Shirley Temple

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Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple in The Little Princess (1939)
Born	Shirley Temple April 23, 1928 (1928-04-23) (age 81) Santa Monica, California United States
Other name(s)	Shirley Jane Temple[note 1] Shirley Temple Black
Occupation	Actress (1931–1965) Public servant (1967–present)
Spouse(s)	John Agar (1945–1950, divorce) Charles Alden Black (1950–2005, his death)

Shirley Temple (born April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica, California) is an American actress and public servant. She began her acting career in 1932 with one-reelers and skyrocketed to superstardom in 1934 with the feature film, Bright Eyes. Thereafter, she starred in twenty-four films for Twentieth Century-Fox and became top box-office draw in a Motion Picture Herald poll four years in a row, from 1935 to 1938.^[1][2]

In 1945, Temple married Army Air Force sergeant John Agar, divorced him in 1949, and received custody of their daughter Linda Susan. In 1950, she married United States Navy Silver Star recipient Charles Alden Black and retired from the film industry. In the early 1950s, she had two children with Black: Charles Alden Jr., and Lori Alden.

In 1958, she ventured into television with Shirley Temple's Storybook, a live-action fairy tale anthology series. She ran unsuccessfully for United States Congress in 1967, and received appointments as United States Ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and to Czechoslovakia in 1989. In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star.

Temple has received many awards and honors including an Academy Award, Kennedy Center Honors, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

Birth and early years

Temple as a baby, c1928

Weighing 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^[3] to George Francis Temple (May 1888, Fairview, Pennsylvania – September 30, 1980 Woodside, California),^[4] a bank clerk of Dutch, German, and English descent,^[5] and Gertrude Amelia Krieger (July 15, 1893, Chicago, Illinois – January 1, 1977, Woodside, California), a housewife.^[6] At the time of their daughter's birth, the Temples were the parents of two sons, thirteen-year-old John "Jack" Stanley and nine-year-old George "Sonny" Francis Jr..^[7]

At eight months, Temple was standing in her crib swaying to the popular music her mother played on the phonograph,^[3] and, at thirteen months, began walking and keeping time with her feet to music on the radio. Mother and daughter read storybooks together and enacted the characters.^[8] Early in 1931, convinced her three-year-old daughter had exceptional talent,^[3] Mrs. Temple enrolled the youngster in Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles, California for twice weekly dance lessons.^[9][10]

About this time, executives at Educational Pictures, a Poverty Row studio, planned a series of one-reelers called Baby Burlesks to compete with the popular Our Gang comedy shorts.^{[note 2]} Charles Lamont (May 5, 1895 – September 12, 1993), 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. She did, and was signed to a two-year contract in January 1932.^[11][12][13]

Film career

First films

Temple and co-star Georgie Smith in Runt Page (1932), Temple's first film appearance

The Baby Burlesks were eight 10-11 minute films that satirized contemporary motion pictures, celebrities, and politics.^[14] The casts were composed entirely of preschoolers who wore adult costumes on top and diapers fastened with enormous safety pins on the bottom.^[15] Temple made her screen debut in April 1932 with Runt Page, a spoof of the play, The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.^{[note 3]} In Glad Rags to Riches, Temple performed her first on-screen tap dance and sang her first film song, "She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage".^[13]

Temple appeared in all eight films in the series, and graduated to a series of Educational two-reelers called Frolics of Youth in which she portrayed Mary Lou Rogers, a youngster in a contemporary suburban family.^[16] She was paid $15 a day or $50 a picture.^[17] 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.^[18][19]

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

While under contract for Educational, Temple was loaned-out to other studios. Her first appearance in a feature film was a barely visible role in The Red-Haired Alibi for Tower Productions, Inc. in 1932.^[20][21] In 1933, she made several short films for Educational, and, again, was loaned-out for bit parts in feature films at Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros..^[22][23]

