Overview (4)

Mini Bio (1)

Shirley Temple was easily the most popular and famous child star of all time. She got her start in the movies at the age of three and soon progressed to super stardom. Shirley could do it all: act, sing and dance and all at the age of five! Fans loved her as she was bright, bouncy and cheerful in her films and they ultimately bought millions of dollars' worth of products that had her likeness on them. Dolls, phonograph records, mugs, hats, dresses, whatever it was, if it had her picture on there they bought it. Shirley was box-office champion for the consecutive years 1935-36-37-38, beating out such great grown-up stars as Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford. By 1939, her popularity declined. Although she starred in some very good movies like Since You Went Away (1944) and the The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), her career was nearing its end. Later, she served as an ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. It was once guessed that she had more than 50 golden curls on her head.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ken Severson

Spouse (2)

Trade Mark (1)

Curly hair



Trivia (72)



Charles Black , the San Francisco businessman she married after divorcing John Agar , admitted to her, while they were courting, that he had never seen any of her movies.



Her daughter "Lorax" ( Lori Black ) was the bass player for the rock band The Melvins

When she was to play the role of Beauty in a production of "Beauty and the Beast," she was amused when her then very young daughter remarked, "Gee, Mom, you'll make a swell Beast!".





She was considered to play Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), and there are several stories about why she didn't. One is that 20th Century-Fox refused to lend her to MGM. Another was that MGM considered her singing limitations "insurmountable". In either case, Judy Garland got the part.

When she was seven years old her life was insured with Lloyd's of London, and the contract stipulated that no benefits would be paid if the child film star met with death or injury while intoxicated.





Has three children: Susan Agar (aka Linda Susan Agar), whom Charles Black later adopted, (b. January 30, 1948), Charles Black Jr. (aka Charles Alden Black Jr. "Charlie") (born in Bethesda, Maryland on April 24, 1952) and Lori Black (aka Lori Alden Black) (b. April 9, 1954). Oddly enough, both daughters were not only born in the same hospital in Santa Monica, CA, but both were delivered by the same doctor who had delivered Shirley herself.



Her mother, Gertrude Temple , did her hair in pin curls for each movie. Every hairstyle had exactly 56 curls.

She became a Dame of Malta, although not from the officially recognized Roman Catholic order but rather from a non-Roman Catholic-unaffiliated entity.





She learned her trade at Meglin's, a popular talent school. Judy Garland was once a fellow "Meglin Kiddie".



Appears on the cover of The Beatles ' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".



Auditioned twice to be in "Our Gang" / "The Little Rascals". She apparently failed the first audition, and made the second while she was appearing in the "Baby Burlesks" series. "Our Gang" director Robert F. McGowan refused to agree to Shirley's mother's request that Shirley receive star billing with "Our Gang", so she didn't get in.

She was voted the 38th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.



When she was a teenager her bodyguard was Louis Dean Palmer, whom she called "Palmtree".





At age six she became the first recipient of the juvenile Academy Award. To this day she is the youngest person ever to receive an Academy Award. After receiving her award from actor/writer Irvin S. Cobb , she politely thanked him, then turned to her mother and asked, "Mommy, can I go home now?" Many years later, in an appearance on the 1984 Oscar show, Temple explained what had happened. At the 1935 Oscar banquet, her special award was one of the last to be presented that evening. She had been forced to sit through the entire awards ceremony, watching all the other awards being handed out. By the time she got her award, at about 10:00 p.m., she was exhausted and ready to go home to bed.

In 2005 Premiere Magazine ranked her as #33 on a list of the Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in their Stars in Our Constellation feature.



Was named #18 Actress, The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends.





According to author Garry Wills in "John Wayne's America", director John Ford had serious issues with women, which carried over onto his sets. When he made Wee Willie Winkie (1937) with Shirley, she was a child as well as the top box-office star in America and he treated her well. When she was cast in Fort Apache (1948), she was a young woman and he did not treat her well. Like her role in "Wee Willie Winkie", she played the "cute but unmanageable troublemaker at the post" who is befriended by and relies on an avuncular sergeant, both times played by Victor McLaglen . McLaglen had been blackballed by Ford for the previous seven years, but was brought back into the Ford stock company with this film. When Ford met Shirley, whose husband John Agar he had also cast in the picture, he rudely asked her, "Now where did you go to school, Shirley? Did you graduate?".



