

and she´s wearing
a virginity ring,

we know how to talk to her.

If we know that she puts out
on the first date,

we know we don´t have
to give her any respect.

It´s really a question of,
"Do I need to treat this person

like they have any dignity?"

And the answer should be, "Yes,"
no matter what, but it´s not.

-I was hurt more by the -- the
breach of trust and friendship

than I ever was uncomfortable
about the nature of the photo.

It was the way I was treated
by the men

associated with the whole thing.

It was as low rent, low class --
there was zero integrity in it.

And to me, that was
so angering and hurtful.

I mean, the entirety of my life,

over and over and over and over
and over again,

it was, "She´s a pretty face.
She´s a sex symbol."

And that always just seared me

because a nerdy,
kind of dorky person

who was creative
and intelligent,

was at the core of who I was.

♫♫

"Endless Love" is about a
teenage girl who falls in love

with a teenage boy.

It´s sort of that primal,

"nothing else matters
except for this person,"

But then it gets interfered
with by the adults.

-And when you had a chance
to star her in this movie,

you didn´t hesitate
a second.

What did you see in her
that is so special?

-Well, you are talking about
somebody who is madly in love

with this girl, so, you know,
it´s very easy -- the answer.

I was in love with her
before I met her.

-How do you work
with a Brooke Shields,

who is just barely --
not quite 16,

a youngster this age about a
serious subject like lovemaking?

How do you --
How do you approach it?

How did you -- How did you work
with her on it?

-Well, she´s quite a competent,
little, young actress.

-The physicality and
the exploration of sexuality

felt really dangerous to me.

And I didn´t trust the director

to create a safe environment
for me.

-In Hollywood cinema,
girls are considered

to be valuable
for their budding sexuality.

When sexuality is a commodity,
you can sell the illusion

of destroying virginity
over and over again.

-There is this scene

sex for the first time.

When I had the camera on her,
she was not giving

exactly that impact
that the scene requires,

so I was there,
and the camera was here,

and I kind of grabbed the toe
and twisted it,

and she screamed that -- "Aah!"

Zeffirelli kept grabbing
my toe and, like, twisting it

so that I had a feeling -- so
I had a look of -- of sort of,

I guess, ecstasy,

but it was more angst
than anything

because he was hurting me.

You know, his thing was,
"The look on your face --

it has to be ecstasy."

And I was like,
"I don´t know what that is."

I didn´t want to appear stupid
or untalented,

so I just disassociated.

It´s like you, in an instant,
zooming out,

seeing a situation,
but you are not connected to it.

You instantly become
a vapor of yourself

around something
that´s happening.

-Dissociation is a disconnection

between the body and the mind,

which protects both the body
and the psyche,

but at enormous cost.

It´s hard to feel
in control of yourself

because you´re not
feeling anything.

-I was really shut down
after that.

I thought of myself
as just the --

sort of the -- the workhorse.

They paid me.
I did the thing. They sold it.

Everybody´s happy.
You know, it was transactional.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

The part that´s visual
to other people

is very glamorous,
and it´s very sparkly,

and it´s very fun
and pretty and happy.

But there is another side to it.

Those are the -- the problems
that I´ve had to deal with,

growing up
with my parents and everything.

-Rolling.

Rolling.

-I knew what to expect
from my work.

You never really knew what
to expect with an alcoholic.

It wasn´t abusive,
but it was emotionally abusive

because I felt sort of abandoned
every time she wasn´t herself.

So I asked my godmother,
she did some research,

and there was a place that was
literally around the corner.

They educated me
on interventions

and what that meant,
and -- and they said,

"Okay, this is how it´s done.

It´s kind of a --
it´s kind of an ambush."

I said all the things that I had
sort of rehearsed in my head

about, "how much I love you,
Mom,

but you´re -- you change
when you drink,

and I-I don´t want you to die,"
and all of this stuff,

and, "I love you,"
and she said,

"All right, I´ll go,
but I´m not going for me.

I´m going for you.
I´ll go for you," she said.

-Teri, you can´t pick up
a magazine article

or anything that´s been written
about Brooke recently

that doesn´t talk about the fact
that you had a drinking problem.

