Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple was an actress who was widely considered the most popular and beloved child performer of all time. The curly-haired youngster starred in a string of successful films during the Depression era — including Little Miss Marker, Bright Eyes, The Little Colonel, Curly Top, The Littlest Rebel, Dimples, Wee Wilie Winkie and Heidi — that made her the top box-office star in Hollywood from 1935 through 1939, surpassing such names as Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford. She continued working in movies until she was 22, and later apeared briefly in television before embarking on a distinguished career as a U.S. diplomat.

Born in Santa Monica, California, Temple began performing at age three, when her mother enrolled her in Mrs. Meglin’s Dance Studio. By age four she was appearing in short films and at five she was starring in features for 20th Century Fox.

She made her last film, the comedy A Kiss for Corliss, in 1949. By that time she had already married and divorced actor John Agar, with whom she had one child, and was married to executive Charles Alden Black, with whom she had two children.

In 1958 she made her debut as host of the television series Shirley Temple’s Storybook — also known as The Shirley Temple Show — an anthology of fairy-tale adaptations. The show ended in 1961.

Temple, who publicly used the name Shirley Temple Black following her second marriage, developed an interest in politics, and in the 1950s became a fundraiser for the Republican Party. She ran for Congress in 1967, but was defeated.   In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed her to the U.S delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, and in 1974 she was appointed ambassador to Ghana. She was President Gerald Ford’s chief of protocol in 1976 and 1977, and became President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1989. She held the post during the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.   Temple died February 10, 2014, in Woodside, California. She was 85.