Brooke Shields doc celebrates resilience

Brooke Shields may be one of the most gorgeous and glamourous actresses around, but she isn’t afraid to show off the not-so-pretty parts of fame in her biographical documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields.

The two-part Hulu film, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, explores Brooke’s childhood stardom, which began with such controversial films like 1978’s Pretty Baby, where she played a 12-year-old prostitute, and 1980’s Blue Lagoon, where she was filmed partially nude at age 14. Her teen years also included a very famous Calvin Clein underwear modeling campaign.

Those early years of Brooke’s sexual objectification were unfolding under her manager’s eye, who happened to be her mother, Teri Shields, whom she eventually fired. “Over the decades there’s been a lot said, more negative than positive,” Brooke  said of Teri, who died in 2012, to USA Today in 2014. “The love was so intense,” she continued. “[My mom] came before anybody. I thought she was God, I thought she could change the weather. It was us against the world.” Let’s take a look at the complicated mother-daughter relationship, below.