Background

Ethnicity: Shirley Temple was of Dutch, English, and German ancestry.

Shirley Temple was born in Santa Monica, California, United States, on April 23, 1928. She was the youngest of three children in her family. Shirley had two brothers - John and George, Jr. Her father, George Temple, was a bank teller, and her mother, Gertrude Temple, was a homemaker.

Education

As a child, Shirley Temple began to take dance steps almost as soon as she began to walk, and her mother took her to dancing school when she was about three and a half years old. She also took her daughter on endless rounds of visits to agents, hoping to secure a show business career. Persistence paid off. Little Shirley obtained a contract at a small film studio and one of the great careers in film history began.

Career

Shirley Temple's first contract was with Educational Pictures Inc., for whom she worked in 1932 and 1933. She appeared in a short movie entitled Baby Burlesks, followed by a two-reeler, Frolics of Youth, that would lead to her being contracted by the Fox Film Corporation at a salary of $150 per week. The first full-length feature that she appeared in for Fox was Carolina (1934). It was another Fox release of that year that made her a star: Stand Up and Cheer. She appeared in eight other full-length films that year, including Little Miss Marker and Bright Eyes. The first of these is especially notable because it was her first starring role.

By the end of the 1930s, however, Temple's popularity had begun to wane, and her last big hit was The Little Princess (1939). By 1940, she had appeared in forty-three feature films and shorts, and an entire industry had sprung up with products celebrating the glories of Shirley Temple: dolls, dresses, coloring books, and other merchandise.

By the decade's end, Temple was no longer quite a child. When The Blue Bird (1940) proved unpopular at the box office, and the next film she starred in fared poorly as well, Twentieth-Century Fox devised a means of getting rid of the "property" that had saved the fledgling studio from bankruptcy. She tried to maintain her acting career through the 1940s, but never again did she come even close to the stardom of her childhood. Film audiences would simply not allow the adorable girl who had sung "On the Good Ship Lolly Pop" and "Animal Crackers (in My Soup)" to grow up.

In 1950, after the marriage, Temple's concern over domestic social problems caused her to realize that life as a private citizen could not satisfy her desire to make the world a better place. She ran for Congress in 1967 and was defeated. This was only the beginning of her involvement in public service, however. In 1969, she was appointed to serve as a representative to the United Nations (UN), a multinational organization aimed at world peace. Her work at the United Nations led to a second career for Shirley Temple Black. In 1972, she was appointed a representative to the UN Conference on the Human Environment and also served as a representative on the Joint Committee for the USSR-USA Environmental Treaty. The next year, she served as a United States commissioner for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In 1974, she was appointed ambassador to Ghana, where the people of that nation warmly received her. In all of her various diplomatic functions, Black's intelligence and spirit contributed greatly to her country's reputation and furthered its world position.

By 1981, Shirley was such an established pillar of the public service community that she became one of the founding members of the American Academy of Diplomacy. In 1988, she was appointed Honorary Foreign Service Officer of the United States, the only person with that rank. She went on to serve as the United States ambassador to Czechoslovakia (today known as the Czech Republic and Slovakia) from 1989 until 1992. After she became ambassador to Czechoslovakia, she was present in the Velvet Revolution, which brought about the end of communism in Czechoslovakia.

In 1999, Shirley 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, Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story.

Temple also served on boards of directors of large enterprises and organizations, such as The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, Bank of America, Bank of California, BANCAL Tri-State and Fireman's Fund Insurance.

Achievements

• 

  Shirley Temple was easily the most popular and famous child star of all time. She got her start in the movies at the age of three and soon progressed to superstardom. She was box-office champion for the consecutive years 1935-36-37-38, beating out such great grown-up stars as Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford.
  
  Shirley was the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Juvenile Academy Award, the American Center of Films for Children Life Achievement Award, the National Board of Review Career Achievement Award, Kennedy Center Honors, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
  
  In 1939, 1989, and 1999, Shirley was the Grand Marshal of the New Year's Day Rose Parade in Pasadena. On February 8, 1960, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  
  In 1970, Temple received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. She was also honored by the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Child Star

    (Describes the experiences of the famous child film star w...)

