Brooke Shields' Mom Teri: Their Complicated Relationship
Brooke Shields is one of the most beautiful and glamorous actresses, but in her biographical documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, she doesn't shy away from fame's darker side.
The two-part Hulu film, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, explores Brooke's childhood stardom, which began with controversial films like 1978's Pretty Baby,
where she played a 12-year-old prostitute, and 1980's Blue Lagoon, where she was partially nude at age 14. In her teens, she modeled Calvin Clein underwear.
Teri Shields, Brooke's mother and manager, watched her sexual objectification in the early years. In 2014, Brooke told USA Today of Teri, who died in 2012, "Over the decades there's been a lot said,
more negative than positive." She added, "The love was so intense." “My mom was first. I thought she was God and could control the weather. The world was against us.”
The mother-daughter relationship is complicated. Teri Schmon married Francis Shields in 1964 and divorced five months later when Brooke was five months old.
She was born in New Jersey on August 1, 1933. Six months later, Teri booked Brooke's first national ad for Ivory soap. Until Brooke was 20, Teri managed her.
Even when Terri made questionable career decisions for Brooke, like allowing childhood nudity, Brooke would defend them. Brooke told The Sunday Times, "It's so innate when you're an only child of a single mother."