With the recent Hulu release of Brooke Shields’ documentary Pretty Baby, a lot of attention is being drawn not just to her career as a whole, but to the movie that started it all by shocking a generation. The movie was also titled Pretty Baby, and pushed the limits of the concepts of childhood, femininity, and sexuality to the brink. It is clear from both the title of the film and the myriad of promotional material surrounding it that Brooke was very young in the film, but exactly how young was she? The answer might shock you.
Brooke Shields began her acting career before she could even walk, as her mother began enrolling as a baby in commercials before the age of one. Shield’s mother knew her daughter had “it” — that star quality that would make a celebrity, and was she ever right! Brooke began getting more and more roles in all types of commercials, and as she grew older it became obvious that there was more to this young girl than a pretty face; she had real talent. Acting seemed to come naturally to the young starlet, and she was one of the most sought-after child actors of her time. Soon she caught the attention of French film director Louis Malle, who had an idea for a movie that would redefine an entire generation.
Based on a book by Al Rose titled Storyville, New Orleans: Being An Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District (yes, that is the book’s actual title), the film’s plot follows a young girl forced into prostitution by her mother. Malle reportedly wanted to make an on-screen version of the book and the events within it. The storyline is clearly controversial as is, but the casting was about to become an all-out scandal. The movie follows the story of Hattie, played by Susan Sarandon, a New Orleans sex worker who meets Bellocq, played by Keith Carradine, at the brothel where she lives and works. He photographs Hattie, and over time, also befriends her 12-year-old daughter Violet, played by Brooke Shields. Violet and Bellocq , a grown man, begin a relationship, and he photographs her as well. There are some scenes truly disturbing for today’s viewers, such as a kiss between 12-year-old Violet and the adult man, and an auction selling off Violet’s virginity to the highest bidder.
So if the character of Violet was 12, then how old was the young Brooke Shields, who portrayed her? Brooke Shields was 11 years old when she starred in Pretty Baby. She appears nude in the movie twice, and shares an on-screen kiss — her first ever — with Carradine, a grown man. The movie rocketed the young Shields into fame as a burgeoning sex symbol, at the tender age of 11. The documentary of the same name, Pretty Baby, dives into just how Shields felt about that, and how that type of movie would actually be considered child pornography by today’s standards. Wild.
The movie was produced by Paramount Pictures, released on April 5th, 1978, and brought in $5.8 million in sales at the box office. It was considered highly controversial even then, and met with mixed reviews. Nonetheless, the film is still available to stream and can be found on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Vudu.
Shields went on to film two other additionally scandalous movies about teenage sexual comings of age, including Blue Lagoon (1980) in which she was 14, and Endless Love (1981) in which she was 15 going on 16. While the young Brooke may have been deemed as an international sex symbol, the documentary points out the troubling discrepancy between Shields’ onscreen and private lives. While she loses her virginity multiple times in these films, in reality, she had never had sex. In fact, while in college Shields co-authored a book titled On Your Own, a project about which she’s (self-)critical in the Hulu documentary, but which nonetheless included tips on how to say no to a man and keep your virginity intact as a means of self-protection.
It was certainly “a different time” in our society when Malle’s Pretty Baby was released, one in which an 11-year-old girl could portray a prostituted child. Yet thankfully those times are far behind us, and Brooke Shields has been able to come to terms with her odd childhood as a teen (well, really pre-teen) sex symbol. Nowadays she continues to act and make appearances in film and Tv show spots, while raising her two teenage daughters and working as an advocate for postpartum depression awareness and treatment. Her new biographical documentary, Pretty Baby, is available to stream on Hulu.