Shirley Temple

For the cocktail named after this person, see Shirley Temple cocktail.

Shirley Temple
Temple in Glad Rags to Riches (1932)
Born	Shirley Temple
Other names	Shirley Temple Black
Occupation(s)	Actress, dancer, singer, diplomat
Years active	1931 – 1961 (performer) 1967 – present (politics)
Spouse(s)	John Agar (1945 – 1950, divorce) Charles Alden Black (1950 – 2005, his death)
Website	http://www.shirleytemple.com

Shirley Temple (born April 23, 1928), known for most of her adult life by her married name, Shirley Temple Black, is best known for being an American child actress of the 1930s and her singing and tap dancing skills. She later had a notable career as a United States diplomat.

Temple rose to fame at the age of six in Bright Eyes in 1934, and subsequently starred in a series of films which won her positive critical acclaim and saw her become the top grossing star at the American box-office during the height of the Great Depression. In later life she became a politician and a diplomat representing the United States, including appointments as U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia. She is currently retired from public life.

In 1935, Shirley Temple received a special miniature Academy Award Oscar "in grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934." She also received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998, and was presented with a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2006.

Birth and early years

Weighing-in at six pounds eight ounces, Shirley Temple was born without complications at 9:00 p.m. on Monday April 23, 1928, at the Santa Monica Hospital in Santa Monica, California to George Francis Temple (1888–1980), a businessman and banker of Dutch, German, and English descent, and Gertrude Amelia Krieger (1893–1977), a housewife (Edwards 15,17,23). The Temples were the parents of two sons, John "Jack" Stanley (1915-1985) and George "Sonny" Francis Jr. (1919-1996) (Edwards 19). Early in 1931, three-year-old Temple entered Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles, California for twice weekly dance lessons (Edwards 29-30).

About this time, Educational Pictures planned a series of one-reelers called Baby Burlesks to compete with the well-known and successful Our Gang comedy shorts (Edwards 31). Charles Lamont, a film director with Educational, conducted a talent search among the children at the Meglin School, found Temple hiding behind a piano, and encouraged her to audition for the series (Edwards 31-2). She did, and was signed to a two-year contract in January 1932 for $10 a day (Windeler 111;Edwards 34;Black 14).

Acting career

Main article: Shirley Temple filmography, features and short subjects

Early films

The Baby Burlesks were eight 10-11 minute films that satirized motion pictures, celebrities, and politics of the day (Black 13). The casts were composed entirely of preschoolers who wore adult costumes on top and diapers fastened with enormous safety pins on the bottom (Edwards 34-5). In her autobiography, Temple described the series as "a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence" and noted the films were sometimes racist or sexist (Black 14). In the fourth film in the series, Glad Rags to Riches, Temple executed her first film tap dance and sang her first song, "She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage" (Windeler 111).

Temple appeared in all eight films in the series, and graduated to a series of three two-reelers at Educational called Frolics of Youth portraying Mary Lou Rogers, a youngster in a contemporary suburban family (Windeler 115,122). She was paid $15 a day or $50 a picture (Windeler 113). In order to underwrite film production costs at Educational, Temple and her juvenile co-stars were peddled as models for chewing gum, breakfast cereal, cigar, and candy bar promotional gimmicks and photographs (Black 15;Edwards 36).

Bright Eyes (1934) was a film designed specifically for Temple's talents and shot the child actress to superstardom.

While working for Educational, Temple performed many walk-on and bit parts at other studios. Her first feature film performance was a barely visible role in The Red-Haired Alibi for Tower Productions in 1932 (Edwards 37), and, in 1933, she appeared in the feature films Out All Night for Universal with Zasu Pitts, and To the Last Man for Paramount Pictures with Randolph Scott.

On February 9, 1934, Temple signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation (Edwards 355) to become Fox's most lucrative player. Her contract was amended several times between 1933 and 1935, and she was loaned to Paramount in 1934 for Little Miss Marker with Adolphe Menjou, Now and Forever with Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard, and to Warner Bros. for Mandalay with Kay Francis (Windeler 127-141).

For Fox, she appeared in Carolina and Change of Heart with Janet Gaynor, Now I'll Tell, with Spencer Tracy, and Stand Up and Cheer! with James Dunn (Windeler 122,127). She finished 1934 with the successful December 28 release of Bright Eyes – the first feature film crafted specifically for her talents and the first in which her name was raised above the title (Edwards 67;Windeler 143).

