Brooke Shields

I led off with this photo (even though it just seems “fuzzy”) because it really captures a lot. I’m guessing she’s about 20 here (15?). This girl caused a lot of trouble for society in the 70s. She made a movie called ‘Pretty Baby‘ (1978) for heaven’s sake, about a 12 year old prostitute. Sure it was creepy. Never seen it myself. For Hollywood it was quite original. Creativity isn’t what Hollywood’s about. Using people, chewing them up and spitting them out, going for the lowest common denominator, that’s what Hollywood’s about. Her mom was taken to society’s woodshed repeatedly. Which is kind of funny when you think about it.

America was shocked to see a 12 year old portray a prostitute. It was all pretend. That’s what Hollywood is, a very expensive game of dress up. A year or 2 later Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin from Iowa were getting kidnapped for real and forced into a living hell of real life prostitution. Did America get upset about that? Or all the thousands of other kids living a similar hell? No. But play a game of pretend, hold their eyelids open and force them to watch, and society blanches. Societal nimrods.

Right after this movie you can find pictures of an underage Brooke at the ultra swank Studio 54 nightclub. Real life exploitation of a teenager. Did anyone get upset? No. Did they get upset about the abuse of hundreds of other kids in Hollywood? No. That was kept under the rug. They didn’t have to look at that. The “right” people were making money off of that. Brooke was born May 31, 1965. She wouldn’t be 21 until 1986. About the time of the photo above. She’d lived a lifetime by then. I buy very, very few movies for myself. ‘Brenda Starr‘ (1989) is one I’m going to buy. She made that one in 1988 when she was only 23, you would have swore she was in her thirties if you didn’t know better! (Corrections on the Brenda Starr timeline below.)

But like I said earlier, Brooke caused a lot of squirming for society. People don’t like to look at themselves. She made ‘The Blue Lagoon‘ (1979), 13 years old and naked when she made that one. ‘Wanda Nevada‘ (1979), that was a creepy little film once again. Hollywood couldn’t get enough of young Brooke. Bob Hope specials, Calvin Klein ads, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s”. A few years ago I saw her in a very funny commercial (I don’t remember the product but she was funnier that hell), and one thought came to mind. She came off as completely sane. Normal. Balanced. Self-deprecating. Didn’t take herself too seriously.

I remember thinking at the time, I’m glad for her. Despite adults using her her whole life, she used them back. She kept it in context. Realized it was pretend. I hope I get to read her book, ‘There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me‘ (in fact I ordered it just now). Like I said earlier, I really like the lead off photo. Its a “bridge” photo. That period between childhood and adulthood. That just happened to be a little more turbulent than for most kids. Glad she survived.

Next favorite.

1970: American child film actress, Brooke Shields. (Photo by Alan Band/Keystone/Getty Images)

My favorite.

I thought these photos represented a wide range of looks for Brooke. What’s funny is I really like her candid’s. The ‘blue jeans and sweater’ Brooke more than the glamour puss Brooke. Its hard to imagine someone being photographed more than her. She was a big deal 40 years ago. A very big deal. I just saw the movie ‘Brenda Starr‘ a few years ago. It has an absolutely tawdry past! You can see for yourself at the link I provided. It really reminded me of the problems Tom Laughlin had making and releasing the original ‘Billy Jack‘ movie. Tough guy Laughlin found out what it was like to buck the “mob”. Hollywood is run by a mafia, not Italian, Jewish. You can’t say that of course, it would be denied all day long. But it ekes out once in awhile. Like when John Travolta said “Hollywood is run for the benefit of homosexual Jewish men” (And for a few straight ones like Harvey Weinstein, notice how he never spent a day in jail?). Marlon Brando said something similar once. He and Travolta were big enough they could get away with it. Others who blurted out the truth were never heard from again. But as I say, the story of Brenda Starr, filmed in ’86 and not released in the U.S. until ’92 is a fascinating one. Both that one and Billy Jack tried to go outside the studio system. They found out what happens if you don’t give the ‘mob’ their cut. But as I mentioned above, Brenda Starr was so good I was going to buy it. That’s when I found out the legal hell it was in. There is 1 copy of it on Amazon for $716.04. That’s when I knew something was up.

[Finishing up this post I realized just how long and deep Hollywood’s pedophilia roots run. Tatum O’Neal, Linda Blair, Drew Barrymore, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Macaulay Culkin, Brooke Shields and a gazillion others I don’t begin to know about! Reading her book ‘There Was a Little Girl’ has been fascinating. I’m just halfway through. It sounds like she “divorces” her mother at some point. Brooke’s life was forever scarred by her drunk of a Mom. The entertainment industry was actually a stabilizing force, if that gives you an idea about how bad her mother was. But in relation to pedophilia, Brooke seems to have escaped any “me too” lecherous moments. The other thought so far, is how would things have been if she’d had a ‘normal’ mother? In a nurturing relationship?]