Shirley Temple: From Child Star to Diplomat

She was the daughter of Gertrude Amelia Temple (née Krieger), a homemaker, and George Francis Temple, a bank employee. The family was of English, German and Dutch ancestry.

As an adult, she entered politics and became a diplomat, serving as United States Ambassador to Ghana and later to Czechoslovakia, and as Chief of Protocol of the United States.

Temple’s mother encouraged her infant daughter’s singing, dancing, and acting talents, and in September 1931 enrolled her in Meglin’s Dance School in Los Angeles.

About this time, Temple’s mother began styling her daughter’s hair in ringlets similar to those of silent film star Mary Pickford.

Temple began her film career in 1932 at the age of three.

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Whilst at Meglin’s she was spotted by Charles Lamont, a casting director for Educational Pictures. Although Shirley hid behind the piano whilst in the studio Lamont took a shine to her, inviting her to audition, and in 1932 signed her to a contract. Educational Pictures were about to launch their ”Baby Burlesks”, series of short films satirizing recent film and political events, using pre-school children in every role. Because the children were dressed as adults and given mature dialogue the series was eventually seen as dated and exploitive.

Baby Burlesks was a series of one-reelers; another series of two-reelers called ”Frolics of Youth” followed, with Temple playing Mary Lou Rogers, a youngster in a contemporary suburban family.> To underwrite production costs at Educational, Temple and her child co-stars modeled for breakfast cereals and other products. She was loaned to Tower Productions for a small role in her first feature film (”Red-Haired Alibi”) in 1932 and, in 1933, to Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros., for various bit parts.

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Educational Pictures declared bankruptcy in 1933, and Temple signed with Fox Film Corporation in February 1934.

Fox Films merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to become 20th Century Fox in 1934. Producer and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck focused his attention and resources upon cultivating Temple’s superstar status. With four successful films to her credit, she was the studio’s greatest asset. Nineteen writers known as the Shirley Temple Story Development team created 11 original stories and some adaptations of the classics for her.

In keeping with her star status, Winfield Sheehan, head of Fox Films before the merge, had built Temple a four-room bungalow at the studio with a garden, a picket fence, a tree with a swing and a rabbit pen. The living room wall was painted with a mural depicting Temple as a fairy tale princess wearing a golden star on her head. Under Zanuck, Temple was assigned a bodyguard, John Griffith, a childhood friend of Zanuck’s, and, at the end of 1935, Frances “Klammie” Klampt became Temple’s tutor at the studio

In April 1934, ”Stand Up and Cheer!” became Temple’s breakthrough film. Her charm was evident to Fox heads, and she was promoted well before the film’s release. Within months, she became the symbol of wholesome family entertainment.

Her salary was raised to $1,250 a week, and her mother’s to $150 as coach and hairdresser.

In 1934, she found international fame in ”Bright Eyes”, a feature film designed specifically for her talents.

Her signature song, “On the Good Ship Lollipop“, was introduced in the film and sold 500,000 sheet music copies. The film demonstrated Temple’s ability to portray a multi-dimensional character and established a formula for her future roles as a lovable, parentless waif whose charm and sweetness mellow gruff older men.

She was the top box-office draw four years in a row (193538) in a ”Motion Picture Herald” poll.

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” (with the signature song “Animal Crackers in My Soup“), 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.

In 1936, ”Captain January”, ”Poor Little Rich Girl”, ”Dimples”,

In ”Dimples”, Temple was upstaged for the first time in her film career by Frank Morgan who played Professor Appleby with such zest as to render Temple almost the amateur and ”Stowaway” were released.

She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer to motion pictures during 1934.

The Independent Theatre Owners Association paid for an advertisement in the ”Hollywood Reporter” in May 1938 that included Temple on a list of actors who deserved their salaries while others, such as Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford, were described as “whose box-office draw is nil”.

In 1937, John Ford was hired to direct the sepia-toned ”Wee Willie Winkie” (Temple’s own favorite) and an A-list cast was signed that included Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith and Cesar Romero.

The film was a critical and commercial hit, but British writer and 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.”

Temple and Twentieth Century-Fox sued for libel and won. The settlement remained in trust for Temple in an English bank until she turned twenty-one, when it was donated to charity and used to build a youth center in England.

That year ”Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm”, ”Little Miss Broadway” and ”Just Around the Corner” were released. The latter two were panned by the critics, and ”Corner” was the first Temple film to show a slump in ticket sales.

Shirley meets with Elanor Roosevelt.

