Take any beautiful child actress, cast her as a barely pubescent prostitute and her face, name and body will inevitably become a media commodity; precisely what happened to Brooke Shields (a model from the age of one) who was picked by Louis Malle to appear in Pretty Baby when she was just 12.
Malle and Shields' mother Teri (who zealously managed her daughter's career for many years until a grown-up Brooke summarily dismissed her) claimed the young girl's nude scenes were carefully handled but they were enough for anti-porn groups and fundamentalists to cause much commotion over the film.
By the time Shields made Blue Lagoon (Pearl, 1.35am) a couple of years later in 1980, the thick-browed actress was already one of America's biggest celebrities.
She made a succession of films but in the mid-80s took four years out of her career to attend Princeton University where her every lecture and date seemed to have been attended by the media, too.
After graduating, she continued to work as an actress but her face and figure were more often seen modelling in glossy magazines.
Her skill as an actress is, sadly, not in direct proportion to her beauty, as the daft and wholly unfunny sitcom, Suddenly Susan, (which replaces Friends on Sundays), will testify.