50 Fun Facts About Shirley Temple

Which young star ended Shirley Temple's four-year run as Hollywood's top box-office draw in 1939?

Mickey Rooney, then starring in the Andy Hardy films, took over the theatre owners' poll and led it for three years running; Temple had topped it from 1935 to 1938.

Where was Shirley Temple born on 23 April 1928?

Santa Monica, California stayed the family's home until 1936, when fans knocking on the door and peering through the windows drove them to a walled and gated house in Brentwood.

Which fact about Shirley Temple was falsified until her teens?

Her age was cut by a year when her career took off; she learned the truth at what she had been told was her twelfth birthday party, when she was really turning thirteen.

Which series of one-reel shorts, with small children playing every role, gave Shirley Temple her start in 1932?

Baby Burlesks dressed toddlers as adults above the waist and in nappies below to spoof stars such as Marlene Dietrich; Temple later called it a cynical exploitation of childish innocence.

Which 1934 film, with the song 'Baby, Take a Bow', was Shirley Temple's breakthrough at Fox?

Stand Up and Cheer! gave her a single song-and-dance number, and within an hour of finishing it Fox had put the five-year-old under contract for a year.

Which novelist was sued for libel over a Shirley Temple film review?

Graham Greene, then a film critic, suggested that her appeal to middle-aged men was far from innocent; Fox and the nine-year-old sued him and his magazine, and won.

Which 1934 film, written specifically for Shirley Temple, contains her signature song 'On the Good Ship Lollipop'?

Bright Eyes has her sing it to a cabin full of pilots aboard a taxiing airliner: the 'good ship' of the title is a plane, not a boat.

What special honour did six-year-old Shirley Temple receive in February 1935?

A Juvenile Academy Award, a miniature statuette, went to her first, after nine-year-old Jackie Cooper had lost the 1931 Best Actor race to an adult; no younger performer has ever received an Oscar.

Which tap dancer, Shirley Temple's favourite co-star, performed the famous staircase dance with her in The Little Colonel?

Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson made four films with her, a pairing often called Hollywood's first interracial dance team; Temple said she learned his steps by listening to his taps.

How many blond curls was Shirley Temple famously said to have?

56 ringlets, and no one but her mother, who first set them when Shirley was a toddler, was ever allowed to curl them.

Which president, praising Shirley Temple's films, called it 'a splendid thing' that 15 cents let Americans forget their troubles?

Franklin D. Roosevelt was speaking in 1935, when, as he put it, the spirit of the people was lower than at any other time in the Depression; a cinema ticket to see her smile cost 15 cents.

Which 1935 film gave Shirley Temple the signature song 'Animal Crackers in My Soup'?

Curly Top has her sing it in an orphanage dining hall, skipping between the tables while the other children beat time with their knives and forks.

Which director, better known for Westerns, made Shirley Temple's 1937 film Wee Willie Winkie, one of her own favourites?

John Ford, a maker of rugged outdoor films, directed her as a girl who wins over a British army post in India, and cast her again eleven years later in Fort Apache.

Which surrealist painted Shirley Temple in 1939 as 'The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time'?

Salvador Dalí pasted her head, cut from a newspaper photograph, onto the body of a red lioness with a vampire bat perched on top; the work is also known as the Barcelona Sphinx.

Which 1934 Shirley Temple film was based on a Damon Runyon story?

Little Miss Marker casts her as a child left with a bookie as security for her father's bet; Fox lent her to a rival studio for the part, and she wins over the whole gang of gamblers.

Which MGM producer did Shirley Temple's memoir accuse of exposing himself to her?

Arthur Freed threw her out of his office when she answered with nervous giggles, she wrote; MGM had signed her only months after Fox let her go.

Shirley Temple's only film for MGM was which unsuccessful 1941 picture?

Kathleen was the one vehicle MGM found her: the studio, which signed her eight months after Fox dropped her, was already grooming Judy Garland as its own young star.

Which 1947 comedy paired Shirley Temple with Cary Grant?

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer casts her as a schoolgirl with a crush on Grant's playboy artist, who is told to keep dating her until it wears off; the script won an Oscar.

Which actor played Shirley Temple's rumoured father in That Hagen Girl (1947)?

Ronald Reagan, the future president, played the lawyer the town gossips about, yet the script has the pair leave town together as newlyweds.

What was the title of Shirley Temple's last film, released in 1949?

A Kiss for Corliss revived her teenage role from Kiss and Tell opposite David Niven; within a year she had left the screen at 22, saying she had had enough of pretend.

What two-word instruction did Shirley Temple's mother give her before every take?

Sparkle, Shirley! was Gertrude Temple's cue before each take; she coached her daughter herself, ignoring the director, and drew a studio salary for doing it.

Shirley Temple's 1942 CBS radio series, based on Sally Benson's stories, was called what?

Junior Miss cast the 13-year-old as Judy Graves, a teenager Sally Benson had modelled on her own daughter and her friends; the series ran only from March to August.

What kind of stories did Shirley Temple present when she returned to television as a host in 1958?

Fairy tales brought her back: with her old films a hit on television, she hosted and sometimes acted in Shirley Temple's Storybook, an anthology that ran until 1961.

Which cartoon character was Shirley Temple's only rival as a seller of 1930s merchandise?

Mickey Mouse alone matched her pull: her look-alike dolls were the best-selling dolls of the decade, and her face sold dresses and dishes.

A false rumour about the young Shirley Temple claimed she was really what?