-Yes.
That´s true. I did have.

I´ve stopped drinking.
It got the best of me.

And I´m much happier
as a human being.

Maybe she stayed sober
a couple of --

I couldn´t tell if it was
a week or a month.

But it didn´t last.

She basically told me,
"Fuck you, I´m not doing this."

And she´s like,
"No one´s gonna control me.

They´ve tried.
They´re not going to.

Neither will you."
And it was her defiance.

"I don´t need anybody.
I was born alone.

I´m gonna die alone,"
and all that.

And she was just acting
from heartbreak, you know?

She was broken.

-Do you have any secrets
from your mother?

-There are just certain
little things

that I might just not want
to tell.

I mean, I really haven´t --
here haven´t been anything --

-Don´t tell them here.
[ Both chuckle ]

So I don´t --
I mean, we tell each other

just everything
that I feel I should tell her.

-She was getting older.

I sort of wondered
how the dance was going to be

when she would have to assume
control of that relationship.

When were the boundaries
going to come?

How in the world
was that going to happen?

♫♫

-Ladies and gentlemen,

a member of the Princeton class
of 1987, Brooke Shields.

-Hello.
[ Chuckles ]

-This fall, you go
to college, Brooke.

-Yes, I do.

-You looking forward to that?
-Very much so.

When you hear of a school
like Princeton or Harvard,

you think that you´re
never gonna get in,

but my grades were good,
and I am a very hard worker.

So, you know,
I think that they realized that,

and I was very glad.

I had always had a dream
of what university was.

You know, I saw it in movies.

You had the ivy and the old
buildings and the arches.

I wanted that experience.

Education was
sort of the one thing

that my dad
could feel good about.

You know, there were very few
of us who had been actresses

that went to college.

Actresses weren´t considered
more valuable

if they were smart.

-At the time, of course,

she really was
breaking the glass

because a sex symbol
doesn´t go to Princeton.

-I was shocked, and I was
mortified that I was shocked.

We assumed that she was,
you know, all beauty

and no brains,
which is ridiculous.

-A lot of students were sort of
diligently avoiding her.

Princeton attracts
a certain type,

and everyone thinks highly of
themself, and they´re like,

"Well, I´m not gonna be
sucked into that circus."

-It was so lonely,
It was so lonely,

and people tried to be so nice.

They just tried
to give me my space.

And I was like,
"I don´t want space.

I want to go home
or I want friends.

Please don´t respect me.
Please don´t respect my space."

So I went from people
charging at me

to people completely
avoiding me.

And then I just missed my mommy.

We´ve even talked about that
in interviews.

That umbilical cord
had never been cut.

-We speak a lot
on the phone.

I´ve limited
the calls to...

-Three.

-Five.
-Well...

-She´s embarrassed.
-Five a week?

-Five a day.
-Hardly. Five a day.

-Oh, a day?!
-Usually it´s like -- see,

I get in the morning,
and I call her,

and then I usually go to
classes, and then I call her,

and then maybe after lunch,
I´ll just call her

and tell her how the day went,
and then before I go to bed.

I called my mom.

I was like, "Mom,
I think I need to come home.

I have to come home."

And by the just grace,

it was killing her
to not have me home.

I could hear it in her voice.

But there was something
that she pulled

from somewhere really deep,
and she said, "Honey,

you´ll never forgive yourself.

You will be so mad at yourself

if you don´t follow through
on this."

That was the biggest sacrifice
my mom knowingly made

against her deep heart and soul,

because she never intended
on life without me.

I was called in to the dean
of the college´s office,

and he looked at me,
and he said,

"Do you feel that you can have
your own hypotheses?"

I looked him and I said

I felt that I can take
other people´s hypotheses

and expound upon them,
but as far as originating,

I´ve never felt confident enough
in the opinions that I have.

This professor said, "I see you
underline your books,

I noticed." And I said, "Yes."
He said, "All right.

Tomorrow in precept,
I want you to talk about

what you underlined."

And I waited
till the end of class,

and I thought, "Oh,
maybe it´s a bullet dodged."

