Brooke Shields is a Hollywood celebrity that had to come to terms with her sexuality at an unhealthily young age. When Brooke was just a baby, her mother decided that she was going to make her a star. As a teenager, Brooke would rise to prominence thanks to her promiscuous performance in the film The Blue Lagoon. Join Facts Verse as Brooke Shields speaks out about her nudity in The Blue Lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon Was Very Controversial
In 1980, the movie The Blue Lagoon was released. Despite being controversial, the film ended up being one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. The film was controversial for numerous reasons, not the least of which being it’s plot. Adapted from the 1908 novel of the same name, the film followed two cousins that fall in love and explore their sexuality while stranded on an island.
The plot of The Blue Lagoon would’ve made the film controversial enough, but that wasn’t even the most controversial thing about it! The most controversial thing about The Blue Lagoon upon the film’s release was the fact that one of it’s stars was only 14 years old. 14-year-old actress Brooke Shields portrayed one of the two cousins in the film, and her character appeared nude many times over the course of the movie. The film may have been controversial upon it’s release, but it’s likely that it wouldn’t even be able to get released if filmed in today’s climate.
Brooke Shields was only 14 year old when she starred in The Blue Lagoon, but the actor who played her love interest was slightly older. Brooke’s on-screen cousin/lover in the film was portrayed by Christopher Atkins, who was 18 years old at the time that the film went into production. The movie featured it’s two main character naked throughout the majority of the runtime. However, when it came time for Brooke’s character to appear in scenes that were truly revealing, the actress was given a body double.
Brooke Shields Used a Body Double for Nude Scenes
Despite the fact that she was allowed a body double for her nude scenes, Brooke Shields still had plenty of awkward times on the set of The Blue Lagoon. The actress has recalled that seeing her 18-year-old costar Christopher Atkins naked on the set of the film was the first time that she had ever seen a penis. Understandably, it was not the most positive experience for the young woman! In scenes wherein Brooke didn’t have a body double, the 14-year-old actress had her hair taped to her body and covering put on her nipples so that she wasn’t actually exposed to the cameras.
Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins may have had a noticeable age gap between them while filming The Blue Lagoon, but that didn’t stop the movie’s producers from trying to hook the pair up during production. The film was meant to titillate teenage audiences, which it certainly did! The producers believed the demographic would be even more titillated if the tabloids could show that it’s two stars were hooking up in real life. Despite the producers’ best efforts, Brooke and Christopher weren’t interested in dating.
Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins may have passed on hooking up during the production of The Blue Lagoon, but that doesn’t mean that the two stars didn’t get along well and have a lot of respect for each other. Brooke and Christopher are still friends today. They love reminiscing together about their awkward experiences filming the classic piece of coming-of-age erotica. According to Brooke, the fact that her and Christopher weren’t dating in real life made their romantic chemistry in the film even more palpable. Brooke believes that it was her authentic innocence that made the movie so spicy, and a big part of this authentic innocence was her slight nervousness around her male costar.
The Blue Lagoon Had a Dangerous Shoot
Awkward romantic scenes weren’t the only things that made filming The Blue Lagoon a trying experience. The film was shot on location on a Fiji isle, and Brooke has recalled that some of the filming conditions weren’t always ideal. Due to the fact that she was half-naked running around in the Fiji greenery, Brooke would often get chaffed during the film’s production. Brooke wasn’t the only member of the movie’s production to get injured during filming. Common injuries on the set included bites from crabs, rats, and bugs. Brooke believes that these filming conditions would be another reason that The Blue Lagoon couldn’t be filmed today.
The Blue Lagoon was lambasted by critics upon it’s release, but critics weren’t who the film was trying to appeal to. As we’ve already established, the film was a gigantic box-office success. Brooke Shields became a teen idol, and she has essentially been on top of the world ever since. This comes in spite of the fact that the 14-year-old actress received a Razzie Award nomination for her work in the film.
Brooke Shields found a lot of continued success after the release of The Blue Lagoon, but Christopher Atkins had a slightly harder time. After the film’s release, Christopher was pigeonholed into roles that exploited his sexuality. Even worse, the 18-year-old actor had begun drinking excessively. By 1986, Christopher’s drinking was such a problem that the actor was inspired to do a stint in rehab. Since that stint, Christopher has been sober! He still goes to AA meetings.
