Throughout Shirley Temple's acting career, some bizarre rumors have persisted about her.
Some were truly cruel, while others were just plain weird.
Here are the crazy things people used to believe about Shirley Temple.
Shirley Temple's beginnings on-screen were uncomfortable, to say the least. As recalled
by Time, when she was merely five years old, Temple starred in an short film series titled
Baby Burlesks — and it's definitely bizarre. These shorts saw a bunch of toddlers in diapers placed
in adult situations, such as one of Temple's scenes where she trades kisses for lollipops.
By her sixth birthday, the star's career was finally taking off,
yet her age was still a focal point. According to Temple's biography, Child Star, she signed with
20th Century Fox in 1934, with studio executive Winfield R. Sheehan announcing to the press,
"Four-year-old Shirley Temple has been given a long-term contract."
In actuality, Temple was six, and a mere two weeks earlier,
a "public advertisement" was sent out, claiming,
"Little Shirley Temple, five years old, wishes to thank Fox."
The lie didn't just end there, however. According to the actor's book, Sheehan
also went out of his way to conduct "a minor forgery" by altering Temple's birth certificate.
Shirley Temple wasn't exactly "discovered" by 20th Century Fox at the age of six — she was
technically already on her way to becoming a pro in the business. As the Bright Eyes
actor explained while on The Diane Rehm Show, she started doing "baby burlesques" when she
was under four years old, and even by then had a rudimentary understanding of dancing,
as well as how to "find the light" while in front of the camera. In fact, Temple notes,
by the time she finally got in touch with Fox, she already knew a lot about acting craft.
"I could do it by the feeling of heat on my face. If the light hit here,
and it hit my shoulder and it felt warm, I would know I was in the right place.”
Nevertheless, her true story wasn't exciting enough for the studio executives.
As Temple revealed in Child Star, as soon as Fox faked her age,
they also decided she needed to be, quote, "recreated as a natural phenomenon." This meant
everyone had to play along — including Temple's mother, Gertrude, who told the
public that her daughter's professionalism and talent on camera came "naturally."
Of course, there were naysayers amongst the public, especially when it came to
Temple's tap dancing. As Temple wrote in her biography, to help explain this lie,
the studio swiftly placed the star in the prestigious Elisa Ryan School of Dancing.
Shirley Temple was known for her bouncy blonde locks. What many don't know is that her curls
initially served a purpose. As Temple wrote in her biography, Child Star, the idea of placing
her hair in such distinct curls came from her mother, Gertrude. As Shirley explains,
her natural hair was prone to frizz while in the "seashore humidity,"
so the curls would prevent that from happening.
Of course, even in the 1930s, trolls existed among Shirley's fans. As she explained in Child Star,
she would sometimes have "bystanders" actually attempt to tug at her hair
to see if it was real. But the hair gossip didn't just stop there.
It turns out, fans were even convinced that the A-lister's hair color wasn't blonde, either.
One article from the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1936 actually set out to debunk all these
rumors. The article declared that Temple's hair was real and that she was a natural blonde,
seeing as the young star washed her hair with the same type of "lemon rinse"
used by most blondes at the time. Interestingly enough, the article also
claimed that if the actor's hair were ever to darken, Gertrude Temple wouldn't dye it.
A major part of Shirley Temple's appeal in the '30s was the fact that she seemingly didn't age.
The 1930s were the height of Hollywood's Golden Age, and the public turned to these
glamorous movies as a way to escape the bleak reality of the Great Depression. As such,
Shirley Temple was the perfect cutesy superstar of this era — even though Tinseltown carefully
crafted her image. As the actor wrote in her biography, Child Star, her fans believed she
was "timeless," and when her baby teeth started falling out, that process was covered up, too.
Temple explained that as soon as she had a tooth fall out,
a dentist was quickly brought to the studio with a new tooth
and a can of adhesive powder. The dentist would then give the items to Temple's mother so that
she could "glue in" her daughter's fake tooth. Apparently, this trick was done for years.
Yet this lie didn't stop the "Curly Top" actor's fans from making up their own bizarre theories.
According to an article by the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1936,
there was a rumor going around at the time that Temple's teeth
had been filed down "to make them appear like baby teeth" — which was not the case.
As Shirley Temple grew up, the rumors about her just became more bizarre.
In 1937, after she appeared in Wee Willie Winkie, writer Graham Greene
wrote a jarring review for Night and Day — a magazine which he edited. Greene wrote,
"Infancy is [Shirley Temple's] disguise, her appeal is more secret and more adult.
Already two years ago she was a fancy little piece. [...] Adult emotions of
love and grief glissade across the mask of childhood, a childhood skin-deep."
While today, such a review would stun the public,
back then, it only added fuel to the fire that was stoked the previous year.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch article from 1936, there was a rumor that
began in England claiming that she wasn't a child at all, but an adult little person.
Temple and Fox ultimately sued for libel and won, but the young actor still went
through a crazy occurrence. According to Child Star, the "official Vatican newspaper" sent
high-ranking clergy member Father Silvio Massante to visit Temple in America and decide once and
for all if she was a child or adult. After their meeting, he declared to Shirley's mom, Gertrude,
"In Italy, as in some other countries in Europe, there is a persistent rumor
that Shirley is no child at all ... [that] Shirley is a [little person]."
