Shirley Temple is remembered as a 1930s child star,
but the curly-haired actor's career was hardly over once she reached adulthood.
Here's what even the biggest fans don't know about this timeless Hollywood icon.
Most people don't hit their stride in life until they are into their 30s, the decade by which the
human brain is fully developed, according to Men's Health. At that point, the proverbial wild oats
have been sown, and a career path is laid out or at least well-considered. Shirley Temple's life
and career hit full gear a bit earlier than that, though. According to People, she was learning to
dance by age 3, and by the time she turned 4, she was already appearing on the screen.
"The first three years I had to learn my trade."
Temple's years of greatest success as a screen actor came between 1935 and 1938,
when she was between the ages of 6 and 9 years old. The film Bright Eyes, released
in late December 1934, would rocket the young lady to international stardom, and for a while,
she was a top box office draw and earner. By the time she was six, Temple was earning
more than $1,000 a week for her work, a figure that today would be just under $20,000 weekly.
But by the end of 1938, her star was already fading, in the parlance of Hollywood. In 1940,
when Temple was 11 years old, her contract with Fox studios was cancelled,
and though the actor would still make pictures, her heyday had come and gone.
Despite being an absolute international superstar while a young child, Shirley Temple remained,
of course, a child. Thus, she occasionally got herself into trouble as a result of an
act of mischief. Perhaps the most notable such act that Temple later owned up to in
her own memoirs was one that involved the First Lady of the United States of America.
According to People, Temple, age 10, had been invited to a casual barbecue at Hyde Park,
the residence of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt when they were away from the
White House in Washington, D.C. Spotting an opportunity as Mrs. Roosevelt bent over
to place some cuts of meat on the grill, Temple produced a slingshot,
found a pebble, and fired it off, hitting the backside of the president's wife.
For this bit of indecency, Temple recalled receiving a spanking. In general, however,
her relationship with her mother and father was warm, loving, and trusting,
neither parent ever taking advantage of their child's stardom and never pushing
her into roles or activities she did not herself embrace.
Shirley Temple's hair was styled in the exact same manner for almost every one of her films.
The hairdo had exactly 56 curls, each and every one painstakingly created by Temple's mother,
Gertrude Temple, according to the Los Angeles Times. Her mother took on the role of stylist
for Temple at the outset of the child's career and would stay on in that position for nearly every
picture Shirley Temple starred in. According to Matchbook, Temple's hair was not actually all that
curly, thus the use of those 56 curlers pinned in place the night before every day of shooting.
Fans often accused Temple of wearing a wig, with some people going so far as to grab and tug on the
child's hair in an attempt to prove as much. The actor later said she wished her hair had been the
result of a wig, as it would have spared her the many hours of discomfort that went into preparing
her famous curly locks for each movie, but she confirmed that it was indeed her real hair. The
actor's hair was a bright blond when she was young and slowly darkened over time as she grew older.
Were it not for her role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, generally hailed as one of the
most successful movies ever made, the world might barely remember Judy Garland. Granted, Garland was
already a popular actor of her time, but it was Oz that cemented her status as an icon that will
surely be celebrated for as long as the popular media of our era is known. But the role of Dorothy
Gale almost didn't go to Garland — at one time, it was slated to be played by Shirley Temple.
According to ITV, the producers of The Wizard of Oz wanted the young Temple for
the role of Dorothy, but 20th Century Fox would not let her work for MGM,
and thus the filmmakers soon moved on to Judy Garland, who was about six years older than
Temple, having been born in the summer of the year 1922. The irony is that Temple would be dropped by
Fox just a year after the movie was released in 1939. A starring role in Oz might have helped
Temple transition from child actor to teenaged and ultimately more adult roles, but it was not to be.
There is a bit of controversy with this claim, however. Temple confirmed the Oz story in her
autobiography, but modern research says that the timing doesn’t work out as Temple recalled — MGM
didn’t acquire the rights until 1938, whereas Shirley said she was approached about the role
in 1937. Regardless, she certainly did want to star as Dorothy, but never did.
At the age of 17, Shirley Temple married a man named John Agar. Agar was seven years her senior,
and at the time of their marriage, he was in the military and working as a physical
fitness trainer. Springboarding off his young wife's fame, Agar began an acting career that,
despite never achieving huge success, did see him appear in numerous movies and on television.
As a husband, Agar proved to be a train wreck. He was often drunk,
voraciously flirted with other women, and was cold and uncaring to Temple. Sad and surprising as the
details of her first marriage were, of even more surprise might be the steadiness of her second,
often a rarity for those steeped in Hollywood. What makes the five-and-a-half-decade
second marriage of Temple all the more impressive is the fast way it started.
Shirley Temple divorced John Agar in 1949 and would meet Charles Black soon after.
The couple would become engaged within less than two weeks of first meeting and married
within less than a year. The marriage lasted until Charles Black's death in the year 2005.