Where are Brooke and Christopher Now?
Today, Christopher Atkins isn’t the big name that Brooke Shields still is, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t still acting! Christopher is set to appear in the upcoming film Out for Vengeance, which is to be released in May of 2023. When Christopher isn’t acting, he works as a driftwood sculptor. Brooke Shields doesn’t have any upcoming film roles on the horizon, but there is a documentary about her being released in 2023. The documentary is called Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. Of course, the name of the documentary pays homage to the film that started it all for the actress. Years before her controversial role in The Blue Lagoon, Brooke played a child prostitute in a film called Pretty Baby.
Pretty Baby, which was directed by Louis Malle, was released in 1978. At the time of the picture’s filming, Brooke Shields was only 12 years old. The film wasn’t meant to be titillating. Instead, it was meant to be a cautionary tale. Still, it was incredibly controversial at the time of it’s release for the mere fact that a prostitute was being played by a 12-year-old girl. Critics defended the film, praising it for it’s message.
Pretty Baby was controversial, but it was the movie that gave Brooke Shields a career. A few years later, she’d be rocketed to superstardom thanks to The Blue Lagoon. The controversy surrounding the release of Pretty Baby is relatively common knowledge, but there was an even more controversial moment in Brooke’s career beforehand that has come to be considered even more controversial.
Brooke Shields: Child Pornography Star?
In 1975, when Brooke Shields was only 10 years old, she posed for a series of nude photographs that were taken by a photographer named Gary Gross. The naked pictures then appeared in a publication by the name of Sugar and Spice, which was a spin-off publication of Playboy. According to Gary Gross, the pictures weren’t meant to be titillating, despite the fact that they were appearing in a pornographic publication. Instead, they were supposed to make some kind of artistic statement about beauty and objectification.
Somehow, the naked pictures of 10-year-old Brooke Shields managed to fly under the radar when they were published in Sugar and Spice. Several years later, The Blue Lagoon would have to follow strict guidelines while shooting 14-year-old Brooke to ensure that the film wasn’t deemed child pornography. At the time that the Sugar and Spice pictures were taken, Brooke’s mother allowed the young girl to pose for the photos because she believed that it would be the right move for her career. Several years later, Brooke’s mom sued to have the pictures removed from circulation.
After Brooke Shields became a Hollywood star, her mother believed that the naked photos she posed in as a 10-year-old girl might hurt her career. Brooke’s mother sued Sugar and Spice to get the pictures removed from circulation, and her reasoning was that the pictures constituted child pornography. A California judge decreed that the pictures weren’t pornography due to the fact that Brooke wasn’t doing anything sexual in them. Because of this, Brooke’s mother ended up losing the lawsuit. The pictures may not have been deemed child pornography, but they are understandably incredibly hard to track down nowadays. According to Gary Gross, the pictures were always intended to be controversial.
Was Teri Shields a Good Mother?
The naked photos of 10-year-old Brooke Shields that were published in Sugar and Spice didn’t stir up very much controversy because so few people saw them. Years later, a comparatively more innocuous photo shoot that a 15-year-old Brooke was featured in would end up stirring up all the controversy that Sugar and Spice missed out on. Shortly after filming The Blue Lagoon, Brooke became the face—or backside—of Calvin Klein jeans. The 15-year-old appeared in a decidedly suggestive campaign for the pants, with Brooke declaring “nothing comes in between me and my Calvins”. The ad campaign was deemed so controversial that numerous outlets banned it. Alongside The Blue Lagoon, the ad campaign made Brooke a superstar.
Brooke Shields mother was an actress by the name of Teri Shields. When Teri tried to sue Gary Gross over the aforementioned pictures of her daughter, the judge had some choice words for her. The judge in the case lectured Teri Shields, saying that the mother was being hypocritical when it came to her daughter’s sexuality. On the one hand, Teri was trying to exploit her daughter’s sexuality by getting her roles in movie like The Blue Lagoon. On the other hand, she was trying to cover up her tracks by getting the Sugar and Spice photos taken out of circulation. The judge lambasted Teri, calling her exploitative and selfish.
Brooke Shields appeared nude in the film The Blue Lagoon when she was only 14 years old. Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Brooke Shields posed in nude photographs at the age of 10, and that she used a body double for The Blue Lagoon? Comment down below!
