A child star for the ages
Shirley Temple beloved during the Depression
Shirley Temple Black, who has died aged 85, was the screen’s most popular child star of the 1930s, receiving at the age of eight 135,000 birthday gifts from fans around the world.
Throughout the Depression, her sunny disposition helped audiences forget their woes and a special Oscar was presented to her for “bringing more happiness to millions of children and millions of grown-ups than any other child of her years in the history of the world.” It might have turned many a child’s head, but Shirley had her mother constantly at her side to ensure she was kept on an even keel.
Gertrude Temple was the architect of Shirley’s career. A shrewd businesswoman, she knew how to manipulate the studios to her daughter’s advantage. She turned Shirley into a phenomenon.
She was acting in pictures from the age of four and captivated filmgoers with her blond ringlets and dimpled charm. Dolls, books and games were named after her in a merchandising campaign matched only by Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.
She had the child star’s built-in limited shelf life. Attempts to extend her career into young womanhood were unsuccessful and she made her last film in 1949 — finished in Hollywood at 21.
Yet that was not the end of the Shirley Temple story: the little girl who had never had a normal childhood matured into a distinguished politician and diplomat. She ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress before representing America at the United Nations and serving as U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia under her married name Shirley Temple Black.
She was born April 23, 1928, in Santa Monica, Calif., the daughter of a bank teller.
Gertrude Temple enrolled her child in dancing classes at age three. A talent scout from Educational Pictures spotted Shirley and invited her for a screen test, which led to her appearance in 1932-33 in a string of film spoofs known as Baby Burlesks.
She alternated these performances with small parts in now-forgotten movies. While filming a second series of shorts for Educational under the title Frolics of Youth, she and her mother were approached by the much bigger Fox Film Corp. (later 20th Century Fox) with an offer for Shirley to appear in Stand Up and Cheer (1934). She was signed up for $150 US a week. When the film opened, she stole the show with the song and dance routine Baby Take a Bow.
Recognizing her star potential, Fox swung its publicity department into action. But it did not have her under exclusive contract. Earlier in the year, Gertrude Temple had signed a two-picture deal with Paramount and it was that studio that initially reaped the benefit of her sudden fame. It rushed her into two pictures in 1934 to fulfil the contract.
Shirley’s Fox contract was renegotiated to $1,250 a week. She was cast in Bright Eyes, where she sang one of the songs indelibly associated with her, On the Good Ship Lollipop. From then on movies were written especially for her. By the end of 1934, aged six, she was the eighth biggest draw in America.
A year later, she was No. 1 and held that position four years in a row. She churned out pictures — sometimes five a year.
The year 1938 marked the high-water mark of her popularity. She appeared in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Miss Broadway and Just Around the Corner at a fee of $100,000 a picture, which made her Hollywood’s highest-paid earner after producer Louis B. Mayer. By 1939 her fee had jumped to $300,000, but public taste was changing. Susannah and the Mounties was disappointing. The Blue Bird was considered a “turkey.”
MGM had wanted to borrow her for The Wizard of Oz, but Fox refused, casting her instead in what it hoped would be a rival children’s attraction. The Blue Bird found no favour with the public, becoming Shirley’s first flop.
Gertrude Temple blamed Fox and offered to buy out the remainder of Shirley’s contract. Fox raised no objections and, at 11, she took a “sabbatical” from the cinema, ostensibly to repair gaps in her patchy education.
Shirley’s absence from the screen was an opportunity for her mother to negotiate a deal with another studio. She picked MGM, but it was not a happy choice. The studio was grooming its own child prodigy in Judy Garland and found only one movie for Shirley.
After a film for United Artists, Shirley gravitated to David O. Selznick, who signed her to a seven-year contract, but as a teenager she could no longer command lead roles. Selznick cast her only in supporting parts. In 1945, aged 17, she completed her education by graduating from Westlake High School for Girls in Los Angeles. She published her first autobiography, My Young Life, and was married to army sergeant-turned actor John Agar.
The last four years of her screen career were an anticlimax. This period included the film Fort Apache (1948), in which she co-starred, aged 20, with her husband.
When that marriage failed, she married, in 1950, San Francisco businessman, Charles Black. She largely retired from acting to concentrate on social work.
In 1967 she ran for Congress. Though her recording of On the Good Ship Lollipop was used as a theme song at rallies, she insisted that “Little Shirley Temple is not running. If someone insists on pinning me with a label, let it read Shirley Temple Black, Republican independent.”
After her election defeat, she continued to work for the Republicans. When elected, Richard Nixon named her to the American delegation to the United Nations. Her diplomatic career included U.S. ambassador to Ghana (1974-76) and to the former Czechoslovakia (1989).
Shirley Templehada daughter with her first husband and two with her second.