Background and career
Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and current president of the Actors' Equity Association. Shields began modeling at 11 months old, and gained widespread notoriety for her leading role in Louis Malle's film Pretty Baby (1978), in which she appeared in nude scenes shot when she was 12 years old. She continued to model into her late teenage years and starred in several dramas in the 1980s, including The Blue Lagoon (1980), and Franco Zeffirelli's Endless Love (1981).
In 1983, Shields suspended her modeling career to attend Princeton University, where she subsequently graduated with a bachelor's degree in Romance languages. In the 1990s, Shields returned to acting and appeared in minor roles in films. She also starred in the NBC sitcoms Suddenly Susan (1996–2000), for which she received two Golden Globe nominations, and Lipstick Jungle (2008–2009).
In 2017, Shields returned to NBC with a major recurring role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in the show's 19th season. Shields voiced Beverly Goodman in the Adult Swim animated series Mr. Pickles (2014–2019) and its spin-off Momma Named Me Sheriff.
Shields was born in Manhattan, New York City, on May 31, 1965, the daughter of actress and model Teri Shields (née Schmon) and businessman Francis Alexander Shields. Her mother was of English, German, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh descent, while her father had English, French, Irish, and Italian ancestry.
According to research by William Addams Reitwiesner, Shields has ancestral links with a number of noble families from Italy, in particular from Genoa and Rome. These are namely (in chronological order of descent from 1355 to 1965) the Gattilusi-Palaiologos-Savoy, Grimaldi, Imperiali, Carafa, Doria, Doria-Pamphili-Landi, Chigi-Albani, and Torlonia dynasties. Her paternal grandmother was Italian noblewoman Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, who was the daughter of an Italian prince and an American socialite. Her great-uncle was the Italian Prince Alessandro Torlonia, the 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 (a daughter of King Henry IV of France and Maria de' Medici) through the Torlonia dynasty.
How Brooke Shields makes money
For her work in the movie, she was paid a fee of $250,000 (equivalent to $970,000 in 2025 dollars), plus six percent of the profits. === 1983: Sahara and Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor === Shields played a romantic lead in Sahara (1983) for a fee variously reported as $1 million or $1.5 million. Her mother, Teri Shields, was executive producer of the picture, with a fee of $25,000.
