Brooke Shields

When Brooke Shields uttered the suggestive fashion catchphrase, "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing " she may as well have been talking about her career instead of a pair of jeans. Shields carved out a long and profitable run as a model, actress, and author, despite innumerable personal and professional setbacks that would have derailed even the most driven entertainer. Like her one-time boyfriend, pop singer Michael Jackson, she grew up in the public eye and endured critical drubbings and personal dramas for all to see, but unlike her former beau, she emerged stronger and more widely respected by fans and critics alike as she grew into herself. From her first major film role in director Louis Malle's controversial "Pretty Baby" (1978), in which she played a child prostitute, through the public wrath directed toward her manager mother for what some saw as "pimping" out her young daughter in various R-rated films, through Shield's public battle with Tom Cruise over the proper treatment of postpartum depression, the brunette beauty had courted controversy for over 30 years, refusing to back down from her beliefs. Whatever one thought of her choices, they could not discount her courage and how well she had turned out, when all cards had seemed stacked against her as a child star marketed as a sex object almost from the day she was born.