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 successfully move from child star to teenage actress, Zanuck declined a substantial offer from MGM to star Temple as Dorothy in ”The Wizard of Oz” and cast her instead in ”Susannah of the Mounties”, her last money-maker for Twentieth Century-Fox.

The film was successful, but because she made only two films in 1939 instead of the usual three or four, Temple dropped from number one box-office favorite in 1938 to number five in 1939.

In 1939, Temple was the subject of the Salvador Dalí painting ”Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time”.

In 1940, Temple starred in two consecutive flops at Twentieth Century-Fox, ”The Blue Bird” and ”Young People”. Temple’s parents bought up the remainder of her contract and sent her at the age of 12 to Westlake School for Girls, an exclusive country day school in Los Angeles. At the studio, Temple’s bungalow was renovated, all traces of her tenure expunged, and the building reassigned as an office complex.

In 1941, Temple worked radio with four shows for Lux soap and a four-part ”Shirley Temple Time” for Elgin. Of radio she said, “It’s adorable. I get a big thrill out of it, and I want to do as much radio work as I can.” MGM signed Temple for her comeback, and made plans to team her with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney first for the Andy Hardy series, and then when that idea was quickly abandoned, teaming Temple with Garland and Rooney for the musical ”Babes on Broadway”. However, realizing that both Garland and Rooney could easily upstage Temple, MGM replaced her in that film with Virginia Weidler.

Temple’s only film for Metro became ”Kathleen” in 1941, a story about an unhappy teenager. The film was not a success and her MGM contract was canceled after mutual consent.

”Miss Annie Rooney” followed for United Artists in 1942, but it too was unsuccessful. Temple received her first on-screen kiss in the film (from Dickie Moore, on the cheek) The actress retired for almost two years from films, throwing herself into school life and activities.

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 to other studios with ”Kiss and Tell”, ”The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer”, Temple took her first on-screen drink (and spat it out) in ”Bobby-Soxer”. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union protested that unthinking teenagers might do the same after seeing Temple in the film

In 1943, 15-year-old Temple met John Agar (19212002), an Army Air Corps sergeant, physical training instructor, and a member of a Chicago meat-packing family On September 19, 1945, when Temple was 17 years old, they were married before 500 guests in an Episcopal ceremony at Wilshire Methodist Church.

On January 30, 1948, Temple gave birth to their daughter, Linda Susan.

Temple divorced Agar on December 5, 1949. She received custody of their daughter and the restoration of her maiden name.

Retired completely from films in 1950 at the age of 22.

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In January 1950, Temple met Charles Alden Black, a WWII United States Navy intelligence officer and Silver Star recipient who was Assistant to the President of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company.>> Conservative and patrician, he was the son of James B. Black, the president and later chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric, and reputedly one of the richest young men in California. Temple and Black were married in his parents’ Del Monte, California, home on December 16, 1950, before a small assembly of family and friends.

The couple remained married for 54 years until his death on August 4, 2005, at home in Woodside of complications from a bone marrow disease.

Their daughter Lori was born on April 9, 1954. Lori went on to be a bassist in the grunge band the Melvins.

Temple returned to show business in 1958 with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations.

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Between January and December 1958, Temple hosted and narrated a successful NBC television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations called ”Shirley Temple’s Storybook”. Temple acted in three of the sixteen hour-long episodes, and her son made his acting debut in the Christmas episode, “Mother Goose”. The series was popular but faced some problems. The show lacked the special effects necessary for fairy tale dramatizations, sets were amateurish, and episodes were telecast in no regular time-slot, making it difficult to generate a following. The show was reworked and released in color in September 1960 in a regular time-slot as ”The Shirley Temple Show”.

In 1967, she ran unsuccessfully in a special election in California’s 11th congressional district to fill the seat left vacant by the death of eight-term Republican J. Arthur Younger from leukemia. She ran as a conservative and lost to law school professor Pete McCloskey, a liberal Republican who was a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War.

She began her diplomatic career in 1969, with an appointment to represent the United States at a session of the United Nations General Assembly.

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She was appointed Representative to the 24th United Nations General Assembly by President Richard M. Nixon (September December 1969)

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

Appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana (December 6, 1974 July 13, 1976) by President Gerald R. Ford.

Temple was presented with a full-sized Oscar in 1985 and she added her foot- and handprints to the forecourt at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre a month later.

In 1988, she published her autobiography ”Child Star”.

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She served as the United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (August 23, 1989 July 12, 1992), having been appointed by President George H. W. Bush.

Shirley Temple died of natural causes on February 10, 2014, at the age of 85. She was at her home in Woodside, California, surrounded by family and caregivers. She is survived by her three children, as well as a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren.