![]() And Bill Robinson was the best of all.”Īfter ending her screen career at 21, Shirley married businessman Charles Black in 1950. “He didn’t talk down to me, like to a little girl…I liked people like that. “Bill Robinson treated me as an equal, which was very important to me,” Shirley told NPR. They dazzled viewers in four releases: The Little Colonel, The Littlest Rebel, Captain January, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Shirley’s best dance numbers featured tap legend Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. As a teen, she co-starred in Since You Went Away (1944) and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), as Myrna Loy’s kid sister who’s smitten with Cary Grant. From there, Shirley won parts in Little Miss Marker, Now and Forever (easily upstaging Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard), and Bright Eyes, performing her signature song, “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Signing with 20 th Century-Fox, she saved the studio from bankruptcy with leading roles in Poor Little Rich Girl, Curly Top, Stowaway, Wee Willie Winkie, Heidi, and The Little Princess. Ironically, Shirley didn’t make the cut for the more famous Our Gang comedies for reasons its producers surely came to regret!Īn adorable bit in Baby Take a Bow (1934) delivered Shirley’s big break. Her mother Gertrude enrolled her three-year-old daughter in a dance school for pint-sized movie hopefuls, which led to gigs in eight Baby Burlesks shorts. Shirley Jane Temple was born in Santa Monica, California on April 23, 1928. Still, she bore no grudges and kept her notoriety in perspective, saying, “I always think of her as ‘the little girl.’ She’s not me.” Shirley modestly attributed her popularity to timing: “People in the Depression wanted something to cheer them up, and they fell in love with a dog – Rin Tin Tin – and a little girl.” Despite her global fame, Shirley remained firmly grounded by her parents, who managed her career (brilliantly), but mismanaged her finances (terribly), draining her $3 million trust fund down to $45,000. ![]() An authority no less than FDR noted, “When the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time, it is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles.” More phenomenon than mere performer, Shirley was the #1 box-office draw for four straight years (1935-38), leaving legends like Gable and Garbo in the dust. Yet “star” doesn’t really capture Shirley’s impact. If Seabiscuit could speak, he might have eclipsed Shirley’s popularity – but no other child star ever has. Both were merchandising machines, whose images graced everything from toys to clothing. Both lifted the sagging hopes of a weary nation. S.In the 1930s, two of the most powerful antidotes to the Great Depression were a racehorse named Seabiscuit and a little girl named Shirley Temple. I smiled, I laughed as I prepared this post, while looking over a lifetime of photos and posters of Miss Temple, I include them for you and hope they bring to you as much joy as they have for me today. Let us not mourn but let us celebrate her life’s work, her talent which she shared with us so freely and pass on our love of her work to those little ones around us, thereby trusting into their hands a gift that keeps on giving. We will enjoy and remember the good times, that were forever caught on celluloid, of this “not seen before, nor anyone after, once in a century” child star, Shirley Temple. This brief description has been repeated for decades by children and parents as they have delighted in the Curly-Top, whether at the movies when they first premiered, or on TV on Saturday mornings and more recently on Beta, VHS, DVD and now streaming. When I was a boy in the 1960’s, each week on television I watched her films, growing more familiar with her stories, entertained and traveling to different lands, different peoples with my companion Shirley Temple. And not leaving out her more adult work, she was able to grab spots in three true classic Hollywood films: Since You Went Away, 1944, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, 1947, and Fort Apache, 1948. During her career she captured lead roles in the beloved children’s classic stories adapted for moving-pictures: Heidi, 1937 and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1938. Miss Temple started off with numerous short films , getting her first feature film roles in 1932 with Red Haired Alibi and Kid’s Last Stand she did have some uncredited feature-work (To the Last Man, 1933, Carolina and As the Earth Turns, 1934) and having her scenes deleted in the 1934 production of Mandalay.Īppearing with Hollywood elite, movie after movie, Shirley Temple acted along side with the who’s who of the Silver Screen. Shirley Jane Temple was born on April 23rd, 1928 in Santa Monica, California. Our Good Ship Lollipop girl has passed leaving a legacy of sweetness, wholesomeness and joy for generations to come.
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