Remembering Shirley: Iconic Child Star Dies at 85
Photo Credit: Ladyfroufrou SparkleSparkle!/flickrShirley Temple Black, iconic child star, dies at 85
By Valerie J. Nelson.
Shirley Temple Black, who as the most popular child movie star of all time lifted a filmgoing nation’s spirits during the Depression and then grew up to be a diplomat, has died. She was 85.
Black died late Monday at her home in Woodside, Calif., according to publicist Cheryl J. Kagan. No cause was given.
From 1935 through 1938, the curly-haired moppet billed as Shirley Temple was the top box-office draw in the nation. She saved what became 20th Century Fox studios from bankruptcy and made more than 40 movies before she turned 12.
Hollywood recognized the enchanting, dimpled scene-stealer’s importance to the industry with a “special award” — a miniature Oscar — at the Academy Awards for 1934, the year she sang and danced her way into America’s collective heart.
After she sang “On the Good Ship Lollipop” in “Bright Eyes,” the song became a hit and the studio set up Shirley Temple Development, a department dedicated to churning out formulaic scripts that usually featured the cheerful, poised Shirley as the accidental Little Miss Fix-It who could charm any problem away.
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Photo Credit: YouTube The Meaning of Shirley Temple
By William Bigelow.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “As long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.” We don’t have her any more after her death Monday night, and the truth is we are not all right.
Shirley Temple and her iconic screen presence were a tribute to an America that believed in innocence, even during a dark era when millions of Americans were out of work and desperate to find a path back to normalcy. Temple’s screen presence, a cherubic, delightful, utterly charming persona, was a balm for those in the audience who needed a respite from the daily terrors of insolvency and loss of faith in their future.
Temple was innocent enough that when she danced with the legendary black dancer Bill Robinson in The Little Colonel, no one gave a hoot that the interracial teaming was a watershed moment.
More than anything, Temple represented the wide-eyed innocence that America once believed was the natural province of childhood.
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