Only in Hollywood
Brooke Shields reminisces about Manila visit in ’83
By Ruben V. Nepales
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:31:00 07/06/2008
LOS ANGELES—In our recent press con with Brooke Shields for her TV drama series, “Lipstick Jungle,” my wife Janet asked the actress how she has dealt with fame, especially from the time she was former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ special guest at the controversial 1983 Manila International Film Festival to the present.
“I’ve had as much fun cutting the ribbon at that festival as I was excited to come here today to celebrate a new chapter in my life,” Brooke replied to Janet, who interviewed her during that visit. Janet remembers that she had to wait for Brooke, who was a high school student then, to finish her homework first in the hotel suite where “The Blue Lagoon” star was staying. “I don’t get blasé about it,” Brooke added. “I’m never complacent about how lucky I feel to still be here.”
In “Lipstick Jungle,” she stars with Lindsay Price (a stunning Korean-American) and Kim Raver in the TV adaptation of the “Lipstick Jungle” novel by Candace Bushnell (who also wrote “Sex and the City”) about three 40-something Manhattan women at the peak of their careers but are struggling with various moral and personal issues.
“This is a very fickle business,” continued Brooke who posed barefoot with her sister for a photo during that Manila interview. “You’re really lucky if you get chances. Sometimes the chances are few and far between. It’s not always directly proportionate to talent. And it can be frustrating. I’ve been lucky to go from medium to medium, find my place in each and just really enjoy the ability to keep getting work. I work very hard.”
Baby ‘hobnobber’
“I was a baby ‘hobnobber,’” Brooke admitted with a laugh about those heady times when she was the world’s most photographed nubile actress/model, rubbing elbows with Imelda’s other guests, which included Peter O’Toole, Sir Richard Attenborough, Franco Nero, Virna Lisi and Jeremy Irons. “It’s very sweet to say it that way,” Brooke said of being a “baby ‘hobnobber.’”
Responding to my follow-up question on whether she kept photos from that era, Brooke said, “I just found those pictures. I have all of them.”
“I was in awe,” she admitted. “I just recently went through some files and I found all these autographs that I’ve had. I think at my very core, I’ve always been a fan. Whether I was meeting the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (original TV) cast or I was attending that film festival, it was just as exciting to me. I’ve always appreciated talent and this industry. Whenever we have guest stars in our episodes, it’s exciting to actually work with these people and learn from them. I admire them. I have the same attitude toward stars that day when I was in the Philippines. I feel the same essence that I did then as I do now.”
When a colleague showed Brooke an Australian magazine with her on the cover from that era (1980s), the actress reacted with, “In my older covers, I’m starting to see my (eldest) daughter. I see her expressions. I don’t think I appreciated being on many covers as I do now.”
“I sit at home alone, counting my covers like a crazy old movie star,” Brooke joked to the journalists. She still sports her trademark long hair and those bushy eyebrows. Patting the crow’s feet around her eyes, she said, “I’ve earned these. If you compare my face to when I was 20, you’re going to see more of these. Hopefully, they came from smiling.” Of course, she said that sentence with her winning grin.
‘Most Beautiful Woman’
“I look back and think, my gosh, they were extensive,” she said of the covers. “I don’t think I appreciated the magnitude of it then. It was probably a good thing. Because it would have been overwhelming to me. Only in hindsight am I able to see how large it was. I was more interested in my friends, going to school and that kind of thing.”
When Brooke was asked how she felt having magazine headlines screaming “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World” during that time when she was only in her mid-teens, she maintained, “I just didn’t read it. Because at 8:30 the next morning, I had to be at school and then be on the cheerleading team. I made it such a separate aspect of my life in order to maintain my sanity and friends. It was as if I put it aside and didn’t think or talk about it. It was a job.”
Brooke, whose modeling career began as early as when she was 11 months old when she was photographed by no less than Francesco Scavullo for a print ad, has two daughters—Rowan, 5, and Grier, 2—with her writer-producer husband, Chris Henchy. She recently published her first children’s book, “Welcome to your World, Baby.”