In February 1934, she signed a contract with Fox Films after Educational declared bankruptcy in September 1933.^[24][25] She appeared in bit parts for Fox and was loaned-out for a two-reeler and two feature films at Paramount and a feature film for Warner Bros.-First National.^[26]

In April 1934, Fox's Stand Up and Cheer! became Temple's breakthrough film. Her performance was refreshing in comparison with her drab cinematic surroundings and the lackluster performances of her adult costars. Fox was aware of her charisma while the film was in production and began promoting Temple well before the film's release. She was billed third, preparing critics and filmgoers to give her their undivided attention. Within months, Temple came to represent wholesome family entertainment.^[27] Stand Up and Cheer! brought her critical acclaim and truck-loads of fan mail.^[28] Her salary was raised to US$1,250 a week, and her mother's to $150 as coach and hairdresser.^[29] In June, Temple garnered more critical and popular acclaim for her performance in Paramount's Little Miss Marker.^[30][31]

She finished 1934 with the 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.^[32][33] In the film's one musical number, she introduced what would become her signature song, On the Good Ship Lollipop. The song was an instant hit and sold 500,000 sheet music copies. The film (more than any other Temple film up to that time) demonstrated her ability to portray a fully dimensional character and established a formula for future roles of a lovable, parentless waif mellowing a gruff older man.^[34]

In February 1935, Temple received a special miniature Oscar statuette in recognition of her contributions to film entertainment in 1934.^{[35][36][37][note 4]} A month later, she added her foot and hand prints to the forecourt at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.^[38]

Twentieth Century-Fox

Temple and Zanuck, (1935?)

In 1934, Fox Films was in dire financial straits and merged with producer Darryl F. Zanuck's Twentieth Century Pictures to become Twentieth Century-Fox, and thereafter, studio head Zanuck (one of the best story minds in the film industry at the time)^[39] focused his attention and resources upon cultivating Temple's superstar status. After four successful films – Stand Up and Cheer!, Little Miss Marker, Baby Take a Bow, and Bright Eyes – the public adored her.^{[40][note 5]} The studio's top priority became developing projects, vehicles, and stories for Temple, and, to that end, the "Shirley Temple Story Development" team of nineteen writers was put to work creating eleven original stories and adapting the classics.^[41]

The nation was in the midst of the Great Depression, and, though bureaucratic schemes for relieving impoverished and suffering Americans abounded, most treated the great unwashed masses as nothing more than faceless numbers. Temple's films would propose a simple natural solution to the Great Depression's woes—open one's heart and give of oneself. Temple's goodness, innocence, and charm would melt the hearts of cold authority figures like military officers, corporation heads, and orphanage matrons and touch the lives of the grumpy, the wizened, the rich, the bratty, the miserly, and the criminal with positive results. In doing so, she was presenting them with the opportunity to give of themselves.^[41]

Temple and Eleanor Roosevelt, (July 1938)

Adult audiences (unable to resolve the difficulties presented them in everyday Depression era life) could enter a child's fantasy world in a Temple film to see all problems brought to satisfying closures by film's end. Temple films were seen as generating hope and optimism, and 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."^{[42][note 6]}

Most Temple films were cheaply-made ($200,000 or $300,000 per picture) comedy-dramas with songs and dances added, sentimental and melodramatic situations aplenty, and little in the way of production values. Her film titles are a clue to the way she was marketed – Curly Top and Dimples, and her "little" pictures such as The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel. Temple often played a fixer-upper, a precocious Cupid, or the good fairy in these films, reuniting her estranged parents or smoothing out the wrinkles in the romances of young couples. She was very often motherless, sometimes fatherless, and sometimes an orphan confined to a dreary asylum.^[43] Elements of the traditional fairy tale were incorporated in her films: wholesome goodness triumphed over meanness and evil, for example, or wealth over poverty, marriage over divorce, or a booming economy over a depressed one.^[44] As Temple matured into a pre-adolescent, the formula was altered slightly to encourage her naturalness, naïveté, and tomboyishness to come forth and shine while her infant innocence that had served her well at six but was inappropriate for her tweens was toned down.^[43]

