Young Brooke Shields: The spectacular (& controversial) early career of the supermodel & Pretty Baby actress

Young Brooke Shields shot to fame as a model and actress in the 70s & 80s

Brooke Shields — actress, model, and author — gained widespread fame as a child star in the 1970s and 1980s.

Born on May 31, 1965, she was just ten years old when she landed her first magazine cover in 1975. It was for American Home magazine, where she shared the page with a pumpkin pie.

Young Brooke Shields: The spectacular (& controversial) early career of the supermodel & Pretty Baby actress - Click Americana (1)

But cover shoots weren’t the only things keeping her busy. She also appeared in several advertisem*nts and modeled for the Sears catalog, always looking pretty, and stylish beyond her years.

In the later 1970s and 80s, Brooke Shields was the subject of some controversy, particularly in relation to her modeling career, and her roles in films and television shows.

One of the most contentious elements of young Brooke Shields’ early career was the way in which she was sexualized and objectified as a child, with her image being used in advertising campaigns that were deemed inappropriate by many.

By the 1980s, starting at age 15, she appeared in a series of ads for Calvin Klein jeans, in which she was depicted in suggestive poses and wearing tight-fitting clothing. The best-known line from the campaign: “Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

These ads were widely criticized for sexualizing a young girl, and for promoting an unhealthy body image for women and teens.

Also around that time, Shields faced controversy for starring in movies that featured sexual themes and suggestive content. For example, her role in the 1978 film Pretty Baby attracted objections for its depictions of grooming, and of her role as a child prostitute engaging in sexual activity.

In the 1980s, she appeared in the controversial film “The Blue Lagoon,” which featured scenes of Shields and co-star Christopher Atkins in various states of undress and engaging in sexual activity.

Young Brooke Shields… all grown up

Despite all of the early controversy, her many talents have kept her in the game. Now the mother of two, Brooke Shields has remained a successful actress and fashion model — even adding author to her resume — and has continued to work in the entertainment industry as a remarkably well-grounded and seemingly unscathed former child star.

Brooke Shields has spoken publicly about the sexualization she experienced in her childhood and how it affected her. In her memoir,Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression, she wrote about her experiences as a child model and actress with a very protective (as well as alcoholic) stage mother — and how she felt pressured to grow up too quickly.

She has also discussed her experiences in interviews, including on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “60 Minutes,” and credits a lifetime of therapy as part of the key to her well-adjusted adulthood. She is quoted as saying, “It’s not in my nature to be a victim.”

Below, we take a look back on some of her earliest career moves (wholesome and otherwise), and get a glimpse of her life more recently, too.

Young Brooke Shields Christmas photoshoot (1974)

From Ladies Home Journal (December 1974)

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Young Brooke Shields for Colgate toothpaste (1975)

I’m sort of sexy says model Brooke, age 9 (1975)

Note: The San Antonio Star seems to have been a Texas tabloid paper, in the style of the National Enquirer. We are posting this sensationalized story to give more context to the publicity Brooke got in the 1970s. Nothing here has been verified as fact.

San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) – January 12, 1975

New York – With her dark, flowing hair and big smoldering eyes, she’s a photographer’s dream.

She dates dashing young men, but is adamant that she has no steady boyfriend. She’s even been invited to pose nude for photographers.

Her name is Brooke Shields and she is all of nine years old. Brooke has just been launched in New York as a mini-model and mini-actress.

She is already a showbiz veteran, appearing in the television version of Arthur Miller’s play “After The Fall” — although she confesses she finds it all a bit boring. “Movie stars don’t really excite me that much,” she told the Star.

The invitation to pose nude was turned down by her mother, Teri, who is divorced from Brooke’s father, a cosmetic company executive.

But tiny Brooke didn’t mind: “I don’t think I would like it,” she said. Her big aim in life is to be a mother, she says, “but first I want to be a wife.”

She went on: “I think I’m sort of sexy. But I hope I will gain more sex appeal as I get older… I think sexy is slick. And slick is the best way to be!”

Confesses

Brooke has been modeling since she was four, and her first date was such a long time ago that she can hardly remember it.

“I’ve no steady boyfriend, but I enjoy going out on dates with boys my own age. And older,” she said.

She described one “older boy” who took her out as “a Latin lover.”

“He’s nice and young,” she said, “and he’s adorable.”

The Star caught Brooke just as she was leaving for a co*cktail party being thrown by Soli, the head of New York male model agency. Soli has invited a model called Jonathan who needed a date.

“We met Jonathan before. He’s 26. But he’s far out, and I will enjoy going out with him,” said Brooke as she left, her big eyes still smoldering.

Young Brooke Shields modeling for the 1976 Sears Catalog

ALSO SEE:

12-year-old actress Brooke Shields on the set of the movie Tilt (1978)

From the April 10, 1978 issue of People

They’re trying to tell her she’s too young, but 12-year-old Brooke Shields isn’t listening

Young Brooke Shields and her mother Teri (1978)

From the April 10, 1978 issue of People

“She’s an okay lady,” says preteen model Brooke Shields of her aggressive stage mother, Teri. Their troubles with the producer during the filming of the R-rated Pretty Baby weren’t repeated on the set of Tilt.