Temple's foot and hand prints at Graumann's Chinese Theatre (1935)

On February 9, 1935, Temple received a special miniature Academy Award Oscar in recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment in 1934 (Edwards 80;Black 98-101;Windeler 27-8). A month later, she added her foot and hand prints to the forecourt at Grauman's Chinese Theatre (Black 72).

Twentieth Century-Fox

Fox merged with Twentieth Century in 1934 to become Twentieth Century-Fox, and thereafter, thirty-three-year-old studio head Darryl F. Zanuck focused his attention upon further cultivating Temple's superstar status (Edwards 74-5). She was given a four-room bungalow at the studio with a garden, a picket fence, a tree with a swing, and a rabbit pen. The living room wall was painted with a mural depicting Temple as a fairy tale princess wearing a golden star on her head (Edwards 77). The studio's top priority was developing stories for Temple following a formula in which she would melt the hearts of the grouchy, the wizened, the weathly, the bratty, and the criminal. In doing so, she was presenting such characters with the opportunity to give of themselves (Edwards 75-6).

Zanuck pressed Temple's parents into agreeing to four films a year from their daughter (rather than three), and the child star's contract was reworked accordingly. A succession of Temple films followed: The Little Colonel, Curly Top, The Littlest Rebel, and Our Little Girl in 1935 with Curly Top and The Littlest Rebel being named to Variety's list of top box office draws for 1935. In 1936, Captain January, Poor Little Rich Girl, Dimples, and Stowaway were released, with Frank Morgan upstaging Temple and carrying away critical honors in Dimples.

It was during this period, in the depth of the Great Depression when Temple films were seen as generating hope and optimism, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "It is a splendid thing that for just a fifteen cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles" (Edwards 76).

In 16 of the 20 films Temple made for Fox, she played characters with at least one dead parent. This was part of the formula for her films, which encouraged the adults in the audience to take on the role of her parent.

For four years, she was the top-grossing box-office star in America and earned at her peak with Fox $20,000 a week. Temple's birth certificate was altered to prolong her babyhood; her birth year was advanced from 1928 to 1929. She did not find out her real age until she was 13 years old.

Temple's films were not always seen in a positive light. The novelist Graham Greene wrote in a review for the magazine Night and Day of her appearance in Wee Willie Winkie:

Her admirers - middle-aged men and clergymen - respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire.

Temple, via her studio, was the successful plaintiff in a 1938 British libel case against Greene's review. The huge fine imposed by the judge was enough to cripple and close the magazine.

Temple was considered for the role of Dorothy in MGM's The Wizard of Oz with Zanuck being offered double her salary to star her in the film. Zanuck declined. The offer was raised to the absolute limit the film's budget could afford. Zanuck was convinced Temple would go on endlessly and declined again. The role was given to Judy Garland while Temple starred in Susannah of the Mounties for Fox, her last money-making film for the studio (Edwards 123).

Later films

Susannah was followed by two consecutive flops at Twentieth Century-Fox (The Blue Bird and Young People), and Zanuck preferred to disassociate himself and the studio from the child star. Temple's parents bought up the remainder of her contract in 1940 and sent her at the age of twelve to Westlake School for Girls, an exclusive, pricey country day school in Los Angeles (Windeler 38).

In 1941, she worked radio with four shows for Lux soap and a four-part Shirley Temple Time for Elgin. Of radio she said, "It's adorable. I get a big thrill out of it, and I want to do as much radio work as I can." Within a year of her departure from Twentieth Century Fox, Louis B. Mayer signed Temple at MGM for her comeback at $50,000 a picture or $2,500 a week – a disappointment after her $300,000 per picture or $9,000 a week at Twentieth Century-Fox. Plans were made to team her with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney for the Andy Hardy series, but her comeback was Kathleen, a story about a miserable teenager, her psychologist, and her rich Dad. The film flopped and her MGM contract was canceled after mutual consent. Miss Annie Rooney followed in 1942 for United Artists but it, too, bombed. Temple received her first on-screen kiss in the film (on the left cheek). The actress retired for two years from films, throwing herself into school life and activities (Windeler 43-4).