    1988

• movie

  • Susannah of the Mounties

    (Rescued by kindly Mounted Police officers after barely su...)

    1939
  • That Hagen Girl

    (A lawyer (Ronald Reagan) returns after 18 years, fueling ...)

    1947
  • The Blue Bird

    (Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl, a woodchopper's children, a...)

    1940
  • The Little Princess

    (A little girl is left by her father in an exclusive semin...)

    1939
  • Ali Baba Goes to Town

    (A movie company is doing the Arabian Nights when a hobo e...)

    1937
  • Captain January

    (Sympathetic relatives come to the rescue when a truant of...)

    1936
  • Poor Little Rich Girl

    (A wealthy little runaway cons two vaudevillians into beli...)

    1936
  • Wee Willie Winkie

    (Taken by her mother (June Lang) to live in India a young ...)

    1937
  • The Littlest Rebel

    (During the civil war, a little girl dances in the streets...)

    1935
  • Curly Top

    (A beguiling little girl and her older sister win their wa...)

    1935
  • Stowaway

    (The adorable ward of slain Chinese missionaries uses her ...)

    1936
  • The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

    (A teenage girl's crush on a dashing playboy spells troubl...)

    1947
  • Miss Anne Rooney

    (Annie Rooney is the starry-eyed, idealistic daughter of e...)

    1942
  • Heidi

    (When little Heidi is stolen by her cruel aunt (who sells ...)

    1937
  • Fort Apache

    (Henry Fonda is a fanatical cavalry commander of a remote ...)

    1948
  • Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

    (Rebecca's Uncle Harry leaves her with Aunt Miranda who fo...)

    1938
  • Just Around the Corner

    (Shirley helps her idealistic architect father get his dre...)

    1938
  • The Story of Seabiscuit

    (Shirley Temple stars in this fictionalized story about th...)

    1949
  • Little Miss Broadway

    (An entertaining musical comedy, starring the famous child...)

    1938
  • Mr. Belvedere Goes to College

    (Mr. Belvedere goes to college and the fun begins when he ...)

    1949

Religion

Temple's grandmother was reportedly a devout Lutheran and her mother was a Presbyterian. However, most of Temple's religious experience was had at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Los Angeles where she often "spent time in contemplative communion."

Politics

A vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, when running for Congress as a Republican against Paul McCloskey in 1967, Temple consistently argued that the United States needed to send more troops to Southeast Asia.

Temple openly sympathized with anti-communist dissidents and condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Views

Temple served on boards of directors of the United States Commission for UNESCO, United Nations Association and National Wildlife Federation.

Quotations: "Don't forget to tell your favorite people that you love them."

"Good luck needs no explanation."

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."

"Any star can be devoured by human adoration, sparkle by sparkle."

"When I was 14, I was the oldest I ever was. I've been getting younger ever since."

"Be brave and clear. Follow your heart and don't be overly influenced by outside factors. Be true to yourself."

"You've got to S-M-I-L-E To be H-A-Double-P-Y."

"The U.N. acts as the world's conscience, and over eighty-five percent of the work that is done by the United Nations is in the social, economic, educational and cultural fields."

"There's nothing like real love. Nothing."

"Delay and indecision are first weapons in the armory of moviemakers."

"Dr. Kissinger was surprised that I knew where Ghana was."

"If you hear someone scream, you shouldn't close the drapes. You should help. You've got to try."

"Visiting old haunts is hard on memory. Things shrink, change, and disappear."

"Long ago, I became more interested in the real world than in make-believe."

"Intentions often melt in the face of an unexpected opportunity."

"Make-believe colors the past with innocent distortion, and it swirls ahead of us in a thousand ways - in science, in politics, in every bold intention."

"In the world of movie personalities, the distance between popularity and politics is short."

"One famous movie executive who shall remain nameless exposed himself to me in his office. 'Mr. X,' I said, 'I thought you were a producer, not an exhibitor'."

"I don't like to do negatives. There are always pluses to things."

"We would have to invent the U.N if we did not have it which is not an original thought."