Brooke also wrote a memoir, “Down Came the Rain,” in which she revealed how she suffered postpartum depression after giving birth to Rowan. Tom Cruise criticized her for taking medication as treatment. In the ensuing controversy in which the public sided with Brooke, Tom ultimately offered apologies to Brooke which she graciously accepted.
Show biz passion
Would she allow her girls to enter show biz? Brooke, who has also appeared on Broadway and West End stages in such musicals as “Grease,” “Cabaret” and “Chicago,” said, “I can’t deny them something if they want it. If either one of them came to me and said, ‘This is a passion of mine,’ it would be interesting.” She laughed as she remarked, “In my case, I started before I even knew it was a passion of mine. Luckily, it became that (a passion).”
“My prerequisite for them is an education,” said Brooke, who took a break from Hollywood and studied at Princeton, majoring in French literature. “There will be no dropping out of school. There will be no professional children’s school. That’s where I will draw a hard line. But I can’t be hypocritical and say, ‘Don’t do this.’ However, the hardship is so prevalent so I hope that they wouldn’t want to (become actresses). It’s a pretty tough life to endure.”
Teri Shields, who managed Brooke’s career from her birth until 1995 (Teri was with the actress in the Manila trip), came under fire for allowing her daughter to appear as a child prostitute in Louis Malle’s controversial Palme D’or Award winner, “Pretty Baby”; as a loin clothed teen, stranded in an island, who has a baby with Christopher Atkins, in “The Blue Lagoon”; and as a model in the suggestive “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing…” jeans ads.
When a Japanese reporter took Brooke back once more to the past by asking about her date with Crown Prince Naruhito, she answered, “It was an honor to meet him. I wasn’t ready to meet him. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I wasn’t dressed properly. I was wearing my good luck pants because it was exam period. They were these incredibly loud pants that had the Underground map of London or something.”
Dating game
“It was definitely not something I would have worn had I known I was meeting the Crown Prince,” she stated with a laugh. “So that was a bit of an issue. But he was very sweet. I remember how respectful he was and how his level of education was so impressive. We became friends. I was so happy when he got married.”
“I was in a very tricky dating position,” she described her situation then. “It didn’t help that I was famous.”
She revealed, “When I talked to the guys years later, I sort of asked, ‘What was the matter with you—why didn’t you ask me out?’ They thought either I was already dating someone or I would never say yes to someone like them. You’re labeled as pushy if you go ask them out. It was a Catch 22 situation. It’s different now because women, especially young women, are allowed to be more than beautiful. I have two daughters who I think are the most beautiful creatures in the world but I try not to tell them that every minute. I try to say instead, ‘You’re smart. What great manners you have. What a strong girl you are.’ I’m trying to instill in them something that can counteract what can be off-putting or intimidating.”
The ones who did dare ask her out include Andre Agassi (they went on to marry and then separated after two years), Liam Neeson, Dean Cain and Christopher Atkins.
When I brought up how Lindsay, as a young girl, was costumed as Brooke Shields for Halloween two years in a row, Brooke smiled and said, “Poor thing.”
“It took Lindsay a while to tell me that she was me for Halloween a couple of times,” she bared with a chuckle.
Comparisons
I also asked if Brooke was aware that Lindsay never got the talk about the birds and the bees because her parents just made her sit and watch “The Blue Lagoon.” “Oh God, she needs some therapy then,” Brooke quipped, still laughing. “If that’s how she learned it, God bless her!”
Another coincidence involves Kim. “Yes, Kim and I went to grade school together,” Brooke confirmed. “We are both from New York. It was funny because we reconnected some years later. We said to each other, ‘Why don’t we do a play in New York?’ We’d be so happy if we’re back working in New York. And then somehow in the universe, it all worked out. We found out that we were not only doing the same show but the show was going to be shot in New York.”
As for the inevitable comparison of “Lipstick Jungle” to “Sex and the City,” Brooke admitted, “We would be silly to want to stay away from that comparison. It’s a wonderful pedigree to come from. But we’re a completely different novel. What Candace created are three different women in different places in their lives. The backdrop happens to be the same city. That’s really where the comparison stops. We always feel flattered when we’re compared but we really do feel that we’re a completely separate book. If we could have a bit of their (Sex and the City’s) success, we’ll take it, thank you!”
E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, “The Nepales Report,” on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.
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