Shirley Temple is an American actress and public servant. Born on April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica, California to George and Gertrude Temple, she began her screen career in 1932 at the age of three with comedy shorts and bit parts in feature films. Following her breakthrough film Stand Up and Cheer! in 1934, she skyrocketed to superstardom the same year with the Christmas release of Bright Eyes , a feature film designed specifically for her talents. Star status was confirmed with an Academy Award in February 1935, and blockbusting superhits such as Curly Top and Heidi followed year after year during the mid to late 1930s. Licensed merchandise that included dolls, dishes, and clothing capitalized on her image. Temple's popularity waned in her tweens and she left Twentieth Century-Fox at the age of twelve to attend high school. She appeared in a few films of varying quality in her mid to late teens, and retired completely from the silver screen in 1950 at the age of twenty-one. She starred in twenty-four films for Twentieth Century-Fox, and was the top box-office draw four years in a row (1935-1938) in a Motion Picture Herald poll.
Temple's parents were powerful forces in their daughter's rise to stardom and success. Gertrude Temple enrolled her daughter in dance school, doggedly made the rounds of casting offices, read scripts to her daughter, crafted her emotional, physical, and vocal expressions, monitored her daughter's performance from a chair placed beside the camera, conducted her own interviews, and received a paid position at Twentieth Century-Fox as Temple's coach and hairdresser. Temple's father was a bank employee who managed his daughter's wealth through astute investments. In 1945, against her parents' better judgement, seventeen-year-old Temple married Army Air Force sergeant John Agar, who, after being discharged from the service, entered the acting profession. The couple made two films together before Temple divorced him on the grounds of mental cruelty in 1949, receiving custody of their daughter Linda Susan and the restoration of her maiden name in the process. In January 1950, Temple met the conservative scion of a patrician California family and United States Navy Silver Star recipient Charles Alden Black. She married him in December 1950 following the finalization of her divorce and retired from films the same day to become a homemaker. Charles Alden Black, Jr. was born in 1952 and Lori Alden Black in 1954. In 1972, Shirley Temple Black was one of the first prominent women to speak openly about breast cancer after undergoing a modified radical mastectomy.
In 1958, Temple returned to show biz with Shirley Temple's Storybook , a live-action television anthology series featuring fairy tale adaptations. Temple played hostess and narrated or acted in episodes. Stars Charlton Heston, Claire Bloom, Elsa Lanchester, Rod McKuen, Joel Grey and others appeared on the show. The series chalked up a single season, left the air for a season, and returned for its final season in color in 1960 as The Shirley Temple Show . The reprise included adaptations of material other than fairy tales such as Ludwig Bemelmans's Madeline , and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables . Temple made guest appearances on various television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. Temple sat on the boards of many corporations and organizations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation. In the mid 1960s, she entered public life, 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 over her lifetime including Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
Birth and early years
Weighing six pounds eight ounces, Shirley Temple was delivered without complications at 9:00 p.m. on Monday April 23, 1928, at the Santa Monica Hospital in Santa Monica, California by Dr. Leonard John Madsen to George Francis Temple, a bank clerk of Dutch, German, and English descent, and Gertrude Amelia Krieger, a housewife of German and Irish descent, who, at the time of their daughter's birth, were the parents of two sons, thirteen-year-old John "Jack" Stanley Temple and nine-year-old George "Sonny" Francis Temple, Jr..
As a grammar school student in 1907, Mrs. Temple entertained fantasies about a career in dance. The fantasies never bore fruit. Frustrated, she directed her dreams upon her yet unborn daughter, and, to that end, tried to influence her daughter's future by prenatal association with music, art, and natural beauty. During her pregnancy, she listened to phonograph records, read books aloud, and attended dance recitals and concerts. The first year of the infant Temple's life was spent in a crib in the family's living room close to the phonograph used by her mother to play popular tunes. Exercise and good food were a part of the infant Temple's regimen and she never contracted the usual childhood diseases. At eight months, Temple was standing in her crib swaying to the popular music her mother played on the phonograph, and, at thirteen months, began walking and keeping time with her feet to music on the radio. Her mother noted the child ran on her toes as though dancing. Mrs. Temple read storybooks to her daughter, altering the pitch of her voice according to the character's sex, and enacted the story and characters. To Mrs. Temple's delight, her daughter began to mimic her.
The early years of the Great Depression left but little impact on the Temples, though Mr. Temple did take a cut in pay at the bank which, nevertheless, remained sound through the era. The Temples' house and car were paid in full and Mr. Temple had been cautious with investments. As neighbors and friends were wiped out, Mrs. Temple attended fewer card parties and became aloof and private, focusing her attention upon her daughter. She taught the tot the words to her favorite popular songs, noted the child was able to bring expression to the words, and observed that the child had perfect pitch and could easily repeat simple dance steps.
Child film performers increased in popularity during the Depression era, and, early in 1931, Mrs. Temple took the first steps in bringing her daughter to the screen. She was convinced her three-year-old daughter had exceptional talent, and, at the prompting of her husband, enrolled the youngster in the highly competitive Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles, California on the Mack Sennett lot (leased at the time to Educational Pictures, a Poverty Row studio) for twice weekly dance lessons beginning on September 13, 1931. An added attraction of the dance studio for Mrs. Temple was the promise of public recitals held for parents and other interested parties. Mrs. Temple later revealed in the March 1935 issue of Silver Screen magazine that her daughter quickly became the studio's star pupil.
Mrs. Temple started constructing at home the stylish clothing of fashionable women and children for herself and her daughter, and initiated the morning ritual of styling her daughter's lengthening and thickening hair into precisely fifty-six ringlets in imitation of the hairstyle worn by the young Mary Pickford. The process involved dampening the hair with a wave solution, wrapping a length of hair around a finger, securing it with a bobby pin, and gently combing the ringlet when dry. She called her daughter "Presh" (short for precious) and gave her a few dolls which became the nucleus of Temple's world famous doll collection.
Shortly after Temple's third birthday, Educational Pictures planned a series of one-reelers called Baby Burlesks to compete with the popular Our Gang comedy shorts. 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. She did, and was signed to a two-year contract in January 1932 at $10 a day for a typically four day shooting schedule.
Film career
First films
The Baby Burlesks were eight 10–11 minute films produced by Jack Hays and directed by Charles Lamont that satirized contemporary motion pictures, celebrities, events, and politics. The casts were composed entirely of preschoolers who wore adult costumes on top and diapers fastened with enormous safety pins on the bottom. The concept was likely inspired by the mid-1920s art of C. C. Twelvetrees whose diaper-clad, top-hatted children appeared in Pictorial Review and other publications. Universal Studios put up 75 percent of the backing for the Baby Burlesks and a proposed Universal contract for Temple guaranteeing two years of work, twenty-four films, and plenty of benefits but pay for only days before the camera. Expenses and rehearsals (sometimes as many as ten days) were unremunerated. Temple was disciplined at the studio by being confined to a small "black box" isolation chamber with only a block of ice to sit upon. Her first day on the job entailed almost twelve hours of work with two naps. She took home a $10.00 check, a considerable sum at the time. Her films thereafter usually demanded four days of shooting, days of unpaid rehearsals, and publicity photo shoots.
Temple made her screen debut in April 1932 with Runt Page , a spoof of the play and film The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. It was the only film in the series dubbed by adults. The remaining f
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