In 1944, David O. Selznick signed Temple to a personal four-year contract, and, billed her fourth in Since You Went Away following Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, and Joseph Cotten. The film was followed with I'll Be Seeing You. Both wartime movies were hits. Selznick however became involved with Jennifer Jones and lost interest in developing Temple's career. The remainder of her films with Selznick were loan-outs to other studios (Windeler 49,5-2).

Temple was boy-crazy during the War Years, especially for those in military uniform, and, on at 8:59 p.m. on September 19, 1945 at the age of seventeen, married John Agar, the tall, blond, and handsome six-foot-two scion of a Chicago meat-packing family and physical training instructor and sergeant with the Army Air Force. The two met in 1943 at a tea party thrown by ZaSu Pitts and were wed in an Episcopalian ceremony at Wilshire Methodist Church. (Windeler 53-4).

Television

Temple returned to show business with a 16-episode 1958 NBC television series offering dramatic adaptations of fairy tales called Shirley Temple's Storybook (Edwards 231). Before a background of floating clouds, draperies, and chandeliers, Temple opened each episode dressed in a Don Loper ballgown (a different one for each show and none costing less than $600) singing "Dreams Are Made for Children" by David Mack and Jerry Livingston. She narrated the episodes in a childish singsong voice and acted in three of them (Edwards 231;Windeler 255). All three of her children made their acting debuts on the show though none chose to pursue acting careers later (Windeler 255-6).

During one rehearsal, a stagehand used a vulgar expletive and Temple had him fired, explaining to the stunned cast that the show was for children – although no children were present during the rehearsal (Edwards 233). Claire Bloom and Charlton Heston appeared in the first episode, "Beauty and the Beast", and other luminaries over the course of the series included Elsa Lanchester, Rod McKuen, Joel Grey, and E. G. Marshall (Windeler 254-6). The show was a great success with one critic writing that Temple could, if she desired, "steal Christmas from Tiny Tim" (Edwards 233). Following its 1958 demise, the show was reworked and retitled Shirley Temple Theater and began airing on NBC in September 1960 with 9 new episodes (Edwards 235).

Excited by her latter-day popularity, Temple persuaded the Ideal Toy Company to release a new version of the Shirley Temple doll, made a deal with a clothing manufacturer to issue a version of the Baby Take a Bow polka-dot dress, and released three Random House collections of fairy tales under her name (Edwards 233). Her personal appearance at Macy's New York store to promote the dolls became a near riot (Edwards 233).

In the early 1960s, she made guest appearances on The Red Skelton Show and The Dinah Shore Show. Her last television venture was an unsuccessful January 1965 ABC sitcom pilot called Go Fight City Hall. Modeled on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the pilot had Temple playing a social worker fighting for her own independence and the rights of others (Edwards 235-6).

Merchandising and endorsements

There were many Temple-inspired products manufactured and released during the 1930s. Ideal Toy and Novelty Company in New York negotiated a license for dolls with its first wearing the polka-dot dress from Stand Up and Cheer!. Shirley Temple dolls realized $45 million in sales before 1941. A mug, a pitcher, and a cereal bowl in cobalt blue with a decal of Temple were given away as a premium with Wheaties. Other successful Temple items included a line of girls' dresses and accessories, soap, dishes, cutout books, sheet music, mirrors, paper tablets, two Whitman novels, and numerous other items. Before 1935 ended, Temple's income from license royalties would exceed $100,000, doubling her income from her movies, and, in 1936, her income would top $200,000. She endorsed Postal Telegraph, Sperry Drifted Snow Flour, the Grunow Teledial radio, and Quaker Puffed Wheat (Black 85-6).

Marriage and family

On September 19, 1945, seventeen-year-old Temple married John George Agar (January 31, 1921 – April 7, 2002), and gave birth to a daughter, Linda Susan three years later on January 29, 1948 (Edwards 355). The Agar couple appeared in a few films together before the marriage ended in divorce on December 5, 1950 following Temple's courtroom testimony regarding her husband's infidelities and drunkenness (Edwards 355).

On December 16, 1950, Temple married Charles Alden Black and gave birth to Charles Alden Black, Jr. on April 28, 1952, and Lori Alden Black on April 9, 1954 (Edwards 355). Her eldest daughter Linda Susan Black married Robert Falaschi on October 8, 1975 and gave birth to a daughter, Theresa Lyn, on December 20, 1978 (Edwards 355). Temple's mother Gertrude died on January 1, 1977 and her father George on September 30, 1980 (Edwards 355). Temple has two great granddaughters. Her husband Charles died in 2005.

