Shirley Temple

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Shirley Temple (1944)

Shirley Jane Temple (born April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica , California - † February 10, 2014 in Woodside , California) was an American actress , singer , dancer and diplomat . She was one of the most successful child actors in film history and one of the top-selling stars in Hollywood in the 1930s . Her best-known films include Recruit Willie Winkie , Heidi and The Little Princess .

She was also successful as a dancer and singer. In 1935, at the age of six, she received a Juvenile Award , an Oscar that honors child actors. Her popularity declined as she got older, and she made her last film in 1949. She later served as the United States' Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia . The American Film Institute selected Shirley Temple as the 18th greatest American film actresses of the 20th century.

Life

Career start

Shirley Temple was the daughter of the bank clerk George Francis Temple (1888-1980) and the housewife Gertrude Amelia Krieger (1893-1977). At the age of three she attended a dance school in Los Angeles . There she was discovered by Charles Lamont . Her first film roles were in the baby burlesque film series in 1932, for example in the film War Babies . She then starred in another short film series for Educational Pictures . She achieved greater popularity in 1934 with the film Stand Up and Cheer , in which she had her first dance scene with James Dunn and sang the song Baby Take a Bow ( 20th Century Fox ). She then had other supporting roles in well-known films and made two films for Paramount . In mid-1934 she was finally signed by 20th Century Fox and given a seven-year contract. In 1935, Temple received a Juvenile Award at the age of six . "In grateful recognition for their outstanding contribution to film entertainment during 1934," the statement said. She became the most popular child star of the Depression Era .

Highlights

Shirley Temple with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1938)

Temple played with well-known actors such as Lionel Barrymore , Alice Faye , Jack Holt , Gary Cooper and Jean Hersholt at a young age . Her long-time studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck raved about the popular child star: “She is the eighth wonder of the world!” Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt fell for her charm and thanked her for “leading America through the depression with a smile”.

From 1935 to 1938 she was the top-selling box office star in America. In 1939 it slipped to fifth place. In addition, her face could be seen on numerous products from shampoo to detergent. The Shirley Temple doll was found in many households in the United States. A special trademark of the dolls was the dress that Temple wore in Stand Up and Cheer . Along with Freddie Bartholomew , Jackie Cooper and Deanna Durbin , she was one of the child stars with the highest incomes. With 307,014 dollars she received in 1937, the seventh-highest annual income in the United States. In addition, there was $ 30,000 in advertising contracts every month. Her popularity was given a huge boost in 1937 by the double successes Recruit Willie Winkie and Heidi .

Temple's talent as a dancer, especially in tap dancing , was known and celebrated. She danced in her earliest films and, at the age of five, had mastered complicated tap choreographies. She was teamed with famous dancer Bill Robinson in The Little Colonel (1935), The Littlest Rebel (1935), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) and Just Around the Corner (1938). He also taught her and developed the choreographies for her film Dimples , for example . Temple also shot with other dance partners, such as George Murphy or Buddy Ebsen . Shirley Temple and Bill Robinson were the only dance couple at the time who could rival the popularity of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers . Since Robinson African American , was the had in many cities racially dominated south , the scenes in which he held Temple's hand be cut out. In Germany her films were dubbed by Carmen Lahrmann .

Falling popularity

MGM wanted to hire Temple to star in the expensive production of The Magical Land . But 20th Century Fox didn't want to give up their biggest box office magnet. Temple had her last major success in 1939 with The Little Princess ($ 1.5 million budget, Technicolor ). Her last profitable film for Fox was Susannah of the Mounties (1939), which was shot that same year. Since The Magical Land with Judy Garland in the leading role was very successful, Fox produced the color film The Blue Bird as a competition in 1940 . The blue bird , where she played a comparatively negative figure for once, became the first flop of her career. When the next black and white film Young People (1940) was unsuccessful, her contract with Fox also expired. She was twelve years old and her popularity was starting to wane. She moved to MGM, then to United Artists . There Kathleen (1941) and Miss Annie Rooney (1942) were written, in the latter film she received her first screen kiss from Dickie Moore and thus made the leap to adulthood.

