Remembering Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple, the singing and dancing child star with the glowing curls who enchanted the world has died. She was 85 years old.

In a statement, Temple’s family said the actress died of natural causes and “peacefully passed away” on Monday at her home in California “surrounded by her family and caregivers”.

“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 55 years,” the statement said.

Shirley retired completely from the film industry by the age of 22 but went on to host Shirley Temple’s Storybook and The Shirley Temple Show from 1958 to 1961.

Later in life Shirley served as a foreign ambassador and diplomat for four U.S. presidents.

Shirley was a one of the world’s biggest box -office draw cards and brought joy to many after the Great Depression. She was renown for her captivating expressions and extreme cheerfulness. She also had an exceptional talent in singing and dancing. This was shown in such films as Bright Eyes (1934), the picture in which she belted out her signature song, “The Good Ship Lollipop.”

She was the most awarded youngest performer with at age 6 with the first Juvenile Academy Award “in grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934.”

She is the youngest person ever to receive an Oscar statuette.

Four of Temple’s most memorable films were released in 1935, including The Little Colonel, a Civil War drama with music where she tap-danced with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson on a staircase in one of the most enchanting cinematic sequences of all time.

She followed that up that year with Our Little Girl and Curly Top, which introduced another of her songs that became a classic, “Animal Crackers in My Soup” and The Littlest Rebel, in which she and Robinson appeal to President Lincoln for help in another Civil War saga.

Her mother Gertrude did her hair for each movie, with 56 corkscrew curls each time.

Shirley is credited for saving 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy and received monstrous earnings from her pictures, as well as endorsing such products as dresses, cereal and soap.

She even had a drink named after her, a sweet and innocent non-alcoholic cocktail of ginger ale and grenadine, topped with a maraschino cherry.

In a 1988 interview with People magazine, she admitted she didn’t realise how famous she was.

“I really didn’t know it,” she says. “When I asked my mother why crowds shouted my name and said, ‘We love you,’ she would dust it off by saying, ‘Your work makes them happy.’ She never let it go to my head.”

As an ambassador Shirley  was soft-spoken and earnest in postings in Czechoslovakia and Ghana.

In 1972, Temple was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy.

She publicly discussed her surgery to educate women about the disease.

Shirley has said that her greatest roles were as wife, mother and grandmother. “There’s nothing like real love. Nothing.” Her husband of more than 50 years, Charles Black, had died just a few months earlier.

Here is a look back on one of Shirley’s most iconic roles. Share with us today your memories of this wonderful star…