Temple and her parents, c1935

At Zanuck's request, Temple's parents agreed to four films a year from their daughter (rather than the three they wished), and the child star's contract was reworked with bonuses to sweeten the deal. A succession of films followed: The Little Colonel, Our Little Girl, Curly Top, and The Littlest Rebel in 1935. Curly Top and The Littlest Rebel were named to Variety's list of top box office draws for 1935^[45] In 1936, Captain January, Poor Little Rich Girl, Dimples,^{[note 7]} and Stowaway were released.

Based on Temple's many successes, Zanuck decided to increase budgets and production values for her films. In 1937, John Ford was hired to direct the sepia-toned Wee Willie Winkie (Temple's own favorite film) and a top-drawer cast was secured that included Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, and Cesar Romero.^[46][47] The film was a critical and commercial hit,^[47] but British film critic Graham Greene muddied the waters in October 1937 when he wrote in a British magazine that Temple was a "complete totsy" and accused her of being too nubile for a nine-year-old:

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.^[48]

Temple and Twentieth Century-Fox sued for libel and won. The settlement remained in trust for Temple in England until she turned twenty-one, at which time it was used to build a youth center in England.^[49][50]

The only other Temple film released in 1937 was Heidi, a story suited to her maturing personality.^[51] Her blond hair had darkened to ash blond and the ringlets brushed back into soft curls. Her theatrical instincts had sharpened and she suggested the Dutch song and dance dream sequence and its placement.^[52] After minor disagreements with the other children in the scene about the dance steps, director Allan Dwan had badges made with 'Shirley Temple Police' inscribed upon them. Every child was issued one after swearing allegiance and obedience to Temple.^[53]

In 1938, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Miss Broadway, and Just Around the Corner were released with the latter two being among Temple's least interesting films. Both were critical duds with Corner the first Temple film to founder at the box office.^[54] The following year, Zanuck secured the rights to the children's novel, A Little Princess, believing the book would be an ideal vehicle for Temple. He budgeted the film at $1.5 million (twice the amount of Corner) and chose it to be her first Technicolor feature. The Little Princess was a 1939 critical and commercial success with Temple's acting at its peak. Convinced Temple would make the transition from child star to teenage actress, ^[55] Zanuck declined a substantial offer from MGM to star Temple as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and cast her instead in the banal Susannah of the Mounties, her last money-maker for Twentieth Century-Fox.^[56][57] The film dropped Temple from number one box-office favorite in 1938 to number thirteen in 1939.^[58]

In 1940, Temple starred in two consecutive flops at Twentieth Century-Fox (The Blue Bird and Young People). Times had changed with the advent of World War II. The breezy, flippant escapist films of the 1930s had given place to serious fare reflecting the anxiety and trepidation Americans felt as they were drawn into a cataclysmic war. A fairy tale film about a selfish girl could not have been more inappropriate,^[59] and Zanuck preferred to disassociate himself and the studio from a child star whose career was clearly finished.^[60] Temple's parents were furious but bought up the remainder of her contract in 1940 and sent her at the age of twelve to Westlake School for Girls, an exclusive and pricey country day school in Los Angeles.^[61] At the studio, Temple's bungalow was renovated, all traces of her tenure expunged, and the building reassigned as an office complex.^[60]

Temple-related merchandise and endorsements

There were many Temple-inspired products manufactured and released during the 1930s. Ideal Toy and Novelty Company in New York City negotiated a license for dolls with the company's first doll wearing the polka-dot dress from Stand Up and Cheer!. Shirley Temple dolls realized $45 million in sales before 1941.^[62]