The producer David O. Selznick signed her and gave her the supporting role of the daughter of Claudette Colbert in his drama about the American home front, When you said goodbye (1944). Temple received good reviews for her portrayal. Some of its successive productions brought her recognition and praise one, especially the comedy is so easy not love (1948) (with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy ), or up to last Mann (1948), a John Ford - Western with Temple as daughter of Henry Fonda . Dissatisfied with the course of her career, she ended her film career in 1950 at the age of just 22. In 1958 she designed the television program The Shirley Temple Storybook , which ran for over two years on American television and was adapted in the classic fairy tale and children's stories. After the series ended, she finally retired from show business.

In 2005 she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award from the Film Actors Union for Lifetime Achievement . Temple is dedicated to a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

Entry into politics

Shirley Temple (1990)

Beginning in 1950, Temple solicited funds for the Republican Party . In the same year, she also found that her income in the millions had disappeared to a few thousand dollars due to her family's costly lives and her father's bad speculation. In 1966 she ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the United States House of Representatives for the Republican Party. With 22.4 percent she took third place in the election; in Pete McCloskey , another Republican who took liberal positions won. In 1969 President Richard Nixon appointed her US delegate to the UN General Assembly . In 1971 Temple was diagnosed with breast cancer; After a successful operation, she turned back to politics in 1974. From 1974 to 1976 she was US ambassador to Ghana under President Gerald Ford . In 1976 and 1977 she was Chief of Protocol and from 1989 to 1992 as the successor to Julian Niemczyk as the US Ambassador in Prague and thus an eyewitness to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia .

Private life

From 1945 to 1950, Temple was married to actor John Agar ; the marriage resulted in a daughter. From 1950 she was married to Charles Alden Black (1919-2005), with whom she had a son and another daughter. She also has a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren. Shirley Temple died of complications from COPD on February 10, 2014, at the age of 85, at her home in Woodside, California .

Filmography

short and full-length feature films

Television appearances

Shirley Temple (1965)

Awards

Trivia

The alcohol-free mixed drink of the same name is named after Shirley Temple. The drink, invented in the 1930s, consists of ginger ale and / or lemonade, grenadine , crushed ice and, depending on the recipe, lemon, lime or orange juice. It is usually garnished with a cocktail cherry or a slice of orange.

literature

  • Anne Edwards: Shirley Temple: American Princess. W. Morrow, New York 1988, ISBN 0-688-06051-X (biography)

Web links

Commons : Shirley Temple  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aljean Harmetz: Shirley Temple Black, Screen Darling, Dies at 85.nytimes.com, February 11, 2014, accessed February 11, 2014
  2. ↑ Valerie J. Nelson: Shirley Temple Black, iconic child star, dies at 85. latimes.com, February 11, 2014, accessed February 11, 2014
  3. ↑ Obituary: Shirley Temple , BBC News . February 11, 2014. Retrieved December 24, 2014. 
  4. ↑ EXCLUSIVE: Shirley Temple revealed to be a secret smoker and actually died from lung disease ... but her family covered it up to protect her 'goody goody' image . Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  5. ↑ all German film titles according to the entry "Shirley Temple" in Kay Less : Das Großes Personenlexikon des Films , Volume 7, p. 675, Berlin 2001
  6. ↑ all German film titles on grin.com
  7. ↑ all German film titles on zvab.com
  8. ↑ IMDb entry for The House of the Seven Gables , Episode 12 of Season 2 of Shirley Temple's Storybook
  9. ↑ IMDb entry for The Princess and the Goblins , Episode 24 of Season 2 of Shirley Temple's Storybook
  10. ↑ Print edition February 12, 2014, p. 33
personal data
SURNAME Temple, Shirley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Temple Black, Shirley Jane (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress, singer, dancer and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Monica , California
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 2014
Place of death Woodside , California