Child actress Brooke Shields miraculously survived an alcoholic stage mother who turned her into the family breadwinner from aged 11 months onwards as an advertising star. Then agreed for her to pose nude for Playboy aged 10 and signed up for her role as a child prostitute a year later in Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby. Mother Teri, a single working class mom, was portrayed in the media as a pimp as she pushed on with Brooke appearing as teenager in other sexualized roles in The Blue Lagoon and Franco Zeffirelli’s Endless Love (1981).
Throughout, Brooke defended her mother in what she later described as an enmeshed relationship, but broke free to go to Princeton University and more so when she married tennis star Andre Agassi – who was as controlling as her mother and had a meth habit to match her mother’s alcohol addiction. Finally she married happily a TV writer/producer, has two teenage daughters and still works as an actress. From being one of the most famous faces in the world, best friends with Michael Jackson, she gives every indication of being happy with who she is as she publicizes a new documentary about her extraordinary life, titled Pretty Baby.
She was born 31 May 1965 1.45pm New York into distressed circumstances, with her wealthy father’s Italian family paying for a termination – mom took the money but had her anyway, There was a marriage but it split when Brooke was five months old, though she did have the stability of her conservative father’s home for regular visits growing up. She was exploited as a child and raped at 22. It’s a miracle she didn’t go the way of her mother.
Brooke has a Gemini Moon exactly on her Midheaven and Venus in her career 10th. With a Gemini Sun, Jupiter, North Node in the 9th. Her Gemini planets are square a volatile and tumultuous Mars, Pluto, Uranus in Virgo in her 12th house opposition Saturn.
The 10th house is the one I relate to mother’s influence and the Moon there does have a sense of a physical identification with mother or vice versa. Mother’s body image is a factor. Venus in the 10th does describe a beauty or charm-offensive career – though the square to Mars opposition Saturn hints at a degree of force, unfair/cruel treatment and underlying irritation and resentment.
Brooke’s Sun Jupiter would keep her optimism/Pollyanna spirit high and four planets in detached Gemini including her Moon would make it easier for her to stand back from her feelings. Her mother’s Jupiter fell on her Ascendant so she would be there as a cheerleader and morale-booster and accentuate the positive in her daughter’s life at least on the surface. Born 1 August 1933 Teri Shields was a Sun Leo opposition Saturn so would have self-esteem issues.
Andre Agassi, 29 April 1970, was also a Saturnine type with a Sun Saturn conjunction in Taurus so would have similar self-doubts. Brooke said she married her mother first time round and then seems to have moved out of the old patterns with her second husband – a Sun, Mercury and Jupiter in Aries.
Good on her having struggled through to stability. There’s no doubt that a strong Jupiter works wonders when it comes to overcoming childhood horrors.
Which astrology house indicate father, which astrology house indicate mother? What astrology house indicate childhood?
10th house and Moon – mother. 4th house father and childhood – also Moon for childhood.
Both Maria Callas and Natalie Wood were exploited by their overbearing mothers. Biographer Lyndsy Spence who had access to previously unpublished letters revealed that: “Callas resented her mother, who worked as a prostitute during the war, for trying to pimp her out to Nazi soldiers.” Later, Callas’s mother tried to blackmail her daughter to keep her mouth shut. Callas herself confided: “If she was a real mother to me a long while ago, I would [have] cherished her.”
Like BS, Callas also has a Virgo Moon in the 10th. Pluto in the 8th house squares that Moon giving it its darkness and intensity. The ruler of her MC is Mercury which is in Sagittarius in her 1st house, squaring a Piscean Uranus in the 4th, giving an unstable, unreliable feel to her parental axis. In fact even her father tried to get money out of her. Callas’s relationships with men were abusive, full of torment and pain.
Natalie Wood’s mother, Maria Zakharenko was the worst kind of ‘Stage Mom’. When Natalie was a teenager her mother, desperate to connect her daughter with someone who “could open doors for her”, set up a meeting with the actor Kirk Douglas – he allegedly raped the girl, according to her sister, Lana Wood. Her mother told Natalie to keep quiet about it – her mother didn’t want to ruin Douglas’s career, according to Lana.
Natalie Wood has a Cancer MC with a tight Sun/Pluto/Mars stellium in the 10th house. The Ruler of her MC, the Moon is at 0 degrees of Taurus and squares onto that Cancer stellium, giving a dark, Plutonian, Martian flavour to that Moon.
In both women’s charts the Moon touches Venus and forms a conjunction in BS’s chart. Likewise, Callas has Moon square Venus and Wood the trine. I recall one astrologer describing this combination as ‘the poisoned apple’, in reference to the fairytale, ‘Snow White’.
The entertainments world is mired in this kind of darkness.
Apologies, Maria Callas’s Moon is actually in Libra in the 10th, not Virgo as I incorrectly stated.
It is extremely disturbing, but unbelievably in 1976 the UK National Council for Civil Liberties agreed to a proposal that the age of consent should be lowered to 14 or in certain circumstances 10 years old. US radicals like Susan Sarandon, star of Pretty Baby, presumably went along with this, thinking of the adults’ rights not the child’s.
The 70’s was an era of identity politics, promoting civil liberties and human rights. The problem as always is whose rights and how much they impinge on others.
Having said that, it’s incomprehensible that children’s vulnerabilities and rights were ignored in this debate. It shows how much people live in their heads when they get caught up in ideologies. It worries me that the age of aquarius at its extreme will be similarly ungrounded and unfeeling. We can already see it in current debates.
Pisces Rising makes an interesting comment, because we always hear about the mother but not the father. Brooke herself seems to have found a refuge in him, his family and home. Her mother was clearly impossible to deal with. Perhaps in the end, his lack of interference but continual support was enough of a haven for her in such terrible circumstances.
Brooke herself is remarkable in having been able to withstand incessant exploitation while retaining a sense of herself. It seems that her airy detachment combined with Jupiter helped her to combat the awful demands put on her.
Brooke’s bio dad was Frank Shields birthday was May 16, 1941 in New York City and passed away in 2003.
What on earth were these Hollywood types thinking? Abusing a child. Anyone associated with Pretty Baby should be ashamed.
I am very confused. Posing for Playboy as a child!!! Where in the world was Brooke’s father in all this? What is Brooke’s rising? I wonder what her father sun sign & rising sign is. I am very surprised Brooke’s mom did not lose custody of Brooke?
I know, it’s absolutely grotesque. Deeply disturbing.
When I read Agassi’s biography a couple of years ago, I never picked up on him being controlling. Not to say it’s wrong because obviously it was written from his perspective. What seemed to come across was that he wanted to be a Sun-Saturn Taurus staying at home and cuddling up; which he now seems to have achieved with Steffi Graf. She wanted to be out and about – unsurprising with all that Gemini.
Interesting point about a strong Jupiter overcoming childhood issues. Mine is exactly square my sun/moon/venus and I have spent my adult life growing up. In the last few years, I’ve begun to realise I’ve outgrown all my friends who I thought were so much more sophisticated and cool than I was.
What does.a.strong Jupiter mean Marjorie?. Tx.
She has a Sun Jupiter conjunction with her Jupiter also aspecting her Uranus Pluto – helps with optimism and luck.
Thank you. That’s luck then! I’ve Jupiter unaspected.to all planets in the chart. – taking one.degree orb. Only aspect it’s opposite mc and square descendant. That’s all the connections. :(..
Mars, Jupiter, Uranus in Virgo. – is it Pluto instead of Jupiter here?..