All About Brooke Shields' Late Parents, Teri and Frank Shields
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Brooke's parents, Teri and Frank, wed in 1964 and divorced when she was five months old in 1966
Get to know Brooke Shields' parents.
The actress and model was born to Teri and Frank Shields in Manhattan, New York on May 31, 1965.
Although her parents split when she was only a few months old, Brooke shared a close yet different bond with each.
Brooke spent the majority of her childhood under the care of her mom Teri, who served as Brooke's manager starting at 11 months old — a relationship she explored in her two-part documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, which premiered on Hulu in April 2023 and on ABC in January 2024.
The documentary revisits Brooke's early career as a child model and the impact of being cast in Louis Malle's film Pretty Baby at the age of 12, followed by The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love, as well as becoming the face of Calvin Klein jeans in the 1980s.
Related: Brooke Shields Says She's Proud of Her Daughters for 'Speaking Their Mind' in New Documentary
"That made me look at what kind of person I am and to give myself a little credit," Shields told The Sunday Times of making the documentary. "I had to contend with so much at such an early age, and there was resilience, but also I put on blinders as a defense mechanism. But now I can look at that little girl and think, 'She did it, she pulled through.'"
Despite how critics often viewed Teri's complicated relationship with her daughter, Brooke always said their bond was much deeper than many could understand. As she said in a statement following her mother's death in 2012, "My mother was an enormous part of my life and of who I am today."
"I loved her, laughed with her, and respected her," she said at the time. "And although she had her share of struggles, she was my mom." Terri died at the age of 79 after a long illness with dementia. Her father, Frank, died in 2003 from prostate cancer.
Here's everything to know about Brooke's late parents and what she has said about them.
They weren't married long
Teri — née Theresa Anna Lillian Schmon — was born in Newark, New Jersey, in August 1933. Before the birth of Brooke (her only child), she worked various jobs. She was a hairstylist, a makeup artist for Lord & Taylor and a model in her own right.
In 1964, Teri wed Frank Shields Jr. (the son of top-ranking tennis player, Frank Shields Sr.). He was a businessman who worked in marketing and sales for Revlon and Estee Lauder in New York City. He also formed his own real estate firm, Frank Shields Associates, in Palm Beach, Florida in 1989.
Frank and Teri's marriage didn't last long, ending shortly after Brooke was born in 1965. The couple divorced in 1966 when their daughter was five months old. While the young actress was primarily raised by her mother, she often visited her father and stepmother (and maintains a close relationship with her three half-sisters and the two step-siblings from her stepmom's previous marriage).
During a 2023 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Brooke told host Drew Barrymore that her mom didn't date after her divorce from Frank "because she was in love with me."
"I was her main focus and both of us were gonna be cut off from our sexuality," she said. "I was going to stay a virgin, she was going to be just Teri Terrific and being there. So it's like... it's so layered, and it's so needy and it's so sad and broken."
Teri managed Brooke's career
Brooke's career in the entertainment industry began when Teri booked her daughter's first modeling gig at 11 months old for an Ivory Soap ad, which opened the gates to other ads for such brands as Band-Aid and Colgate. At age 12, Brooke landed her first big acting job — a role that not only kickstarted her career as an actress but quickly turned her into a pop culture phenomenon.
In 1978, Brooke played a child prostitute in Louis Malle's film Pretty Baby — a role that created outrage and countless headlines. From there, she was cast in 1980's The Blue Lagoon (when she was 15) and Franco Zeffirelli's Endless Love in 1981.
Related: Brooke Shields Reveals Daughters' Reactions to Talk of Postpartum Depression in New Documentary
"Never again will a movie be made like that," Shields said of The Blue Lagoon during an iHeartRadio interview. "It wouldn't be allowed." (Brooke was a young teen in the aforementioned films, of which both featured sexual content, nudity and a significant age difference between leads).
Teri — who managed Brooke's career until the actress was in her 20s — was at times accused of exploiting her child and taking advantage of her daughter's striking looks.
"They see total innocence, which is totally there," Teri told television interviewer Bill Boggs, as Brooke sat beside her. "And two, they have the sexy child too, they have the sexy person — that appeals to them."
Teri and Brooke's relationship had its ups and downs
Despite the opinions the public had about Teri's "momager" role throughout her daughter's childhood, Brooke felt protective of her mom and defended her actions. "It's so innate when you're an only child of a single mother," Brooke told The Sunday Times in a March 2023 interview.
"All you want to do is love your parent and keep them alive forever, and so I wanted to protect her," she said of their mother-daughter relationship. "And by virtue of protecting her, I was justifying everything, and that solidified that bond between us."
As Teri grew older, the young actress saw her mother struggle with alcohol. Following Teri's death in 2012, Brooke wrote a book about her relationship with her mom — in part because she was "so horrified by the critical obituaries," The Sunday Times noted.
Titled There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me, the memoir was published in 2014 and shared the story of Teri's long struggles with alcohol and her daughter's long-held desire for her to quit.
"You don't ever recover from losing a parent," Shields said at the Variety Studio at Sundance in January 2023. "It's a primal thing. You learn to put it in a different place in your heart. I also said goodbye to her every time she drank."
The actress added, "She wasn't present. I knew who she was capable of being because it was in there… I feel sad that she's missing out on this. She's probably looking down saying, 'I didn't get enough screen time."
Frank served as an escape for Brooke
Although Brooke spent the majority of her childhood with her mother, she maintained a strong bond with her father.
Running a typical household with regular rules and scheduled mealtimes, Frank wasn't phased by his daughter's fame — rarely mentioning it or sharing his opposing stance on the decisions his ex-wife made regarding their daughter's career.
"My dad was just in absolute denial about it," Brooke told the outlet of the massive fame she had amassed as a teenager. "And that made me adamant about turning out OK, so that he would be proud of me." (Brooke was a diligent student throughout high school and graduated from Princeton University in 1987.)
Frank remarried after his divorce from Teri
Teri was Frank's first marriage, but he remarried after they divorced in 1966, tying the knot with Diana "Didi" Lippert in 1970.
They had three kids together, daughters Marina, Olympia and Christina. Frank was also the stepfather to Diana Auchincloss Cunningham and Thomas Gore Auchincloss, from Diana's previous marriage.
While he was born in New York and spent most of his life there, Frank ultimately relocated to Florida. The sport of crew was a major part of his life, having been the captain of the heavyweight crew team for the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1980, he founded Power Ten New York, an organization dedicated to supporting the sport of rowing. The Frank Shields Fellowships were created in 2003 by the National Rowing Foundation to honor Brooke's late father.
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