Legendary child star Shirley Temple dies at age 85
Shirley Temple Dead: Former Child Star And U.S. Ambassador To Ghana And Czechoslovakia Dies At 85
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/ar...t-85.html?_r=0
Appreciation: Shirley Temple, the model child star - CNN.com
Remembering Shirley Temple Her Namesake Cocktail | The Daily Meal
Legendary child star Shirley Temple, who dazzled millions of people with her singing, dancing, and acting during the Great Depression era, has died on February 10, 2014, at the age of 85.
She was born on April 23, 1928, in Santa Monica, California. Her mother was the one who got her into show business, enrolling her in dancing and singing classes since she was very little, but also remained on set with her whenever she was working on a film project, and disciplined her well.
The period of time from 1935 to 1939 was her peak in popularity, in which she starred in numerous movies, and was very well known for her distinct, very curly hairstyle, which had a whopping 56 curls. During the 1940s, as a teenager, she continued to act, sing, and dance, but her popularity waned, and she eventually left the movie business in 1950 in order to raise a family. A few years later, she moved to television and presented a show entitled Shirley Temple's Storybook, which consisted of re-enacted adaptations of fairy tales; her own children took part in these adaptations. After the show ended, she decided to retire from show business altogether, and later decided to reestablish herself as a political diplomat, becoming an ambassador to the countries of Ghana and Czechoslovakia (now known as the Czech Republic).
She married U.S. Army Corps officer John Agar in 1945, and gave birth to her first child, a girl named Susan, in 1948; she divorced him the following year. Another year after that, she married Charles Alden Black, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer, in 1950, and had two more children, Lori and Charles; this marriage lasted until his death in 2005.
She is also the namesake of the Shirley Temple drink, an innocent, non-alcoholic virgin cocktail, which is made with a combination of grenadine syrup and either ginger ale or lemon-lime soda, sometimes with the optional addition of orange juice, topped with a maraschino cherry. An alcoholic version, apparently created by Shirley Temple herself when she became a legal adult, was created later on, replacing the ginger ale with ginger beer and adding a little bit of dark rum to it. The origin of the drink is somewhat disputed, with at least two Hollywood restaurants, Chasen's and the Brown Derby, both of which were very popular with celebrities during the 1930s, claiming to have invented it when the child star, on her 10th birthday, supposedly visited the restaurants with her parents and wanted a special drink of her own; both restaurants have since long closed down. Other sources state that it was invented at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki, Hawaii, where she and her family frequently vacationed at.
Unlike many child stars today, her young life had very little scandal or controversy. The only minor controversies surrounding her were her mother shaving one year off her age in order to audition her for a movie role, and her very first acting role, at the tender age of just three years old, in the 1932-1933 film series Baby Burlesks, which featured toddlers re-enacting recent and current events in a satirizing manner. She also lived her adult life with a lot of grace and dignity, because her mother disciplined her well, as she was always on the set with her whenever she worked on a film project. In the eight decades since then, however, many former child stars have gone bad at an alarming rate, either onstage with raunchy outfits, performances, and lyrics (Miley Cyrus) or offstage, such as drugs, alcohol, and run-ins with the law (Justin Bieber). Nonetheless, there are some child stars who have stayed good as adults, and Shirley Temple was perhaps the greatest living proof of that.
R.I.P. Shirley Temple
April 23, 1928-February 10, 2014
