Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat, who was Hollywood's number-one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938.

Later, she was named United States Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States.

Shirley Jane Temple was born on April 23, 1928 at Santa Monica Hospital (now UCLA Medical Center) in Santa Monica, California, the third child of homemaker Gertrude Temple and bank employee George Temple.

The family was of Dutch, English, and German ancestry.

She had two brothers: John and George, Jr.

The family moved to Brentwood, Los Angeles.

Temple's mother encouraged her to develop her singing, dancing, and acting talents.

At about this time, her mother began styling Temple's hair in ringlets.

While at the dance school, Temple was spotted by Charles Lamont, who was a casting director for Educational Pictures.

She hid behind a piano while he was in the studio.

Lamont liked Temple and invited her to audition.

Temple began her film career in 1931 when she was three years old and was well-known for her performance in Bright Eyes, which was released in 1934.

He signed her to a contract in 1932.

Educational Pictures launched its Baby Burlesks, 10-minute comedy shorts satirizing recent films and events, using preschool children in every role.

She was lent to Tower Productions for a small role in the studio's first feature film, The Red-Haired Alibi (1932), and in 1933 to Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros. Pictures for various parts, including an uncredited role in To the Last Man (1933), starring Randolph Scott and Esther Ralston.

After viewing one of Temple's Frolics of Youth films, Fox Film Corporation songwriter Jay Gorney saw her dancing in the theater lobby.

In 1933, Temple appeared in Glad Rags to Riches, a parody of the Mae West feature She Done Him Wrong, with Temple as a saloon singer.

That same year, she appeared in Kid 'in' Africa as a child imperiled in the jungle and in Runt Page, a pastiche of the previous year's The Front Page.

The younger players in the cast recited their lines phonetically.

Temple became the breakout star of this series, and Educational promoted her to 20-minute comedies in the Frolics of Youth series with Frank Coghlan Jr. Temple played Mary Lou Rogers, the baby sister in a contemporary suburban family.

Temple and her child costars modeled for breakfast cereals and other products to fund production costs.

Temple auditioned on December 7, 1933 and won the part.

She was signed to a $150-per-week contract that was guaranteed for two weeks by Fox.

The role was a breakthrough performance for Temple.

Her charm was evident to Fox executives, and she was ushered into corporate offices almost immediately after finishing "Baby, Take a Bow", a song-and-dance number that she performed with James Dunn.

Biographer John Kasson argues:

Recognizing her from the screen, Gorney arranged a screen test for Temple for the film Stand Up and Cheer! (1934).

She won a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer in motion pictures during 1934 and continued to appear in popular films through the remainder of the 1930s, although her subsequent films became less popular as she grew older.

"In almost all of these films, she played the role of emotional healer, mending rifts between erstwhile sweethearts, estranged family members, traditional and modern ways, and warring armies. Characteristically lacking one or both parents, she constituted new families of those most worthy to love and protect her. Producers delighted in contrasting her diminutive stature, sparkling eyes, dimpled smile, and 56 blond curls by casting her opposite strapping leading men, such as Gary Cooper, John Boles, Victor McLaglen, and Randolph Scott. Yet her favorite costar was the great African American tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, with whom she appeared in four films, beginning with The Little Colonel (1935), in which they performed the famous staircase dance."

Biographer Anne Edwards wrote about the tone and tenor of Temple's films:

"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."

She appeared in her last film, A Kiss for Corliss, in 1949.

In 1958, Temple returned to show business with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations called Shirley Temple's Storybook, which was very popular at the time.

She sat on the boards of corporations and organizations, including the Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation.

She began her diplomatic career in 1969, when she was appointed to represent the U.S. at a session of the United Nations General Assembly, where she worked at the U.S. Mission under Ambassador Charles Yost.

Later, she was named U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, and also served as the first female U.S. Chief of Protocol.

In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star.

After her biography was published, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1989–1992).

Temple was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

She is 18th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female American screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema.