April 23, 1928 a star was born.
In Santa Monica the world was blessed.
Shirley temple was a young dancer who would spend hours at Mrs. Meglin's Dance Studio in los angelos where she got discovered. Temple began appearing in "Baby Burlesks", short films which spoofed popular movies by remaking them with children of young ages. In her earliest films, Temple performed remarkable impressions. While the cameras rolled, Temple's mother would be on the sidelines, encouraging Shirley to "Sparkle!" Her mom and dad were her biggest fan/supporters in her life. Her dad handled all her finances for plane tickets, hotels, and wardrobes. At 5, in 1934, she attained fame with a featured role in Stand Up and Cheer. Shirley starred in several more films the same year, including Little Miss Marker,Baby Take A Bow,Bright Eyes. Where she sang her classic "On the Good Ship Lollipop". The next year, she broke barriers by dancing with the original Mr. Bojangles, Bill Robinson, in The Little Colonel. To make her seem even more interesting, her mother subtracted a year from Temple's age, and until she was 13 Temple thought she had been born in 1929. As she lost her curls and began to grow curvy, she made fewer movies and, for the first time, attended a relatively normal private school.She met her first husband, actor John Agar, and they married when Shirley was 17. Agar, however, was unable to handle being "Mr. Shirley Temple", and began to drink heavily. She continued appearing in adult roles, with diminishing box office success, and stopped acting after they divorced when she was 21. Temple fell in love a second time just months after the divorce, when she met pineapple executive Charles Black while on a vacation to Hawaii. She was especially charmed when he admitted having never seen any of her films. Temple called an old friend, FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover, and asked him to check into Black's background. Shortly thereafter, she became Shirley Temple Black.
In 1967, Temple ran for Congress on a platform urging more American involvement in the war in Vietnam. She lost the election, and attributes this to political cartoons that showed the child Shirley Temple facing off against big grown-up politicians. She was 39 at the time. Shirley Temple Black remained active in Republican politics, and was named by Richard M. Nixon to serve as a US representative the United Nations. She was later an ambassador to Ghana. During the Ford administration, she was the first female Chief of Protocol for the White House, a position she did not enjoy --one foreign dignitary's wife expected her to act as a hairstylist. She was later a Foreign Affairs officer for the State Department under Ronald Reagan, who had played her romantic interest in That Hagen Girl four decades earlier. "Shirley Temple doesn't hurt Shirley Temple Black", she once said. "Shirley Temple helps Shirley Temple Black because Shirley Temple is remembered with love and with affection. I am thought of as a friend -- which I am." Shirley and Charles Black were married for more than 50 years, until his death; she continues to reside in California.