Teri Shields, Brooke Shields' mother: What You Need To Know About Their Difficult Relationship

In the documentary "Beautiful Baby," Brooke Shields discusses her legendary Hollywood career in detail, and Teri, her late mother, has a key role to play. Find out more about their complex relationship here.

At the age of 12, Brooke Shields made her film debut in 1978's "Beautiful Baby."

The 1980 film "Blue Lagoon" stars the Princeton alum.

Ashley and her mother Teri Shields had a very difficult relationship.

Even though Brooke Shields is one of the most attractive and glamorous actors working today, she doesn't hesitate to display the less desirable aspects of stardom in her biographical film Beautiful Baby: Brooke Shields. The two-part Hulu documentary, which made its debut at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, examines Brooke's early fame, which began with such contentious movies as 1978's Pretty Baby, in which she played a prostitute aged 12, and 1980's Blue Lagoon, in which she was photographed partially nude at age 14. She participated in a very well-known Calvin Clein underwear modeling ad during her teenage years.

The early years of Brooke Shields' sexual objectification occurred in front of her manager, Teri Shields, who Brooke subsequently fired. Teri passed away in 2012, and over the years, a lot has been said about her, more negatively than positively, Brooke told USA Today in 2014. She continued, "The love was so intense. "[My mother] was the first. I believed she was God and had the power to control the weather. We'll look at the complex mother-daughter relationship below. "It was us against the world."

Brooke's manager was Teri

Teri Schmon, who was born in New Jersey on August 1st, 1933, wed Francis Shields in 1964 and separated from him just a few months later, when Brooke was only five months old. After six months, Teri secured Brooke her first national advertisement for the Ivory soap. Then, until Brooke was in her 20s, Teri served as her manager.

Even when Terri's managerial decisions about Brooke's career were debatable, such as allowing kid nudity, Brooke frequently choose to support them. As the only child of a single mother, Brooke said to The Sunday Times, "It's so innate." "I wanted to protect her because I knew how much I loved her and wanted to keep her alive forever. And because I was defending everything on her behalf, our relationship became stronger.

She Had a Serious Alcohol Use Disorder.

According to The Times, Teri was well known to have an alcohol use disorder and would frequently go into bars while Brooke was working on film sets in Hollywood. Even at age 13, the Suddenly Susan star organized an intervention for Teri, although the period of sobriety was brief, according to the publication. "I also said goodbye to her every time she drank," the actor added. She was not here. When Teri was in the Variety Studio at Sundance, Brooke stated, "I understood who she was capable of being because it was in there... "I regret that she won't see this [documentary]. She's probably sighing, "I didn't get enough screen time,' as she looks down.

Teri made Brooke pose for Playboy when she was ten years old.

Although Brooke found it difficult to hold Teri accountable, Teri was occasionally accused of abusing her own daughter. Even when, at the age of 10, Teri persuaded Brooke to pose in naked for the Playboy magazine Sugar and Spice. The Sunday Times quoted Brooke as saying, "Everyone constantly wanted me to be furious with her, but anger was just too painful for me to stomach when I looked at how insecure she was."

Brooke, who has two daughters named Rowan (19) and Grier (16) with her husband Chris Henchy, admitted that it was difficult to defend Teri's actions after her daughters referred to Pretty Baby as "child pornography" and questioned whether she would have permitted them to do that when they were 11 years old.

according to Women & Home. When they asked, I thought, "Oh God, I have to admit this," Brooke told The Times. "That was... that was hard for me to not excuse my mom to them." "Well, I guess I could say, 'Well, it was the period back then,' or 'Oh, it was art,' but I don't see why she thought it was acceptable. I'm not sure.

A Tell-All About Their Relationship Was Written by Brooke

In the 2014 book There Was a Little Girl: The True Story of My Mother and Me, Brooke—who previously wrote about her postpartum depression in 2005's Down Came the Rain—opened up more about her relationship with Teri. The book was published nearly two years after Teri passed away at age 79 from a protracted dementia-related illness. At the Variety Studio, Brooke declared that losing a parent is something that you can never get over. It's a basic instinct. You come to understand where in your heart to put it.