"I work a seventeen hour day, and I'm personally responsible for 108 staff members in the embassy."

"There are many of us who should be in a position to bring peace to the world."

"Won't the new 'Suggested for Mature Audience' protect our youngsters from such films? I don't believe so. I know many forty-five-year-old men with the mentalities of six-year-olds, and my feeling is that they should not see such pictures, either."

"Nothing crushes freedom as substantially as a tank."

"I have always told anyone who would listen that I was available for more public service."

"One has to handle these negative experiences alone. You can't get help from your friends or family. You're finally alone with it, and you have to come to grips with misfortune and go on."

"Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble."

Personality

It was not only Temple's delectable dimples and 56 corkscrew curls that would keep her at the top of the box office listings. She was a spectacularly talented child, able to sing and dance with style and genuine feeling. Gifted with perfect pitch, she was a legendary quick study who learned her lines and dance routines much faster than her older and more experienced co-stars.

Physical Characteristics: In 1972, Shirley Temple was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was removed and a modified radical mastectomy performed.

Temple died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She was a lifelong cigarette smoker.

Shirley had a bright smile, a mop of blond curls, and unwavering exuberance.

Quotes from others about the person

• Anne Edwards: "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."
  
  John Kasson: "She was also the most popular celebrity to endorse merchandise for children and adults, rivaled only by Mickey Mouse. She transformed children's fashions, popularizing a toddler look for girls up to the age of twelve, and by the mid-1930s Ideal Novelty and Toy Company's line of Shirley Temple dolls accounted for almost a third of all dolls sold in the country."

Interests

• singing, dancing

Connections

At the age of 17, Shirley Temple married John Agar, a soldier and fellow actor. The marriage lasted only four years; it produced a daughter named Linda. Shortly after her divorce, Temple met Charles Black, a businessman and former naval affairs consultant, and later they became engaged. They were married until Black's death from bone marrow disease in 2005. The couple had two children - Charlie, Jr., and Lori.

Father:

George Temple

(May 1888 - September 30, 1980)

Mother:

Gertrude Temple

(July 15, 1893 - January 1, 1977)

Daughter:

Linda Susan Agar

(born January 30, 1948)

ex-spouse:

John Agar

(January 31, 1921 - April 7, 2002)

John Agar was an American film and television actor. He is best known for starring alongside John Wayne in the films Sands of Iwo Jima, Fort Apache, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

late spouse:

Charles Alden Black

(March 6, 1919 - August 4, 2005)

Charles Alden Black was a Californian businessman known for his work in aquaculture and oceanography.

Son:

Charles Alden Black Jr.

(born April 28, 1952)

Daughter:

Lori Alden Black

(born April 9, 1954)

Lori Alden Black is an American musician. She played bass for Clown Alley and for the Melvins.

Friend:

Alice Faye

(May 5, 1915 - May 9, 1998)

Alice Faye was an American actress and singer.

Friend:

Bill Robinson

(May 25, 1878 - November 25, 1949)

Bill Robinson was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid Black American entertainer in America during the first half of the 20th century.

Friend:

Myrna Loy

References

• Shirley Temple: American Princess Anne Edwards has had the cooperation of those who have been closest to Shirley Temple in all stages of her unique life. She has written a book that does not spare the truth and is as glittering an expose of Hollywood and its power brokers as any bestselling novel of that genre. Shirley Temple: American Princess is a moving and inspirational story that gives great insight into the privileged corridors of fame and glory where only the legendary figures of our times have walked.
  1988
• The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America A book by John F. Kasson.
  2014
• American Legends: The Life of Shirley Temple American Legends: The Life of Shirley Temple profiles the life and career of Hollywood's most famous child star.
  2013
• Shirley Temple: A Pictorial History of the World's Greatest Child Star Along with an informal, concise history of the childhood career of Ms. Temple, this book is a visual treat befitting the magic of the most famous child star of all time, as well as the Golden Age of Hollywood.
  2006
• Shirley Temple and the Performance of Girlhood Shirley Temple and the Performance of Girlhood examines her early career in the context of the history of girlhood and considers how Temple's star image emerged out of the Victorian cult of the child.
  2015