The child star during the Great Depression won the earliest Hollywood Oscar in history at the age of 6 and at 12 she had already participated in 43 films
Shirley Temple incarnated in her childhood the prototype of what we now call a broken toy: fame that annuls childhood, parents who run an unknown business, exorbitant economic income that vanishes, interests of all and for all, use to the point of slavery... and a career that little by little fades as the years go by and the girl becomes first an adolescent, then a young man and, finally, a woman.
Natural beauty, self-confidence, devilishly curly hair, striking dimples, and tap-dancing skills almost as soon as she learned to walk made Shirley Temple the most successful child actress in movie history by acting skills. she. But that fame also caused her a lot of pain in that hasty life in a childhood that she did not enjoy like other girls her age. For example, on one of his birthdays, he received 135,000 toys from all over the world (including a baby kangaroo and a cow), but he also suffered an assassination attempt or the disappointment of not believing in Santa Claus when he asked for his autograph.
However, despite what at first glance may seem like a traumatic childhood on a roller coaster of experiences, Shirley always brought her movie roles to please and make everyone feel good in her real life. She was able to enjoy her new life in her later years as a mother, wife, and later grandmother, and she began a new career dedicated to public service as a political activist. In this new facet, she held different positions in the diplomatic area as a defender of the Environment at the United Nations, ambassador of Ghana and former Czechoslovakia, and, finally, as head of Protocol for the United States at the White House. Undoubtedly, a movie life in which she only played the role she chose at the end.
Shirley Jane Temple was born on April 23, 1928, in Santa Monica, California (United States). She was the youngest of three siblings and the only girl. Her mother was a housewife and her father, without studies, worked in a bank. Since she was little, Temple showed her ability to dance and sing, so at the age of three her mother decided to enroll her in a dance school. By chance, she wanted a casting director who saw her in class to offer her a contract to appear in short films. In them, little Shirley wore attractive costumes and she had to imitate big screen icons of the time such as Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, and Dolores del Río. In this way, in a short time, Temple attracted the attention of a major film studio.
Temple's mother took advantage of the girl's natural talent to exploit her virtues and her father became her agent and financial adviser to her. Shirley signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation and when she was 6 years old she appeared in her first Hollywood feature, titled Carolina.
The petite actress, singer, and tap dancer with golden corkscrew locks and an infectious joy became an almost overnight sensation and the main earner of the movie studio, which she saved from bankruptcy.
Shirley Temple was synonymous with guaranteed box office success. She was even awarded an Oscar for her performance with the melody On the Good Ship Lollipop in the 1934 film Bright Eyes, becoming, even today, the youngest actress to receive the Hollywood statuette. In that year of 1934, she starred in a dozen films. She also holds that precocious record since she stamped her hand and footprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
During one of the country's worst economic downturns, the Great Depression, the little girl became a symbol of optimism, with her films centering on light-hearted themes that provided Americans with an escape during hard times. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Temple the Little Miss Miracle for raising the morale of citizens in times of economic hardship, even going so far as to say that "as long as our country has Shirley Temple we will be fine."
In 1940, when she was 12 years old, little Shirley Temple had already participated in 43 films, but she was still poorly paid. In the beginning, she earned 10 dollars a day and later she started to earn 150 dollars a week. To maintain her success, her mother subjected her to hard sessions at night to make her perfect curls, and instead of falling asleep with stories she learned the roles for the next day. When she came of legal age and she wanted to dispose of her money, the millions of dollars obtained from her had remained at barely 40,000 in her account due to the management that her father had made of her career. she.
Among her anecdotes, some funny, others cruel, and others sad and dangerous, is that on her eighth birthday, which was actually her ninth, because the studio falsified her age to make her appear younger, she received 135,000 toys from all over the world. Or that at the age of six, she stopped believing in Santa Claus when her mother took her to see him in a store and he asked her for her autograph. In 1939 a woman tried to assassinate her during a live radio interview because she claimed that she had stolen her 10-year-old daughter's soul and that the only way to free her was to kill the artist.
Such a short and meteoric career also led to rumors, such as that she was a dwarf in disguise, something that the Vatican itself denied by sending a priest who verified that she was a very talented girl.
The Temple brand, for her part, was used on all sorts of popular products and also contributed to her revenue. Her fans owned her brand of clothing, books, bags, sheet music, dolls, and soap, but as Shirley grew older and older, her appeal as a child star waned and she became a young woman more interested in marriage than in life. cinema.
At 19 Shirley she played Susan Turner in The Bachelor and the Teenager, with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Although the film received critical acclaim, audiences had a hard time accepting that the little girl of her miracle of hers was growing up. After her appearance in 1948 with John Wayne at Fort Apache, she and she only had small appearances on television. At the age of 22, in 1950, she retired from the film industry as a Hollywood icon.
But Shirley Temple, married and divorced five years after her, decided to direct her life elsewhere and began to look at politics to improve the lives of others. She joined the Republican Party and ran for a seat in Congress. Although she did not win, her campaign marked the beginning of a long and productive political career in which she played a crucial role in negotiations and international diplomatic relations. Temple was appointed the United States representative to the United Nations in 1969 and became a strong environmental advocate representing her nation in 1972 at the UN Conference on the Human Environment. In 1974 she was appointed US ambassador to Ghana and she also served as ambassador to the former Czechoslovakia under President George Bush.
Shirley Temple became the first female State Department Chief of Protocol in the White House and was made an honorary Foreign Service officer in 1988.
Throughout her life, she received numerous awards as an actress and, later, as a diplomat. The most significant for her was the one that in 2006 was awarded to her by the Actors Guild for her film career, the organization's highest award.
On this day in 2015, the Santa Monica Museum of History inaugurated the Love, Shirley Temple exhibition, a special exhibition with a collection of the memorabilia she collected.
Shirley Temple died on February 10, 2014, at the age of 85 at her home in Woodside, California of natural causes and surrounded by her family, consisting of two daughters and several grandchildren from a happy second marriage that had for 55 years.