Political, business and diplomatic career

Shirley Temple Black
Temple as the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (October 25, 1990)
United States Ambassador to Ghana
In office December 6, 1974 – July 13, 1976
President	Gerald Ford
Preceded by	Fred L. Hadsel
Succeeded by	Robert P. Smith
Chief of Protocol of the United States
In office July 1, 1976 – January 21, 1977
President	Gerald Ford
Preceded by	Henry E. Catto, Jr.
Succeeded by	Evan Dobelle
United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia
In office August 23, 1989 – July 12, 1992
President	George H. W. Bush
Preceded by	Julian Martin Niemczyk
Succeeded by	Adrian A. Basora

Contrary to rumor, Temple was never blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as a Communist supporter, despite a sensationalistic news headline from August 22, 1938 which proclaimed that she was assisting the Communists. In testimony before HUAC headed by Martin Dies, Jr., James B. Matthews claimed that sixty senators and members of the United States House of Representatives and six film stars had unwittingly served to spread Communist propaganda. In March 1938, Temple's signature had been included in an anniversary telegram greeting sent by the Twentieth Century Fox publicity department to Ce Soir, a Paris daily newspaper that Matthews claimed was owned outright by the French Communist Party. At the conclusion of the Washington hearings, the committee published in its report in the Congressional Record that "... Shirley Temple ... unwittingly served the purposes of the Communist Party ... The above testimony has never been denied by the screen star mentioned." Years later, the Los Angeles Times observed: "Shirley Temple was ten years old at the time. Since then she has become quite respectable" (Black 252-3).

As a political public figure, Temple exclusively used her married name of Shirley Temple Black. She is associated with the Republican Party in the U.S. state of California, where, in 1967, she ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives against retired Korean War veteran Pete McCloskey, on a platform supporting America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Black was in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on August 21, 1968, when the Prague Spring was ended by an invasion executed by the Warsaw Pact. A convoy of vehicles was assembled for hundreds of Westerners to leave Prague and Black was in the first car of the convoy to the Czech border, apparently facilitating escape of the Westerners by taking advantage of the name recognition.

Black went on to hold several diplomatic posts, serving as the U.S. delegate to many international conferences and summits. She was appointed a delegate to the United Nations by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969, and was later appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana (1974–76). She became the first female Chief of Protocol of the United States in 1976, which put her in charge of all State Department ceremonies, visits, gifts to foreign leaders and co-ordination of protocol issues with all U.S. embassies and consulates. She was in office from 1 July 1976 until 21 January 1977. In 1987, she was designated the first Honorary Foreign Service Officer in U.S. history by then U.S. Secretary of State, George Shultz.

The peak of Black's diplomatic career came when she was United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992, and witnessed the Velvet Revolution. She commented about her Ambassadorship, "That was the best job I ever had."

Black served on the board of directors of some large enterprises including The Walt Disney Company (1974–75), Del Monte, the Bank of America (Edwards 318), Bancal Tri-State, and Fireman's Fund Insurance. Her non-profit board appointments included the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Council of American Ambassadors, the World Affairs Council, the United States Commission for UNESCO, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the United Nations Association, and the U.S. Citizen's Space TaskForce.

Shirley Temple Black received honorary doctorates from Santa Clara University and Lehigh University, a Fellowship from College of Notre Dame, and a Chubb Fellowship from Yale University.

Breast cancer

Shirley Temple Black is often remembered as the first celebrity to publicly discuss her affliction with this form of cancer. In an interview published on the web page of the American Cancer Society, actress Barbara Barrie is quoted as saying:

Shirley Temple Black was the first person who said, on national television, 'I have breast cancer.' It wasn't Betty Ford, it was Shirley Temple, child star. One of the greatest stars of the world ever. And, she was so brave to say that, because first of all, people never said "cancer" and they never said "breast", not in public. She said it and she set the whole ball rolling. People don't remember that, but she did it.

Black appeared on the cover of People magazine in 1999 with the title "Picture Perfect" and again later that year as part of their special report, "Surviving Breast Cancer". She appeared at the 70th Academy Awards and also in that same year received Kennedy Center Honors.

