Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, politician, and diplomat, who was Hollywood's number-one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. Later, she was named United States Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States.

Temple began her film career in 1931 when she was three years old and became well known for her performance in Bright Eyes, released in 1934. She won a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer in motion pictures during 1934 and continued to appear in popular films through the remainder of the 1930s, although her subsequent films became less popular as she grew older. She appeared in her last film, A Kiss for Corliss, in 1949.

Temple joined the Junior League of Palo Alto, CA in 1959 and shortly thereafter began a new chapter of public service, perhaps using a combination of her stardom and her leadership training to advocate for important causes.

She began her diplomatic career in 1969, when she was appointed to represent the U.S. at a session of the United Nations General Assembly, where she worked at the U.S. Mission under Ambassador Charles Yost. Later, she was named U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, and also served as the first female U.S. Chief of Protocol. In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star. After her biography was published, she served as the U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1989–1992).

Temple was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She is 18th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female American screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema.

Early years

Shirley Jane Temple was born on April 23, 1928, at Santa Monica Hospital in Santa Monica, California, the third child of homemaker Gertrude Amelia Temple (née Krieger) and bank employee George Francis Temple. The family was of Dutch, English, and German ancestry. She had two brothers: John and George Jr. The family moved to Rockingham Avenue, Brentwood, Los Angeles.

Temple's mother encouraged her to develop her singing, dancing, and acting talents. At about this time, her mother began styling Temple's hair in ringlets.

While at the dance school, Temple was spotted by Charles Lamont, who was a casting director for Educational Pictures. She hid behind a piano while he was in the studio. Lamont liked Temple and invited her to audition. He signed her to a contract in 1932. Educational Pictures launched its Baby Burlesks, 10-minute comedy shorts satirizing recent films and events, using preschool children in every role. In 1933, Temple appeared in Glad Rags to Riches, a parody of the Mae West feature She Done Him Wrong, with Temple as a saloon singer. That same year, she appeared in Kid 'in' Africa as a child imperiled in the jungle and in Runt Page, a pastiche of the previous year's The Front Page. The younger players in the cast recited their lines phonetically.

Temple became the breakout star of this series, and Educational promoted her to 20-minute comedies in the Frolics of Youth series with Frank Coghlan Jr. Temple played Mary Lou Rogers, the baby sister in a contemporary suburban family. Temple and her child costars modeled for breakfast cereals and other products to fund production costs. She was lent to Tower Productions for a small role in the studio's first feature film, The Red-Haired Alibi (1932), and in 1933 to Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros. Pictures for various parts, including an uncredited role in To the Last Man (1933), starring Randolph Scott and Esther Ralston.

Film career

After viewing one of Temple's Frolics of Youth films, Fox Film Corporation songwriter Jay Gorney saw her dancing in the theater lobby. Recognizing her from the screen, Gorney arranged a screen test for Temple for the film Stand Up and Cheer! (1934). Temple auditioned on December 7, 1933, and won the part. She was signed to a $150-per-week contract that was guaranteed for two weeks by Fox. The role was a breakthrough performance for Temple. Her charm was evident to Fox executives, and she was ushered into corporate offices almost immediately after finishing "Baby, Take a Bow", a song-and-dance number that she performed with James Dunn.

Roles

Biographer John Kasson argues:

In almost all of these films, she played the role of emotional healer, mending rifts between erstwhile sweethearts, estranged family members, traditional and modern ways, and warring armies. Characteristically lacking one or both parents, she constituted new families of those most worthy to love and protect her. Producers delighted in contrasting her diminutive stature, sparkling eyes, dimpled smile, and 56 blond curls by casting her opposite strapping leading men, such as Gary Cooper, John Boles, Victor McLaglen, and Randolph Scott. Yet her favorite costar was the great African American tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, with whom she appeared in four films, beginning with The Little Colonel (1935), in which they performed the famous staircase dance.

Biographer Anne Edwards wrote about the tone and tenor of Temple's films:

This was mid-Depression, and schemes proliferated for the care of the needy and the regeneration of the fallen. But they all required endless paperwork and demeaning, hours-long queues, at the end of which an exhausted, nettled social worker dealt with each person as a faceless number. Shirley offered a natural solution: to open one's heart.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt praised her performances, saying, "It is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents, an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles."

Finances

On December 21, 1933, Temple's contract was extended to one year at the same $150 per week (equivalent to $3,731 in 2025) with a seven-year option, and her mother Gertrude was hired at $25 per week (equivalent to $622 in 2025) as her hairdresser and personal coach. Released in May 1934, Stand Up and Cheer! became Shirley's breakthrough film. She performed in a short skit in the film alongside popular Fox star James Dunn, singing and tap dancing. Fox executives rushed her into another film with Dunn, Baby Take a Bow (named after their song in Stand Up and Cheer!). Temple's third film, also with Dunn, was Bright Eyes (1934), a movie written specifically for her.

After the success of her first three films, Temple's parents realized that she was not being paid sufficiently. Her image also began to appear on numerous commercial products without her legal authorization and without compensation. To regain control over the use of her image and to negotiate with Fox, Temple's parents hired lawyer Loyd Wright to represent them. On July 18, 1934, Temple's contractual salary was raised to $1,000 per week (equivalent to $24,067 in 2025), and her mother's salary was raised to $250 per week (equivalent to $6,017 in 2025), with an additional $15,000 (equivalent to $361,007 in 2025) bonus for each finished film. Cease-and-desist letters were sent to many companies and authorized corporate licenses began to be issued.

Bright Eyes, written with her acting style in mind, was released in 1934 The film included the song "On the Good Ship Lollipop", which is considered to be her signature song. She was awarded a miniature Juvenile Oscar in 1935.

1935–1937

Temple's quota of films in each calendar year was increased from three to four in the contract that her parents signed in July 1934. Now and Forever starring Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard (with Temple billed third with her name above the title beneath Cooper's and Lombard's), The Little Colonel, Our Little Girl, Curly Top (with the signature song "Animal Crackers in My Soup") and The Littlest Rebel were released after the contract was signed. Curly Top was Temple's last film before the merger between 20th Century Pictures and the Fox Film Corporation.

Temple's salary was $2,500 per week (equivalent to $58,708 in 2025) by the end of 1935. Elaborate sets were built for the production at the famed Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where a rock feature at the heavily filmed location ranch was eventually named Shirley Temple Rock.

Heidi was the only other Temple film released in 1937. Midway through shooting of the movie, the dream sequence was added to the script. Temple herself reportedly was behind the dream sequence and she had enthusiastically pushed for it, but in her autobiography, she vehemently denied this. Her contract gave neither her parents nor her any creative control over her movies. She saw this as Zanuck's refusal to make any serious attempt at building upon the success of her dramatic role in Wee Willie Winkie.