Second husband Charles Black was a businessman and maritime issues consultant. He served on a Commerce Department advisory committee and several National Research Council panels. He also co-founded a Massachusetts-based company that developed unmanned deep-ocean search and survey imaging systems. He died of bone marrow disease at age 86 in 2005. It had been diagnosed three years earlier.



She calls it corny but admitted that she fell in love with Charles Black at first sight. They met while she was in Honolulu. He was working for a shipping company there at the time.

On November 1, 2006, she broke her wrist in a fall at her Northern California home.





Bill Robinson (aka "Bojangles Robinson") was her idol when she was a child, and she got to work with him on four pictures.



At age six she was the youngest presenter at the Oscars ever. She presented the "Best Actress" award in 1935. The winner was Claudette Colbert

On September 9, 1936, she received a new contract from 20th Century-Fox, retroactive, paying her over $50,000 per film.



A non-alcoholic cocktail, "The Shirley Temple", was created in her honor. It consists of ginger ale (or 7-Up), grenadine and orange juice, topped with a maraschino cherry and a slice of lemon.





In a 1988 interview with Larry King , she stated that out of the $3 million she generated for 20th Century-Fox she only saw $45,000 in her trust fund.

A vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, when running for Congress as a Republican in 1967 she consistently argued that the US needed to send more troops to Southeast Asia.



Her childhood home is located in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles at 231 Rockingham Avenue.





While her first daughter was delivered naturally, her son and her second daughter Lori Black were delivered by Caesarean.



Was pregnant with daughter Linda Susan "Susie" Agar (later changed to Black), during the filming of That Hagen Girl (1947).

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine St. on February 8, 1960.





When Gary Cooper first met her on the set of their movie Now and Forever (1934), he asked for her autograph.



Her two reputations (child star and ambassador) were once parodied on Saturday Night Live (1975). In the skit, Temple (played by Laraine Newman ) is ambassador to Ghana, but still in her cute child star persona. She cutely talks Ghana's president ( Garrett Morris ) out of waging wars.

In 1965, she filmed a television pilot called "Go Fight City Hall" but it did not sell.





From 1964-66 she chaired the program division of the San Francisco Film Festival. She resigned that position when she objected to the "pornographic" content of Mai Zetterling 's Night Games (1966).



In 1967 she ran against Paul McCloskey in the Republican primary for California's 11th Congressional District. McCloskey won with 52,878 votes to her 34,521. One of the newspaper headlines read: "McCloskey Torpedoes Good Ship Lollypop".



She was named a delegate to the United Nations, in 1969, by President Richard Nixon

In 1972 she was sworn in as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the President's Council on Environment. It was while serving in that position that she underwent a radical mastectomy.



She was elected to the board of directors of Walt Disney Productions in May 1974.





In the fall of 1974 she was appointed American Ambassador to Ghana. Her excellent record during her two years in that position prompted Henry Kissinger to refer to her as "able and tough".

In the summer of 1976 she was named Chief of Protocol for the US State Department.





On Easter Sunday 1936, Joel McCrea sent Shirley a live bunny as a gift.

She was a Girl Scout.





Temple was Buddy Ebsen 's best friend and he used to be her dancing partner.



She was the last surviving film star mentioned in the song "Let's Go to the Movies" featured in the film version of Annie (1982).

In 1989 was appointed United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia.



In 1969 she was appointed United States Delegate to the United Nations.



In 1998 she was a recipient of Kennedy Center Honors.



In 1974 she was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana.





Was bitten on the finger by a baby alligator that belonged to exotic animal trainer Ralph Helfer

At birth her children weighed an average of 7 lbs 1 oz with her son being the smallest at 6 lbs 12 oz according to their birth announcements in the milestones columns of Time Magazines issues dated 2/9/1948 May 12th 1952 & April 19th 1954 The Girls were born in Santa Monica California while Charlie Jr was born in Bethesda Maryland.



Pictured on a 'forever' USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 18 April 2016.



By 1950 she earned $3.21 million (adjusted for inflation is the equivalent of $32,423,155 million in 2017) but only received $44,000 in her trust and the deed to her $45,000 dollhouse after she stopped acting.



In 1967 she visited California's Legendary Road Stop the "Nut Tree" in Vacaville.