Recent activity

In 1999, Shirley Temple Black hosted the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars awards show on CBS, a special list from the American Film Institute and part of the AFI 100 Years... series. She was also ranked #18 in the list.

In 2001, she served as a consultant on the ABC-TV production of Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story, based on the first part of her autobiography, while in 2004, she teamed with Legend Films to restore, colorize and release her earliest black and white films, as well as episodes of her 1960 television series The Shirley Temple Storybook Collection, which was originally shot on color videotape.

On September 12, 2005, Screen Actors Guild president Melissa Gilbert announced that Black would receive the Guild's most prestigious honor, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Gilbert said:

I can think of no one more deserving of this year's SAG Life Achievement Award than Shirley Temple Black. Her contributions to the entertainment industry are without precedent; her contributions to the world are nothing short of inspirational. She has lived the most remarkable life, as the brilliant performer the world came to know when she was just a child, to the dedicated public servant who has served her country both at home and abroad for 30 years. In everything she has done and accomplished, Shirley Temple Black has demonstrated uncommon grace, talent and determination, not to mention compassion and courage. As a child, I was thrilled to dance and sing to her films and more recently as Guild president I have been proud to work alongside her, as her friend and colleague, in service to our union. She has been an indelible influence on my life. She was my idol when I was a girl and remains my idol today.

In April 2008, Black broke her arm just before her 80th birthday, in a fall at her suburban San Mateo County home in Woodside.

Awards and honors

• 1935 - Academy Award - Juvenile Award, "In grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934."
• 1992 - National Board of Review - Career Achievement Award
• 1998 - Kennedy Center Honors
• 2006 - Screen Actors Guild - Life Achievement Award
• Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1500 Vine Street
• American Center of Films for Children - Life Achievement Award

Legacy

Shirley Temple will long be remembered for the characters she played, for her dimpled disposition, and for lifting the spirits of people burdened by the Great Depression of the 20th century. She has been celebrated, modeled and parodied time after time in popular culture. She is one of the celebrities featured on the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper. In television there were two episodes of the Madeline animated series that featured a child star named Sugar Dimples, a thinly-veiled reference to the actress. She was parodied in two episodes of The Simpsons, the first time in "Treehouse of Horror III". There was a brief cameo of her singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop" before being eaten by a parody of another 1930s icon, King Kong. The second episode, "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" features a former child star turned dance instructor, "Little Vicky Valentine", along with several references to Temple's films and songs.

In films, the 1997 movie Tower of Terror featured "Sally Shine", a 1930s child actress who is killed in an elevator on Halloween of 1939 along with four others. Modeling Shirley Temple with her curly blonde mop, sweet demeanor, and short, flouncy dress, Sally even sported her own doll modeled after her. That same year the animated film Cats Don't Dance featured a character named "Darla Dimple", who was an amalgam of precocious child stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Los Angeles' Fox Studios has erected a life-size bronze statue of Shirley Temple. It was permanently installed at the Fox lot on September 11, 2002, where it welcomes children and their families to the Shirley Temple Day Care Centre. The citation on the dedication plaque reads simply "Inspiring children of all ages - Shirley Temple". In 1990 a biography titled Shirley Temple Scrapbook paid homage to the child actress. "This film offers tribute to Temple's joyful spirit, remarkable talent, and enduring legacy."

Her daughter, Lori Black (a.k.a. "Lorax"), was the bass player (1987 - 1991, 1992 - 1993) for the band The Melvins.

See also

• Salvador Dalí's painting Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time
• Martin Dies, Jr., section: Shirley Temple and Hollywood

References

Works cited

• Black, Shirley Temple (1989) [1988]. Child Star: an Autobiography. Warner Books, Inc. ISBN 0-446-35792-8.
• Edwards, Anne (1988). Shirley Temple: American Princess. William Morrow and Company, Inc.
• Windeler, Robert (1992) [1978]. The Films of Shirley Temple. Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8065-0725-X.

External links

• "Official site" (Legend Films memorabilia and merchandise site authorized by Shirley Temple Black)
• Shirley Temple at the TCM Movie Database
• ShirleyTempleFans.com
• Female Frontiers QuestChat Archive: Shirley Temple and biography
• Shirley Temple movies for free download
• Shirley Temple Theatre
• Shirley Temple's Storybook
• Photographs of Shirley Temple
• Hollywood.com Biography