A mug, a pitcher, and a cereal bowl in cobalt blue with a decal of Temple were given away as a premium with Wheaties. Successful Temple items included a line of girls' dresses and accessories, soap, dishes, cutout books, sheet music, mirrors, paper tablets, and numerous other items. Before 1935 ended, Temple's income from licensed merchandise royalties would exceed $100,000, doubling her income from her movies. In 1936, her income would top $200,000 from royalties. She endorsed Postal Telegraph, Sperry Drifted Snow Flour, the Grunow Teledial radio, Quaker Puffed Wheat,^[62] General Electric, and Packard automobiles.^[34]

Last films and retirement

Within a year of her departure from Twentieth Century-Fox,^{[note 8]} Louis B. Mayer of MGM signed Temple for her comeback. Plans were made to team her with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney for the Andy Hardy series, but her comeback film became Kathleen (1941), a story about an unhappy teenager, her rich Dad, and her female psychologist. The film flopped and her MGM contract was canceled after mutual consent. Miss Annie Rooney (1942, United Artists) followed, but it bombed.^{[note 9]} The actress retired for almost two years from films, throwing herself into school life and activities.^[63]

In 1944, David O. Selznick signed Temple to a personal four-year contract. She appeared in two wartime hits for him: Since You Went Away and I'll Be Seeing You. Selznick however became involved with Jennifer Jones and lost interest in developing Temple's career. She was loaned-out to other studios with Kiss and Tell (1945, Columbia Pictures), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947, RKO), and Fort Apache (1948, RKO) being the few hits among a string of duds.^[64]

Although her 1947-9 films did not lose money, most had a cheap "B" look about them and her performances were colorless and apathetic.^[65] Selznick suggested she move to Italy with her daughter, study the culture, gain maturity as an actress, and even change her name.^[66][65] He made it clear she had been detrimentally typecast in Hollywood and her career was in very perilous straits.^[65] After auditioning (and being rejected) in August 1950 for the role of Peter Pan on the Broadway stage,^[67] Temple took stock, admitted her recent movies had been poor fare, and announced her official retirement from films on December 16, 1950—the same day she married Black.^[68][65]

Marriages and children

Temple, Agar, and their daughter Linda Susan, c1948

In 1943, Temple met John George Agar (January 31, 1921, Chicago, Illinois – April 7, 2002 Burbank, California), an Army Air Force sergeant, physical training instructor, and scion of a Chicago meat-packing family.^[69][70] Two years later on September 19, 1945 at 8:59 p.m., they were married before Pastor Willsie Martin and five hundred guests in a twelve-minute, double-ring Episcopalian ceremony at Wilshire Methodist Church.^[25][71][72] Two and a half years later on January 30, 1948, Temple gave birth to a daughter, Linda Susan.^[73][25][74]

Agar entered the acting profession and the couple made two films together: Fort Apache (1948, RKO) and Adventure in Baltimore (1949, RKO).^[74] In time, Agar tired of being 'Mr. Shirley Temple', and began drinking.^[75][74] Temple divorced Agar on the grounds of mental cruelty December 5, 1949,^[34][74] and, in the process, received custody of their daughter and the restoration of her maiden name.^[76][77][74]

Temple and her second husband Charles Alden Black, c1950

While vacationing in Hawaii in January 1950, Temple met thirty-year-old WWII Naval hero and Assistant to the President of Hawaiian Pineapple, Charles Alden Black (March 6, 1919, Oakland, California – August 4, 2005, Woodside, California).^{[78][79][note 10]} Following a romance that lasted almost a year, Temple wed Black in his parents' Del Monte, California home on December 16, 1950 at 4:30 p.m. before Superior Court Judge Henry G. Jorgensen and a small assembly of family and friends.^[25][80][79] The family relocated to Washington, D.C. when Black was recalled to the Navy at the outbreak of the Korean War.^[81] Temple Black gave birth by Caesarean section to a son, Charles Alden Black, Jr., at the Bethesda Naval Hospital on April 28, 1952.^[25][82][83]

