Brooke Shields has been approached many times from documentary filmmakers about putting her story on film, but the pitches never intrigued her enough to give a green light or even more importantly agree to participate. That is until ABC News and George Stephanopoulos and his wife Ali Wentworth (a BFF of Brooke’s) got involved. That all led to Emmy-winning filmmaker and documentarian Lana Wilson, who had a specific vision that cracked the code as far as Brooke was concerned. Thus, the two-part biodoc Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields was born.
To do a film on this scale of a star with Shields’ long and involved history in front of the camera, as well as behind, took a village. But Shields made it a lot easier by exhibiting true trust in Wilson and handing over the vast archive, an incredible treasure trove of material — photos, films, video, every TV appearance, home movies, etc., etc. — that had been meticulously compiled and collected by her mother Teri Shields since her career began as a child star.
Shields tells me they never left an appearance or talk show without leaving with a video copy on the spot, and Shields had it all digitized over the years. It is truly remarkable, and in fact was being used at one time for an unfinished docu, but now finally found the filmmaker who knew how to incorporate it into not just a typical show biz bio but one that goes much deeper and becomes a story with universal meaning and relevance for audiences today.
The docu runs about two and a half hours in total and Wilson really had to narrow it all down into a cohesive whole that gets to the heart of who Brooke Shields was, and more importantly is: now a happily married mother of two teenage girls, a star who is also a survivor, and among other things a dissection of her own relationship with her controlling mother and all the complexity that implies.
Brooke Shields and Lana Wilson join me for this edition of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens to talk about their collaboration on this, and why now was the right time to do it. Although there is much revealed in the actual docu (now available on Hulu), Shields talks about things not in it — in particular a remarkable incident in her first marriage to Andre Agassi and a startling scene of rage in which he destroys all his many tennis trophies. She adds to that story, as well as so many others that make Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields and this episode of BTL must-sees.
To watch our conversation, click on the video above.
Join me every Monday and Friday during Emmy season for another edition of Behind the Lens.
