Brooke Shields

Brooke Christa Shields was born on May 31, 1965, in Manhattan, New York City, to actress and model Teri Shields and businessman Francis Alexander Shields. Her parents divorced when she was five months old. She has two stepbrothers and three half-sisters. Shields was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and attended the New Lincoln School in New York City through eighth grade before graduating from the Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1983. She subsequently enrolled at Princeton University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Romance languages.

Shields began her career as a model at eleven months old in 1966, with her first job being a shoot for Ivory Soap photographed by Francesco Scavullo. She worked with model agent Eileen Ford and continued as a child model through her teenage years. By 1980, at age fourteen, she became the youngest fashion model to appear on the cover of Vogue. That same year she appeared in print and television advertisements for Calvin Klein jeans, including the tagline "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing." In 1983, she suspended her modeling career to attend Princeton.

Her screen career began with a 1974 television adaptation of Arthur Miller's play After the Fall, followed by her feature film debut in the horror film Alice, Sweet Alice in 1976. Her breakthrough came with Louis Malle's Pretty Baby in 1978, in which she played a child living in a brothel. The film generated significant public controversy and was banned in several countries and Canadian provinces. She went on to appear in The Blue Lagoon in 1980 and Franco Zeffirelli's Endless Love in 1981. In the 1990s, Shields returned to acting in film and television, starring in the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan from 1996 to 2000, for which she received two Golden Globe nominations. She later starred in NBC's Lipstick Jungle from 2008 to 2009. In 2017, she joined Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in a major recurring role during the show's nineteenth season. She also voiced Beverly Goodman in the Adult Swim animated series Mr. Pickles from 2014 to 2019 and its spin-off Momma Named Me Sheriff. Shields serves as president of the Actors' Equity Association.

On Broadway, Shields performed between 1994 and 2010. Her credits include the drama The Family, Grease, and Cabaret, as well as The 24 Hour Plays in both 2003 and 2004. Her stage work earned her a Theatre World Special Award in 1995.

Shields's paternal grandmother was Italian noblewoman Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, the daughter of an Italian prince and an American socialite. Her great-uncle was Italian Prince Alessandro Torlonia, husband of Infanta Beatriz of Spain. In a 2010 episode of the genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, Shields discovered she is a descendant of Victor Amadeus I of Savoy and his wife Christine of France through the Torlonia dynasty.