ALBANY, N.Y. -- Actress Brooke Shields, 17, asked New York's highest court Wednesday to prevent the distribution of nude photographs taken of her when she was 10-years-old.
The photographer, Garry Gross, claimed Miss Shields' mother allowed the photos to be published commercially eight years ago when her daughter was a minor and that consent should still be valid.
Miss Shields' attorney told the New York Court of Appeals, however, that publication of the photographs now would be an invasion of the teenage actress' privacy.
The photographs taken in 1975 by Gross show Miss Shields nude in a bathtub.
Her mother, Teri Shields, consented to their commercial publication in 1975, but Brooke -- embarrassed by the still shots -- has rejected her mother's original consent.
A. Richard Golub, Gross' attorney, argued that his client, who now wants to further distribute the photos, took them to 'artistically capture 'the woman in every child'.'
They were sold for $450 to Playboy Press for use in a book titled 'Sugar and Spice.'
Sandor Frankel, representing Miss Shields, argued that while state law permits a parent or guardian to give consent on behalf of a minor, common law permits that minor to rescind consent when he or she grows older.
Judge Richard Simons said, however, he knew 'of no such case' where a child could disaffirm a parent's consent.
Golub argued that Miss Shields used the photographs to 'perpetrate her public image, whether it be clad or unclad.' Frankel countered that Miss Shields had never used the pictures for her own benefit.
Golub tried to show the court the same disputed pictures had been used in a book titled 'The Brooke Book,' but Chief Judge Lawrence Cooke ruled the book was improper evidence.
In his brief, however, Golub maintained that Ms. Shields put the book together herself to develop 'a carefully calculated career based on her sexual appeal as a woman child.'
Next to the picture in question, said Golub, appeared this caption: 'What's all the fuss about? I'm just having a good time.'
In 1981, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward Greenfield dismissed a suit by Teri Shields seeking to prevent Gross from distributing the photos. In doing so, he chastised Mrs. Shields for the way she had handled her daughter's career.
Last year the Appellate Division reversed Greenfield, ruling 4-1 that distribution of the pictures now would violate Brooke Shields' right to privacy.