And he, like, looked at me
and he said, "Miss Shields?"

And I was like, "Um...well..."

and it was this one theme
that stuck out for me.

I don´t know --
remember what it was.

And a whole discussion
was spurred from that one line.

And I was walking out of class,
and he said,

"Have faith
in your own hypothesis, Brooke."

And that was the beginning of,
"I can have my own opinion."

Up until then,
I would wait for my mother

or for somebody to tell me

what is the important piece
in this information.

Directors never asked me what
I thought about a character.

But I learned
I could think for myself.

-I was happy that she could
concentrate on her own mind

and figure out
what did she think about things.

-That´s also not appealing
to Hollywood, you know --

an actress who can think
for herself.

-Back to school.

Did you see the picture
of Brooke Shields

in the paper the other day?

She is a freshman
at Princeton University,

and she is doing very well
in her classes.

As a matter of fact, her
professor today gave her an "A."

Biology professor gave her
an "A" in anatomy -- hers.

-The more public scrutiny
and criticism I experienced,

the more I thought,
"Oh, hell, no,

you´re not taking this
away from me."

So it -- it kind of morphed
into this big rebellion.

♫♫

♫♫

When I tried out
for the Triangle Club,

I found all the really
creative guys and girls.

We just wanted to do comedy
and musicals,

and it was fun.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

This was the place that I could
learn and be safe

and make a fool of myself
if I -- if I had to,

and I have.

I found my confidence.

It was a world that I just
absorbed as much as I could.

I´m very involved in school.

I mean,
I don´t even go home anymore.

And I -- freshman year,
I was home

the -- all the time,
every weekend.

And now I don´t go home at all.

I had always taken care
of my mother.

So leaving her alone...

that was like, you know,
letting her move into a bar.

The thing that I was the most
bound by was not the manager,

but it was the alcoholic mother.

You know, that´s where the pain
sort of starts and stops,

is loving an alcoholic.

Like, that´s really hard
to get out from under.

-She out and out told me
she´s grown up

and it was hard for me
to understand that

because we´re so close,
and we´re still working on that.

-I was gonna leave her
like everybody else left her --

the little kid that she strapped
to her chest.

It was the beginning
of the end to her.

[ "Pomp and Circumstance"
playing ]

-Brooke, growing up and becoming
a sovereign being

was a threat for Teri.

She did not want her
to have autonomy.

Most young teenagers get away
from their parents

in a more organic way.

And here there was
no getting away

because there was
then the career.

Brooke really was looking
for that independence,

but also, Teri was her manager,
her professional manager.

-What now for you?
What now?

-I´ll just continue working.

I would like to concentrate
on making films.

-It´s also a fact that Brooke
was dealing with her sovereignty

with the whole world,
not just with her mother, right?

She was looking for sovereignty
around all people

who owned her to some degree,
or felt they did.

-With a lot of famous women,

there´s always a sense
that the public owns them,

and they have to behave in a way
to make sure

that the public
doesn´t one day turn on them.

They can´t just live
in the world freely.

They have to be put
in some sort of a pen.

All of that is rooted in anxiety
about women having control.

We don´t like it.
It really stresses us out.

We don´t know
what´s gonna happen.

We don´t know what it´s gonna
mean for us. We don´t trust it.

-It has a larger purpose that is
about, really, keeping society

under a certain kind of control.

-The tendency to become
the projection onto you

is very strong.
-Mm-hmm.

-Speaking is a way
of expressing agency.

It really is.

Sharing your opinion is a way
of expressing your agency.

It also makes you vulnerable.

-It didn´t really occur to me

to have my own opinions
for a long time.

I thought,
"Just listen to everybody,

you know,
and take what they say."

-She is your child.

Even though Brooke
becomes a woman,

she´s still
your daughter.

-Yes, and that´s hard.
It´s a hard --

-I would think it would be
harder for the parent.

-You´re right. You´re right.
[ Laughter ]

-I spent my life
owing people things

and doing whatever they wanted.

And finally, I asked myself,

"Who will I be if -- if
I don´t allow that anymore?"

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