Brooke Adams was born on February 8, 1949 in New York City, to Rosalind (Gould), an actress, and Robert K. Adams, a former CBS vice president. She is of English and German descent, and is said to be related to President John Adams. She was educated at the prestigious High School for the Performing Arts and the School of the American Ballet.Starting her career on the stage, her film career took off with a break through role opposite Richard Gere and Sam Shepard in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978). She also starred in Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and repeated her off-Broadway role in the film version of Kevin Wade’s romantic comedy Key Exchange (1985). Other film credits include Gas Food Lodging (1992), The Dead Zone (1983) opposite Christopher Walken, Cuba (1979) with Sean Connery, and Tell Me a Riddle (1980). She produced and starred in Made-Up (2002), written by her sister Lynne Adams.Her stage credits include The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway, Key Exchange at the Orpheum, Split at The Second Stage, The Old Neighborhood at A.R.T. If Memory Serves at the Pasadena Playhouse, The Philanderer at Yale Rep, The Cherry Orchard at The Atlantic Theatre Co. and Lend Me a tenor on Broadway with her husband Tony Shalhoub directed by Stanley Tucci. She has most recently starred in Samuel Becket’s Happy Days with her husband Tony Shalhoub.On television she appeared in Thirtysomething (1987), Moonlighting (1985), Family (1976), The Lion of Africa (1987), Special People (1984), the miniseries Lace (1984) and Lace II (1985), 5 episodes of Monk (2002), BrainDead (2016) on CBS and is writing, producing, directing, and starring in a web-series, All Downhill from Here (2015).
Brooke Adams
Movies
Family
The trials and tribulations, joyous occasions and heartbreaking moments of the Lawrence family: lawyer father Doug, housewife Kate, married (and quickly divorced) daughter Nancy, teenage son Willie and just-hitting-puberty daughter Buddy. In this critically acclaimed series, we watched various Lawrences fight, fall in love, become ill, graduate school, begin new…
Fun Facts
Reportedly turned down offer to be one of the original Charlie's Angels (1976).
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1978"" in John Willis' Screen World
Quotes
I go through periods where I don't shop at all, and then I go crazy and buy everything in sight. I never know what to wear, and I'm at my worst before an audition. I pull everything out of the closet, throw it on my bed. I'll get entirely dressed and then take it all off again until I'm in a kind of frenzy.
In films, you are a commodity. You are a look, something that the camera really likes, something that has struck an audience in a certain way. It's not really so much about transforming yourself the way actors do onstage. I think there's a difference between the skill of acting in movies and onstage.
My life has gotten so much better since I turned 40.
I had wanted to be a movie star and had thought I would be a movie star since I was very little. It was just something I saw in my future. But somehow when it happened, I wasn't ready for it.
It's glamorous when a movie is released, but then you feel disconnected from it. Someone asked if it wouldn't be more glamorous for me being on Broadway rather than Off Broadway, but I thought, 'What's the difference?' The Orpheum is a smaller house, that's all. And there are no mikes, so you just talk louder.
As an actress, I always felt like the people you met on set were interchangeable with the people you met on other sets - the grips, the gaffers, the actors, the directors - everybody steps into their role.