Shirley Temple: Child Star Shining

by Marjorie Dorfman | More from this Blogger

09 Mar 2006 09:53 AM

Shirley Jane Temple was born on April 23, 1928. This most famous child actress of all time hails from Santa Monica, California and appeared in more than forty films during the 1930s. One of three children, she began her career at the age of three, after a visiting director selected her from a group of other children in a dance class. Her birth certificate was altered, and it was on her twelfth birthday that she discovered she was really thirteen!

She was, even at the tender age of five, a thoroughly professional performer. She was always prepared for "shooting time," her lines memorized and her tap dance steps mastered. In 1935, at the age of seven, she became the very first and youngest child star to receive the "Juvenile Performer" Academy Award. To this very day, her record still stands. She was often paired with actor, James Dunn, as well as Carol Lombard, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou and Arthur Treacher, the kindly butler.

Her abilities as a tap dancer were exceptional. Even at the age of five, she could adapt to the most complex set of dance moves and was teamed often with tap master, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who often coached her and helped her develop her technique. She made four films with Robinson: "The Little Colonel," "The Littlest Rebel," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and "Just Around The Corner." When the movies were shown in the many cities of the American South, those scenes where African-American Robinson is seen holding hands with white Temple had to be edited out.

Shirley Temple became an icon in her own times, a dubious and unusual state of being. Many products were made and sold in her image, such as dolls dressed in costumes from her movies, dresses, hair-bows and drinking cups and spoons. In addition, several of her songs like "On The Good Ship Lollipop", "Animal Crackers In My Soup" and "Goodnight My Love" became popular radio hits. She was married first to actor, John Agar, when she was seventeen and they had one daughter together. They divorced in 1950, and then she married Charles Black, a California businessman. They had two children, a boy and a girl. Shirley Temple Black has received numerous honorary awards and degrees for her work for humanitarian causes, including the most prestigious Screen Actor's Guild "Lifetime Achievement Award."

For more information on the life, times and films of this remarkable child star, please visit: The Official Shirley Temple Website

Learn more about Marjorie Dorfman

Marjorie Dorfman is a freelance writer and former teacher originally from Brooklyn, New York.

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