Following war's end and Black's discharge from the Navy, the family returned to California in May 1953. Black managed television station KABC-TV in Los Angeles, and Temple Black became a homemaker. Their daughter Lori was born at the Santa Monica Hospital on April 9, 1954.^[25] In September 1954, Black became director of business operations for the Stanford University Research Institute and the family moved to Atherton, California.^[84]

Television

Temple Black and her children Lori Alden, Charles Alden, Jr., and Linda Susan appeared together in "Mother Goose", the final episode of Shirley Temple's Storybook, (December 1958)

Temple returned to show biz in January 1958 with a one-season television anthology series of live-action fairy tale adaptations called Shirley Temple's Storybook.^[85] Before a background of 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.^[86][87] All three of Temple's children made their acting debuts on the show in "Mother Goose". None chose to pursue acting careers later in life.^{[88][89][note 11]}

Claire Bloom and Charlton Heston appeared in the first episode as Beauty and the Beast. Other celebrities through the run of the series included Elsa Lanchester, Rod McKuen, Joel Grey, and E. G. Marshall.^[90] The show was a great success with one critic declaring Temple could, if she wished, "steal Christmas from Tiny Tim".^[89] Following its January to December 1958 season, the show was reworked, retitled Shirley Temple Theater, and returned to television in September 1960 for one season.^[91]

Motivated by the popularity of the show, Temple persuaded the Ideal Toy Company to release a new version of the Shirley Temple doll,^{[note 12]} made a deal with a clothing manufacturer to issue a version of the Baby Take a Bow polka-dot dress, and arranged with Random House to publish three anthologies of fairy tales under her name.^[89]

In other television, Temple made guest appearances on The Red Skelton Show, Sing Along with Mitch, The Dinah Shore Show, and The Mike Douglas Show.^[92] In January 1965, she portrayed a social worker fighting for the rights of others in a sitcom pilot called Go Fight City Hall. The pilot was never released.^[93] In 1999, she hosted the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars awards show on CBS, and, in 2001, served as a consultant on an ABC-TV production of her autobiography called Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story.

Life after Hollywood

Following her venture into television, Temple Black became active in the Republican Party in California, where, in 1967, she ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives on a platform supporting America's involvement in the Vietnam War.^[94][95]

Shirley Temple Black, United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1990)

In the autumn of 1972, Temple Black was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was malignant and removed, and a modified radical mastectomy performed. Following the operation, she announced it to the world via radio, television, and a February 1973 article for the magazine McCall's. In doing so, she became one of the first prominent women to speak openly about breast cancer.^[96]

Temple Black was appointed Representative to the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations by President Richard M. Nixon (1969–70),^[97][98] and was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana (December 6, 1974 – July 13, 1976) by President Gerald R. Ford.^[99] She was appointed first female Chief of Protocol of the United States (July 1, 1976 – January 21, 1977), and was in charge of arrangements for President Jimmy Carter's inauguration and inaugural ball.^[99][100] She was appointed by President George H. W. Bush as United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (August 23, 1989 – July 12, 1992).^[34]

Temple Black has served on numerous boards of directors of large enterprises and organizations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte, the Bank of America, the Bank of California, BANCAL Tri-State, Fireman's Fund Insurance, the United States Commission for UNESCO, the United Nations Association, and the National Wildlife Federation.^[101]

Awards and honors

Image: Temple Black and the SAG Award, 2005

Temple is the recipient of many awards and honors including a special Academy Award,^[25] the Life Achievement Award from the American Center of Films for Children,^[99] the National Board of Review Career Achievement Award,^[102] Kennedy Center Honors,^[103] and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.^[104] In 2002, a life-size bronze statue of the child Temple was erected on the Fox lot.^[105]

Filmography

• Shirley Temple filmography

References

Notes

Footnotes

Works cited

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shirley Temple

Wikinews has related news: Many SAG Awards presenters announced

• Shirley Temple at the Internet Movie Database
• Shirley Temple at the TCM Movie Database
• Shirley Temple movies for free download
• Photographs of Shirley Temple