As the star's mother looked on in shock, Massante concluded,
"Obviously, she is not."
Considering that Shirley Temple was one of the biggest stars during the golden age of Hollywood,
memorabilia affiliated with the star was sold to the masses. As one article by The New York
Times notes, this included everything from elaborate dolls to wristwatches,
drinking glasses, paper dolls, Christmas ornaments, charm necklaces and pins.
However, not all of these collectibles were approved by the pint-sized star herself.
As she revealed in her book, Child Star, people started attaching her
name to certain projects such as a dress line and fashion book — both without her
endorsement. Dubbing these incidents a, quote, "commercial piracy of [her]
name," Temple also spoke of another creation that irked her: the Shirley Temple mocktail.
The actor notes that while the drink, which was made from grenadine [GREHN-uh-deen] syrup,
fruit juices, and soda water, was popular, she wasn't a fan.
So, who came up with the alcohol-free cocktail? As Temple told NPR in 1986,
"Those were created in the probably middle
1930s by the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood and I had nothing to do with it."
Child stars in Hollywood don't exactly have a good track record of staying out of gossip rags
as they transition into adulthood. Judy Garland had a truly tragic life as she matured, while
in more recent years, Lindsay Lohan's fall from grace has been heavily documented in the press.
Shirley Temple, on the other hand, didn't succumb to the same pitfalls of her peers
as she grew older. As noted in the Independent, while many were quick to dismiss her mother as
another "pushy" stage mom, that wasn't the case at all. As Temple told People in 1988,
"She did not push me into anything. I loved what I did."
"My darling mother was probably the best mama that one could have."
In fact, the Heidi actor claims that she was the pushy one — not Gertrude. During
an appearance on The Diane Rehm Show, Shirley had this to say about her mom:
"She had the rein on me, but she knew how to release that rein so
that I was able to make judgments of my own, and decisions of my own."
Out of all of the rumors that made headlines during the height of Shirley Temple's fame,
this one may just be craziest — and it involved an assassination attempt.
According to Temple's biography, Child Star, in 1939, when she was merely 11,
the A-lister was set to appear on a radio show for a Christmas special and perform "Silent Night."
In her dressing room, Temple recalled spotting a woman outside staring at her and "scowling."
Naturally, her mother told the staff about the incident, who in turn got the FBI involved.
Meanwhile, Temple took to the studio and launched into her song when she suddenly noticed
the same woman in the crowd — yet this time she was taking out a gun. As she stood up
and pointed her weapon at the star, Temple remarkably didn't run — she simply shrank
down behind her microphone. Thankfully, two men managed to intervene and snatch the firearm away.
As Temple recalled in her book, the following day, the FBI called with an explanation. Temple wrote,
"She had indeed intended to kill me, for stealing her daughter's soul."
As it turned out, the woman had a daughter who was born mere hours before Temple,
and at the very hour that Shirley was born, the woman's baby had died. Because the woman truly
believed Temple's soul was that of her daughter's, she set out to kill Temple as a means of revenge.
It's hard imagining anybody else stepping in Dorothy's ruby slippers other than Judy Garland.
However, some believe that Shirley Temple came close to landing the iconic role
in The Wizard of Oz, but is there any truth to it? Temple thought so.
As she explained in her biography, Temple was a fan of the original children's book
and would tell her mother she wanted to "meet" Dorothy someday. Then in 1937, while
the young star was filming Heidi, Temple wrote in her biography that the screen rights to The
Wizard of Oz had been acquired by MGM. As such, executives at MGM asked if they could use Temple,
who was signed to Fox Studios, for the role of Dorothy. After trying to come up with a deal, Fox
negotiated that if they "loaned" Temple to MGM, in return they would get Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.
According to the Temple's book, the deal never went through as Harlow died
while filming Saratoga. As Temple notes in her book, this left MGM with the, quote,
"rejected option of Judy Garland." Decades later, two historians, Jay Scarfone and William Stillman,
wrote a piece for HuffPost arguing that Garland was never a "rejected" pick for the role.
According to their research, MGM didn't acquire the rights to the flick until the following year,
in 1938, when it was known it was going to be a musical. As the authors wrote in the piece,
"Judy's brilliant singing prowess already had a public following."
The Mandela Effect is an interesting phenomenon that occurs in the human brain when a group
of people realizes their shared memories of a particular event are, in actuality,
false or distorted. Some examples of the Mandela Effect are things we've heard of,
such as the Queen in Snow White saying "mirror, mirror on the wall," instead of the actual quote:
"Magic mirror on the wall, who now is the fairest one of all?"
Shirley Temple was also a victim of this psychological trick. It happened in 2016,
when Cosmopolitan came across a Reddit thread that saw countless people shocked
that Temple died at the age of 85 — and not as a youth. As one user wrote:
"I literally REMEMBER Shirley Temple DYING ... It was a BIG DEAL."
Another Reddit user added:
"My mother told me many times growing up about Shirley Temple dying when she was a young girl."
Bizarre, right? In reality, the cause of this could have
been due to the fact that the actor retired in 1949 when she was only 21.
"I was through with make-believe. I had enough of make-believe. I wanted to work in the real world."
Turning to politics and diplomacy in her later years,
Temple shied away from the spotlight. As her friend, Barry Barsamian, told Closer in 2018,
"She was a very private person."
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