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. /AFP PHOTO
Valerie J. Nelson
Los Angeles Times
2/11/2014
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…
…Her most memorable performances included four films she made with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a black dancer 50 years her senior and a favorite co-star, she later said.
They were first paired as foils for cantankerous Lionel Barrymore in 1935’s “The Little Colonel,” in which 7-year-old Shirley tap dances up and down the staircase, remarkably matching the veteran Robinson step for step.
“I would learn by listening to the taps,” Temple told the Washington Post in 1998. “I would primarily listen to what he was doing and I would do it.”
Their dance routines in such films as the Civil War saga “The Littlest Rebel” (1935) and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1938) reflected their off-screen rapport. They were the first mixed-race musical numbers to be seen in many parts of the country, according to “Who’s Who in Musicals.”…
…A country desperate for relief from the excruciating economic hardships of the Depression fell in love with Shirley and her infectious optimism in “Baby Take a Bow,” the 1934 film that was her first starring vehicle…
The complete article is at the Los Angeles Times.
H/T Blazing Cat Fur
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Update: Stuart Varney remembers Shirley Temple (video)
