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Child star icon Shirley Temple dies aged 85
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Shirley Temple, the dimpled, curly-haired child star who sang, danced, sobbed and grinned her way into the hearts of Depression-era moviegoers, has died. She was 85.
Temple, known in private life as Shirley Temple Black, died Monday night at around 11 pm at her home near San Francisco. She was surrounded by family members and caregivers.
“We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and most importantly as our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and adored wife for 55 years of the late and much missed Charles Alden Black,” a family statement said.
A talented and ultra-adorable entertainer, Shirley Temple was America’s top box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, a record no other child star has come near. She beat out such grown-ups as Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranking of the top 50 screen legends ranked Temple at No 18 among the 25 actresses. She appeared in scores of movies and kept children singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” for generations.
Temple was credited with helping save 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy with films such as “Curly Top” and “The Littlest Rebel.” She even had a drink named after her, a sweet and innocent cocktail of ginger ale and grenadine, topped with a maraschino cherry.
Temple blossomed into a pretty young woman, but audiences lost interest, and she retired from films at 21. She raised a family and later became active in politics and held several diplomatic posts in Republican administrations.
“I have one piece of advice for those of you who want to receive the lifetime achievement award. Start early,” she quipped in 2006 as she was honored by the Screen Actors Guild.
But she also said that evening that her greatest roles were as wife, mother and grandmother. “There’s nothing like real love. Nothing.” Her husband of more than 50 years, Charles Black, had died just a few months earlier.
Nationwide sensation
Temple’s expert singing and tap dancing in the 1934 feature “Stand Up and Cheer!” first gained her wide notice.
Also in 1934, she starred in “Little Miss Marker,” a comedy-drama based on a story by Damon Runyon that showcased her acting talent. In “Bright Eyes,” Temple introduced “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and did battle with a charmingly bratty Jane Withers.
Temple became a nationwide sensation. Mothers dressed their little girls like her, and a line of dolls was launched.
Her immense popularity prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to say that “as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.”
She followed up in the next few years with a string of hit films, most with sentimental themes and musical subplots. She often played an orphan, as in “Curly Top,” where she introduced the hit “Animal Crackers in My Soup,” and “Stowaway.”
She won a special Academy Award in early 1935 for her “outstanding contribution to screen entertainment” in the previous year.
“She’s a legacy of a different time in motion pictures. She caught the imagination of the entire country in a way that no one had before,” actor Martin Landau said when the two were honored at the 1998 Academy Awards.
Temple’s fans agreed. Her fans seemed interested in every last golden curl on her head: and it was once guessed that she had more than 50.
Although by the early 1960s, she was retired from the entertainment industry, her interest in politics soon brought her back into the spotlight.
She made an unsuccessful bid as a Republican candidate for Congress in 1967. After Richard Nixon became president in 1969, he appointed her as a member of the US delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. In the 1970s, she was US ambassador to Ghana and later US chief of protocol. She then served as ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the administration of the first President Bush.
Born in Santa Monica to an accountant and his wife, Temple was barely three when she made her film debut in 1932.
Temple married John Agar, in 1945. She and Agar had a daughter, Susan, in 1948, but she filed for divorce the following year.
She married Black in 1950, and they had two more children, Lori and Charles.
During a 1996 interview, she said she loved both politics and show business.
“It’s certainly two different career tracks,” she said, “both completely different but both very rewarding, personally.”
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