Shirley Temple | White House

Born to Gertrude Temple (homemaker) and bank employee George Temple, Shirley was the youngest of 3 children. She had 2 older brothers , John and George Jr. A classic stage mother, Gertrude encouraged Shirley to learn singing, dancing, and acting and in 1931, enrolled her in Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles. This is when her Gertrude started styling Shirley's hair in ringlets. Her first contract was in 1932 with Educational Pictures. They made "Baby Burlesks", featuring pre-schoolers as the actors. Some of Shirley's roles were in "She Done Him Wrong" (a parody of the Mae West film), "Kid 'n' Africa", and "The Runt Page" (kids' version of The Front Page). She was so popular that she was promoted to a 20 minute comedies series called "Frolics Of Youth". And then, she was loaned out to Universal Studios , Paramount, and Warner Bros for various parts. Her first movie was Stand Up and Cheer! in 1934 - her contract was $150/wk , guaranteed for 2 weeks. (Remember, this was in the Depression!) Then she filmed "Baby, Take a Bow". This was followed by "Curly Top" "Dimples" "The Little Colonel" and "The Littlest Rebel. (and more)" Her films all incorporated traditional values: good over meanness and evil, wealth over poverty, marriage over divorce, a booming economy over a depressed one. FDR, the US President during her childhood years once said: "It is a splendid thing that for just fifteen cents, an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles." Her biographer Anne Edwards put it this way: "This was mid-Depression, and schemes proliferated for the care of the needy and the regeneration of the fallen. But they all required endless paperwork and demeaning, hours-long queues, at the end of which an exhausted, nettled social worker dealt with each person as a faceless number. Shirley offered a natural solution: to open one's heart." After her booming childhood success, her teen year films were less influential. Two of her movies in 1940 were flops. She moved from 20th Century Fox to MGM to United Artists - none of these moves resulted in a successful return to films. Moving in 1944 to a collaboration with David O. Selznick, she had 6 hits in the next few years but none of them rivalled the successes in her childhood career. A radio career (brief), merchandise endorsements (everything from dresses to Shirley Temple dolls to cigars with her face on the label), to persistent rumors (that she was a 30 yr old midget, that adjustments to her teeth made her look younger), to a tv career in the late 50s and early '60s followed. After a short marriage to actor John Agar (1945 - 1950), Shirley married Charles Aiden Black in 1950 and took the name Shirley Temple Black. They had 3 children and they remained married until she died. A new career began when she was appointed to represent the United States at a session of the United Nations General Assembly, From 1989 - 1992, she was US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, from 1974 - 1976, she was US Ambassador to Ghana and from 1976 - 1977 she was the Chief of Protocol of the United States.