At press time, the show’s future looked bleak, although NBC refused to confirm cancellation. Shields, with her usual equanimity, doesn’t view the show as a failure. “There’s so much I’ve reaped from it, both personally and professionally,” she says. She’ll do what she has always done: pick herself up, dust herself off and tackle a new venture. Indeed, few stars have been as resilient in their careers. Along with television (before Lipstick Jungle, she proved herself a gifted comedienne on Suddenly Susan), Shields has acted in films (Pretty Baby and Endless Love are her favorites) and on stage ( Grease, Cabaret, Chicago, Wonderful Town), and she’s tried her hand at writing (most recently, her best-selling postpartum depression memoir, Down Came the Rain, and two children’s books).
Learning to be fearless
For her, the fear of missing out on an exciting experience trumps the fear of failure. “I have to jump in and worry later,” she says. “Sometimes that just means going for it, even if the end result isn’t what’s usually termed successful. If I come out of it learning a skill or being really proud that I subjected myself to something most people would be afraid of, then that’s a reward. You just keep going where there’s a new challenge, and you surprise yourself. It’s the only way I’ve been able to survive.”She points to her stage work as an example of “something that in your right mind you really shouldn’t do.” Almost every role she stepped into had yielded a Tony award or nomination for the first actress who played it. As she contemplated taking her own turn, says Shields, “I just had to weigh it and think, well, no, I’m not going to be that person, but I can be the best version of me in that. The confidence I gained—to me that was a win.”
“Brooke is fearless,” says Kathleen Marshall, who directed her in Wonderful Town. “She played one of two sisters, and her character was the less outgoing one, more sarcastic, more uncomfortable in her own skin. And she was completely convincing. It was fascinating that this glamorous woman could make herself seem awkward.”
