By Bill Mellor
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on August 12, 1979
Getting rich quickly
Problems of teenage star
"Puberty is a most awkward age," said Teri Shields, watching her daughter Brooke across the restaurant table. "I would rather go through the menopause than what Brooke's going through."
But whatever Brooke's going through, it's currently earning her more than $300,000 for each movie she makes, and up to $2,000 an hour for modelling work.
Local schoolgirls present actress Brooke Shields with a rose at Rose Bay, August 10, 1979.Credit: Keith Edward Byron
"I would rather go through the menopause than what Brooke's going through." Brooke Shields with mother Teri on arrival in Sydney.Credit: Trevor Dallen
Teri Shields says the money's in a trust, which Brooke can't touch till she's 25.
Brooke, now 14, has made six movies the best known of which is Pretty Baby. Brooke is in Sydney to promote her latest, called Tilt, and is in the middle of filming another one, Blue Lagoon, in Fiji.
We had taken Brooke, Teri and their companion, Rosalie Trencher, for a harbourside lunch at Watsons Bay.
Teri, a flamboyant, buxom blende, is supposed to have had a drinking problem, but this day she took the vino in her stride.
Brooke drank soda water from a bottle, then had a tiny glass of champagne.
On the way to the restaurant Brooke kept peering out of the windows of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes. "It's just like New York City" she says. "Is there much violence here?"
Over lunch, Brooke answers questions politely. Boyfriends? Yes she has plenty of friends, some of them boys. No-one steady.
Her parents were divorced when she was five months old, but she sees her father, a Revlon executive, at weekends and for holidays.
Mother barred
Mother and daughter are clearly attached. Teri, who was celebrating her birthday — maybe her 45th yesterday, was thrown off the set of Pretty Baby.
Brooke Shields meets some fans in a Rose Bay stationery store, August 10, 1979.Credit: Keith Byron
That's the controversial film in which Brooke appeared semi-nude in the role of a child prostitute.
Teri is firmly in charge of her daughter's career, which started at the age of 11 months as a model.
Brooke is half way through her lobster when a thought crosses her mind.
"Where can I get some chalk for the clapper board boy?", she asks earnestly.
"It's got to be fat chalk. He can only get the thin stuff, and that breaks all the time."
Lunch over, we took her to the nearest stationery shop in Rose Bay.
They had only thin chalk. Brooke looked disappointed, then shrugged and headed for the magazine rack to look for some pictures of herself.
Still it's not often you find a leading lady sparing a thought for the lad who chalks the clapper board on the movie set.
Then again, there aren't many leading ladies who are 14 years old.