Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Art-For-Art’s-Sake Theatre: Shirley Temple (1928-2014)

Time once again for our usual midday Wednesday feature.

The pre-eminent child actress of the classic movie era, Shirley Temple, died on Monday at her home in Woodside, California, surrounded by family and loved ones. She was 85 years old.

Beginning her movie career in 1931 at the age of three, Temple went on to star in over ninety films in the three decades that followed. As an actor, dancer, and singer, her career peaked as she reached adolescence, for reasons undetermined at this writing, although she did marry for the first time at seventeen, and was a stay-at-home mother when her children were growing up. Even so, she managed to continue performing on stage and screen into the television years. Temple also participated in numerous charitable causes, and became a diplomat, serving as United States Ambassador to Ghana, Czechoslovakia, as well as Chief of Protocol.

The little girl known as "America's Sweetheart" appears in this video clip as she might best be remembered, tap dancing with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in a scene from the 1935 film The Littlest Rebel.
 

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