A 30-year-old dwarf: the tale, which a 1930s interviewer traced to England, fed on the fact that film audiences never saw her with a missing tooth.

Shirley Temple often said Depression audiences fell in love with a little girl and which canine film star?

Rin Tin Tin was her own comparison: people in the Depression wanted cheering up, she liked to say, so they fell for a dog and a little girl.

How did Shirley Temple hide the gaps from her lost baby teeth on screen?

Dental plates and caps filled each gap during filming; that, a reporter was told at the time, was the truth behind a rumour that her teeth had been filed down to look like baby teeth.

In 1967 Shirley Temple Black ran unsuccessfully for what office?

US Congress: she lost a special-election primary to Pete McCloskey, a more moderate Republican, while 'On the Good Ship Lollipop' kept being played at her campaign rallies.

By Shirley Temple Black's account, whose surprise at hearing her discuss Namibia at a party led to her first ambassadorship?

Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, was, in her words, surprised that she even knew the word; her first embassy posting followed in 1974.

Which president appointed Shirley Temple Black a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly?

Richard Nixon picked the Republican fund-raiser for the five-member US delegation, where she spoke up on refugees, the aged and the environment.

To which African country was Shirley Temple Black appointed US ambassador in 1974?

Ghana, where she startled the embassy's career staff by coming to her desk in local dress, and a year into the posting was installed as an honorary deputy chief at a festival in Cape Coast.

Shirley Temple Black was the first woman to hold which US post, from July 1976 to January 1977?

Chief of Protocol made her Gerald Ford's official host for visiting dignitaries; the job ended after six months when Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, took office.

What was the teenage Shirley Temple determined to be the first girl in her school class to do?

Get engaged: she accepted a ring from an Army Air Corps sergeant a few days before her 17th birthday, and married him that September.

Shirley Temple Black served as US ambassador to which country from 1989 to 1992?

Czechoslovakia, where people stopped her to show their membership cards from a 1930s Shirley Temple fan club, and where she saw Communist rule collapse within months of arriving.

Shirley Temple Black was in Prague to meet Alexander Dubček on the very day of what event?

The Soviet-led invasion of August 1968 cancelled the meeting and trapped her in her hotel, where she climbed to the roof and saw tanks ringing the building with their guns pointing up.

Whom did Ambassador Shirley Temple Black accompany on his first official visit to Washington, in 1990?

Václav Havel, the dissident playwright she had tried to keep out of jail in her first months as ambassador, made the trip as his country's new president.

Whom did Shirley Temple marry in 1945?

John Agar, an Army Air Corps sergeant when they wed, launched an acting career of his own in her shadow and began drinking heavily; the marriage ended after four years.

Shirley Temple's daughter Lori became a bassist for which rock band?

The Melvins took her on, as 'Lorax' Black, when they moved to San Francisco in the late 1980s; she played on Ozma and Bullhead in a circle that included Kurt Cobain.

Shirley Temple Black's public disclosure of which illness in 1972 was a milestone in reducing stigma?

Breast cancer: she held a televised news conference from her hospital room after her mastectomy, urging other women to get lumps checked rather than sit at home afraid.

Shirley Temple Black helped found an international federation to fight which disease, after it struck her brother George?

Multiple sclerosis: she became president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and, as a co-founder of the international federation, travelled to Prague in 1968 to recruit a new member country.

Why did six-year-old Shirley Temple stop believing in Santa Claus?

He asked for her autograph: her mother had taken her to meet him in a department store, she recalled, and the store Santa wanted the famous child's signature.

What did Shirley Temple think of the non-alcoholic drink named after her?

Far too sweet was her verdict on a drink she said she was served all over the world; she twice went to court to stop companies bottling a soda under her name.

What was the title of Shirley Temple Black's 1988 autobiography?

Child Star undid the old publicity tale that she was discovered by accident: her mother, she wrote, had made a calculated decision to turn her only daughter into a professional dancer.

Which Washington award did Shirley Temple Black receive in 1998?

The Kennedy Center Honors came almost half a century after she left the screen; by then, as she liked to point out, she had spent longer in public service than in films.

For which 1939 MGM classic did the studio try to borrow Shirley Temple from Fox?

The Wizard of Oz went to Judy Garland after Fox refused to lend her; Fox answered with a fantasy of its own, and its failure ended her years as the studio's biggest star.

Which 1939 film, Shirley Temple's first in Technicolor, was her last big hit as a child?

The Little Princess came just before her fortunes turned: the next year an expensive fantasy flopped, and Fox let go of the girl who had been its biggest draw.

Besides ginger ale or lemon-lime soda, what is the key ingredient of a Shirley Temple mocktail?

Grenadine tints the soda pink beneath a maraschino cherry; several restaurants and hotels claim to have invented the drink for the young star, who said she had nothing to do with it.

Which 1980s secretary of state made Shirley Temple Black the first Honorary Foreign Service Officer?

George Shultz gave her the title after years in which she had trained newly appointed ambassadors for the State Department instead of serving as one herself.

What did the businessman Shirley Temple married in 1950 say he had never done?

Seen one of her films: the Hawaii pineapple-company executive said so when they met; he proposed within twelve days and they stayed married for almost 55 years.

Which independent producer signed the teenage Shirley Temple in the 1940s, casting her in Since You Went Away?

David O. Selznick put her under a seven-year contract but, now that she was a teenager, gave her only supporting parts, as Claudette Colbert's daughter and Ginger Rogers's niece.