There's a reason you only think of Shirley Temple as a child star:
She was. While some actors manage to keep a career going as they grow from
youth into adulthood, others have a career fizzle as they grow up.
Temple may well have had a so-called second act as a grown woman, but she didn't want to.
"I'm a happy person. I'm optimistic but I'm a realist."
Granted, she was getting fewer and fewer roles as she grew, but for her,
it wasn't a matter of fading away. Temple officially retired from acting at the age of 22.
"I was tired of the world of make-believe and wanted to live in the real world."
This was but the end of one career that had started amazingly early — it was hardly the
end of her life story. Already mother to one child by 22, Temple would go on to a
life spent in business and politics. That said, it was her life in public service
on which she looked back with the most pride, calling the, quote, "personal rewards" great.
Temple earned awards and an honorary rank in the U.S. Foreign Service for her work.
In 1967, in her late 30s, Shirley Temple Black, who'd come a long way from her days
as a child star on the silver screen, ran for Congress, according to USA Today. She lost,
but that's hardly a surprise, even given her powerful name recognition.
At the time, no woman had ever been elected to congress in the state of California.
She well understood the role her gender played in the process of her campaigning
and how it was an obstacle to winning a seat, saying in one interview at the time:
"I think men are fine and here to stay but I have a hunch that it
wouldn't hurt to have a woman's viewpoint expressed in that delegation of 38 men.
One congresswoman among 38 congressmen is not unfair, fellows."
Temple Black ran for a Republican seat, declaring herself to be a "Republican
Independent," and despite her loss, she would soon embark on a long and meaningful career in
politics — one in which she served primarily under Republican presidential administrations.
The former child star was well-aware that her childhood fame was an asset
and never hid from her past, saying, according to Newsweek:
"Shirley Temple opened doors for Shirley Temple Black."
Shirley Temple Black served as the ambassador to two countries, and we don't mean ceremonially. She
was the official ambassador of the United States of America, and she proved herself a skillful
political operator and a serious asset to the U.S. government. Already well-travelled and worldly,
having experienced such events as the so-called Prague Spring in 1968 firsthand, Shirley Temple
Black was named the U.S. ambassador to Ghana by President Gerald Ford in 1974. Her tenure in this
post involved helping the Ghanaian government manage and maintain its valuable resources.
Temple Black's next ambassadorship came when President George H.W. Bush appointed her the U.S.
ambassador to Czechoslovakia in the year 1989. During her time in that role, the Soviet hold
over that nation finally ended, and from that one country came two: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Shirley Temple Black overcame breast cancer in the early 1970s,
an era in which open discussion of cancer, and especially of breast cancer, was quite rare.
Hardly ashamed of her plight and determined to empower other women to feel the same, in 1973,
Temple Black went public with her diagnosis and treatment. Her openness about her illness
may seem unremarkable now, but according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation:
"[Temple Black] is considered one of the first
public figures to share her condition with the media."
And public about it she certainly was. While in the hospital recovering from her mastectomy,
Temple Black allowed photographers into the room and spoke to reporters about her
condition and her experiences. She would go on to encourage women to conduct regular self-exams,
to seek treatments they felt they needed, and to advocate for themselves.
Arguably the most famous nonalcoholic cocktail, or mocktail, on Earth,
the Shirley Temple was, of course, named for the young actress. And not in honor of her,
but actually for her. As the story goes, according to 7UP, the drink was concocted
by a bartender who felt bad to see the little movie star sitting among adults enjoying their
fancy drinks and thus decided to whip up a booze-free concoction she could sip herself.
It's unclear if the provenance of the drink was the restaurant Chasen's in West Hollywood
or the famed Brown Derby, but regardless, Temple herself was both proud the drink
existed yet not a fan of it herself, calling it, quote, "too sweet."
There are two generally accepted ways to make a Shirley Temple. The first is
to mix a quarter cup of 7UP with a half tablespoon of grenadine and to serve that
over ice with maraschino cherries. In other recipes, ginger ale is used as the base soda.
According to PBS' Antiques Roadshow, an original Shirley Temple doll from the
mid-1930s is today worth hundreds of dollars if in good condition. One may fetch $650,
in fact, and many in varied condition can be found on eBay and other sites these days.
The curly-haired dolls were quite common during the heyday of Temple's career, and the actress
was often pictured holding one herself. Even well into her advanced years, Shirley Temple
Black herself was often reminded of the existence of the dolls. According to People, she once said:
"And very often women say, 'Do youuuuuu know what I have?' and I want to say, 'Yessssssss, I do.'
Because inevitably the answer is, 'An original Shirley Temple doll.'"
Hardly annoyed by such encounters,
she deeply appreciated her lasting fan recognition and affection, saying:
"I've been so blessed. If someone asked me whom I would choose to be
if I could come back in another life, I would have to say Shirley Temple Black.
I cannot think of a more interesting life to ask for."
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