She became very close to Will Rogers after signing with Fox. When Rogers died in a 1935 airplane crash, she was inconsolable for days afterward. Studio chief Joseph M. Schenck , who was in England at the time, bought her a pony and had it shipped to the US on the Queen Mary. When she learned that the pony was to be flown from New York to Los Angeles, she insisted that it be shipped by rail to avoid another crash.

She is mentioned in A.L.T. and the Lost Civilization's "Tequila.".





She and Jackie Cooper were the most popular child stars of the 1930's.



While she was filming Susannah of the Mounties (1939) the Blackfoot tribe gave her the Indian name Bright Shining Star.



Only appeared in one film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Since You Went Away (1944).



Clarence The Cross-Eyed Lion known for his sweet temperament and gorgeous golden mane and was dubbed the Shirley Temple of the lion world.

According to her autobiography, when Shirley sought her mother's permission to marry first husband John Agar because she believed herself to be underage, Temple was shocked to discover that her parents and 20th Century-Fox had lied about her true age for years - she was actually two years older than the public believed her to be. This discovery caused a rift in the Temple family that was never resolved.



She was portrayed by Emily Alyn Lind in J Edgar (2011).





In 1938, at the peak of her fame, a ten-year-old Shirley Temple was publicly accused of being an unwitting agent of the Communist Party. Her accuser was Congressman Martin Dies of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Dies' baseless accusation against Temple led to a national outcry which nearly ended Dies' political career. At the peak of this uproar, the Roosevelt Administration intervened and warned Dies not to slander Temple further.

Shirley Temple appeared as a caricature in Disney Donald Duck short film [[The Autograph Hound]] (1939).



On August 4, 2019, she was honored with a day of her film work during the Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars.



A chain smoker throughout her adult life, although she generally avoided being seen smoking in public.





She has appeared in one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Little Miss Marker (1934).

In The Simpsons episode, "The Last Tap Dance in Springfield", which aired on May 7, 2000, she was asked to do guest voice the character of Vicki Valentine, a dance instructor who in her childhood was a prominent child star in musical films of the 1930s and 1940s, too whom Marge gets dancing lessons for Lisa. Although, the character was based on, and written for her, in mind, she declined.



Personal Quotes (16)

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.



Any star can be devoured by human adoration, sparkle by sparkle.



One famous movie executive who shall remain nameless, exposed himself to me in his office. "Mr X", I said, "I thought you were a producer, not an exhibitor".



Shirley Temple doesn't hurt Shirley Temple Black. Shirley Temple helps Shirley Temple Black. She is thought of as a friend--which I am!





I'm not too proud of the movies I made as a grownup except for That Hagen Girl (1947), which nobody remembers but which gave me a chance to act.



I class myself with Rin Tin Tin . People in the Depression wanted something to cheer them up, and they fell in love with a dog and a little girl.

[to the Screen Actors Guild' in 2005] I've been blessed with three wonderful careers--motion pictures and television, wife, mother and grandmother, and diplomatic services for the United States government. I have one piece of advice for those of you who want to receive the "Lifetime Achievement Award". Start early.



When I saw work shoes I would know that that person worked. I was very worried about people with shiny, pointed shoes as a child.



I was so short that I became an expert in belts and shoes and people's hands and handbags. I learned that I liked the working crew the most, more than the stars. I liked the guys that I worked with very, very much. It was my extended family. The crew worked on almost all of my films. We had a marvelous time. I had a "Shirley Temple Police Force" and all of the crowd and various celebrities I would have join my force. I was very careful that they kept their badges polished, and if they lost them there was a big fine. If they gave them away, there was a bigger fine. We had just so much fun. I teased them a lot, too, particularly the cameramen, who had a lot of trouble with me.



[on her adult experiences as a former child star] I do get pinched a lot. Mostly it's women, my peer group and even older than I am, and I'm old. They tend to want to touch. If I go on a tour I'll get pinched on the arm, the back, the cheeks, the chin. They say, "You're so cute", or "You were so cute". Then they hang on, and I come home black and blue. It's a hazard.



Sunnybrook Farm is now a parking lot; the petticoats are in the garbage can, where they belong in the modern world; and I detest censorship.



Good luck needs no explanation.



I ran for Congress just once.



I work a 17-hour day, and I'm personally responsible for 108 staff members in the embassy.



When I was 14, I was the oldest I ever was. I've been getting younger ever since.



We would have to invent the U.N if we did not have it, which is not an original thought.



Salary (6)