Temple began her film career in 1932 at the age of three and, in 1934, found international fame in Bright Eyes, a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer to motion pictures during 1934, and film hits such as Curly Top and Heidi followed year after year during the mid-to-late 1930s. Licensed merchandise that capitalized on her wholesome image included dolls, dishes, and clothing. Her box office popularity waned as she reached adolescence, and she left the film industry in her teens. She appeared in a few films of varying quality in her mid-to-late teens, and retired completely from films in 1950 at the age of 22. She was the top box-office draw four years in a row (1935–38) in a Motion Picture Herald poll.
Temple returned to show business in 1958 with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. She sat on the boards of corporations and organizations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation. In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star. Temple was the recipient of awards and honors including Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
Temple ranks 18th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female American screen legends of all time.
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Shirley Temple Black, actress and diplomat, dies at 85
By Claudia Levy, Tuesday, February 11, 4:35 PM
Shirley Temple Black, the former child star and diplomat whose films in the 1930s cheered Depression-weary moviegoers and made her the most famous little girl in the world, died Monday night at age 85 of undisclosed causes.
A statement from her family said she died at 10:57 p.m., at her home in Woodside, Calif.
This undated photo show US child film star Shirley Temple. Hollywood star Shirley Temple has died at the age of 85, US media has announced on February 11, 2014. During 1934-38, the actress appeared in more than 20 feature films and was consistantly the top US movie star. Shirley Temple Black was US Ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia.
“She was surrounded by her family and caregivers,” the statement said. “We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and most importantly as our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and adored wife for 45 years of the late and much missed Charles Alden Black.”
Shirley Temple began her career as a curly-haired moppet of 4. From 1935 to 1938, she was the top box-office attraction in the United States. Her films took in $20 million in just a few years and saved her studio, 20th-Century Fox, from bankruptcy.
Her movies became classics of pre-World War II cinema and have remained popular with children and adults. In 1999, the American Film Institute included the actress on its list of the 50 Greatest Screen Legends. She was a Kennedy Center honors recipient in 1998.
By 1938, the year “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” was released, the youngster's income was the seventh-highest in the country, behind that of six industrialists.
Fame made it impossible for Miss Temple to lead a normal life. She was tutored at the studio, accompanied everywhere by bodyguards and secluded at home. Her life was insured for $795,000, with 20th-Century Fox as the sole beneficiary.
She stopped making movies in 1949, but later worked in television. She became active in Republican politics and, as Shirley Temple Black, served as White House chief of protocol during Gerald Ford's administration, as a delegate to the United Nations and an ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.
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Shirley Temple, who has died aged 85, was that rare example of a Hollywood child star who, when the cameras stopped rolling, carved out a new career.
With her ringlets, dimples and precocious talent, America's "Little Princess", charmed audiences during the 1930s Depression.
For four years, she was Hollywood's biggest box-office star, representing the kind of sweet, innocent girl everyone wanted as their daughter.
And, after a period of domesticity, she re-emerged as a successful businesswoman and politician.
Shirley Temple was born in Santa Monica, California on 23 April 1928.
Encouraged by her mother Gertrude, she learned to dance while she was still a toddler and was enrolled in a Los Angeles dance school at the age of three.
This led to her being signed up by a talent spotter for Educational Pictures, which promptly featured her in a series of one-reelers entitled Baby Burlesques.
Temple later described them as "a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence that occasionally were racist or sexist".
When Educational went bust in 1933, she signed up with Fox Film Corporation, appearing in a number of bit parts.
In 1934, Stand Up and Cheer became her first feature film and she stole the show with her rendition of Baby Take a Bow.
Her box-office potential was obvious and by the age of six she was earning $1,250 (£760) a week; more than $21,000 (£12,750) at today's values.
The income from her films was doubled by sales of merchandise, including Shirley Temple dolls and a host of girls' clothes and accessories.
Temple's mother always accompanied her during filming. Years later, Temple recalled how her mother had been furious when a director sent her on an errand and then made Temple cry by frightening her.
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Shirley Temple Black, former Hollywood child star, dies at 85
(Reuters) - Shirley Temple Black, who lifted America's spirits as a bright-eyed, dimpled child movie star during the Great Depression and forged a second career as a U.S. diplomat, died late on Monday evening at the age of 85.
Black, who lured millions to the movies in the 1930s, "peacefully passed away" at her Woodside, California, home from natural causes at 10:57 p.m. local time (6:57 a.m. British time), surrounded by her family and caregivers, her family said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and most importantly as our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and adored wife of fifty-five years," the statement said.
As actress Shirley Temple, she was precocious, bouncy and adorable with a head of curly hair, tap-dancing through songs like "On The Good Ship Lollipop."
As Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, she was soft-spoken and earnest in postings in Czechoslovakia and Ghana, out to disprove concerns that her previous career made her a diplomatic lightweight.
"I have no trouble being taken seriously as a woman and a diplomat here," Black said after her appointment as U.S. ambassador to Ghana in 1974. "My only problems have been with Americans who, in the beginning, refused to believe I had grown up since my movies."
Tributes to Black streamed in on Tuesday from the entertainment community following the news of her death.
"Little Shirley Temple raised the spirits of a nation during the Great Depression. RIP," actress Mia Farrow tweeted.
Whoopi Goldberg referred to Black's signature song in her tribute to the former child star on Twitter. "The Good Ship Lollypop has sailed today with Shirley Temple aboard a true 1 of a kind," she wrote.
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