She was the No. 1 box-office star in in the U.S. for four straight years during the 1930s, the dimpled darling of the Depression.
But even the fabled childhood of Shirley Temple — Hollywood's most famous child star — could not be protected from such real-life intrusions as kidnap and extortion attempts, death threats and an attempted seduction by a Hollywood producer when she was only 12 years old.
Over a 19-year period beginning when she was 3, Shirley Temple starred in 35 motion pictures, the majority of which were made at 20th Century Fox where, she said, she was "very protected."
Shirley Temple was the youngest actress to receive a juvenile Oscar and the youngest to put her handprints in the concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
The Santa Monica native began dancing at age 3, when her parents enrolled her at Ethel Meglin's Dance Studio in Los Angeles, and she was discovered there by director Charles Lamont. At the ripe old age of 4, she made her debut in the short "What's to Do?" and headlined a series called "Baby Burlesks," in which she parodied the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.
But her career really kicked into gear when she signed with Fox — she made 10 movies in 1934 alone.
Temple sang and danced her way to stardom in such films as "Bright Eyes" (in which she introduced "On the Good Ship Lollipop"), "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."
From 1935 to 1938, she was Hollywood's box-office champ.
Temple said she gave up acting when she was 22 because "I had had enough pretend. I wanted to be in the real world."
Politics occupied much of her adult life. She ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 1967 and was appointed U.S. delegate to the United Nations by President Nixon in 1969. She held ambassadorships through the 1980s.
Temple died Feb. 11, 2014, at her home in Woodside, Calif. She was 85.
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Year | Category | Work | |
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1934 | Special Award | Win |
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