[Mystycl]

(Reuters) - Shirley Temple Black, who lifted America's spirits as a bright-eyed, dimpled child movie star during the Great Depression and later became a U.S. diplomat, died late on Monday evening at the age of 85, a family spokeswoman said in a statement.

Temple Black, who lured millions to the movies in the 1930s, "peacefully passed away" at her California home from natural causes at 10:57 p.m. local time (0157 ET), surrounded by her family and caregivers, the statement said on Tuesday.


"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 fifty-five years," the statement said.

As actress Shirley Temple, she was precocious, bouncy and adorable with a head of curly hair, tap-dancing through songs like "On The Good Ship Lollipop." As Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, she was soft-spoken and earnest in postings in Czechoslovakia and Ghana, out to disprove concerns that her previous career made her a diplomatic lightweight.

"I have no trouble being taken seriously as a woman and a diplomat here," Black said after her appointment as U.S. ambassador to Ghana in 1974. "My only problems have been with Americans who, in the beginning, refused to believe I had grown up since my movies."

Black, born April 23, 1928, started her entertainment career in the early 1930s and was famous by age 6. She became a national institution and her raging popularity spawned look-alike dolls, dresses and dozens of other Shirley Temple novelties as she became one of the first stars to enjoy the fruits of the growing marketing mentality.

Shirley was 3 when her mother put her in dance school, where a talent scout spotted her and got her in "Baby Burlesk," a series of short movies with child actors spoofing adult movies.

Movie studio executives took notice and in 1934 she appeared in the film "Stand Up and Cheer" and her song and dance number, "Baby Take a Bow," stole the show. Movies such as "Little Miss Marker" and "Bright Eyes" - which featured her signature song "On the Good Ship Lollipop" - and in 1935 she received a special Oscar for her "outstanding contribution to screen entertainment."

She made some 40 feature movies, including "The Little Colonel," "Poor Little Rich Girl," "Heidi" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," in 10 years, starring with big-name actors like Randolph Scott, Lionel Barrymore and Jimmy Durante.





Shirley was a superstar before the term was invented. She said she was about 8 when adoring crowds shouting their love for her made her realize she was famous.

"I wondered why," she recalled. "I asked my mother and she said, 'Because your films make them happy.'"

She was such a money-maker that her mother - who would always tell her "Sparkle, Shirley!" before she appeared before an audience - and studio officials shaved a year off her age to maintain her child image.

Her child career came to an end at age 12. She tried a few roles as a teenager - including opposite future president Ronald Reagan in "That Hagen Girl" - but retired from the screen in 1949 at age 21.

Temple was only 17 in 1945 when she married for the first time to John Agar, who would eventually appear with her in two movies. Their five-year marriage produced a daughter.

In 1950 she wed Charles Black in a marriage that lasted until his death in 2005. She and Black had two children.

Black's interest in politics was sparked in the early '50s when her husband was called back into the Navy to work in Washington.

She did volunteer work for the Republican Party while attempting to make a comeback with two short-lived TV series, "Shirley Temple's Storybook" in 1959 and "The Shirley Temple Theater" a year later.

Seven years after that she ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California but stayed in politics, helping raise more than $2 million for Richard Nixon's re-election campaign.

She was later named to the United States' team to the United Nations and found that the her childhood popularity was an asset in her new career.

"Having been a film star can be very helpful on an international basis," Black once said. "Many people consider me an old friend."

Sometimes the public found it hard to accept her in diplomatic roles. But in 1989 she pointed out her 20 years in public service were more than the 19 she spent in Hollywood.

In 1974, Ford appointed Black ambassador to Ghana and two years later made her chief of protocol. For the next decade she trained newly appointment ambassadors at the request of the State Department.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush made Black ambassador to Prague - a sensitive Eastern European post normally reserved for career diplomats. Black had been in Prague in 1968, representing a group fighting multiple sclerosis at a conference, when Soviet-bloc tanks entered to crush an era of liberalization known as the "Prague Spring."

President Gustav Husak did not seem daunted by the prospect of a U.S. ambassador who had witnessed the invasion. He told her that he had been a fan of "Shirleyka."

In 1972, Black was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. She publicly discussed her surgery to educate women about the disease.

[Mystycl]

i was always compared to her as a child, due to the hair and cheeks

sad day...

[Tina]

She really still looks the same. I still sing "Good Ship Lollipop" and "Animal Crackers" to my great neice and nephews all the time lol. Love those songs.

I loved the movie Heidi, have watched it so many times. Bye Shirley, I have fond memories of you.

[Elizabeth]

I loved watching her movies when I was a kid. And I "impressed and amazed" my husband and teenaged son this morning by remembering all the words to "On the Good Ship Lollipop"!

She lived an amazing life -- I think she was a genuinely good person.

[Mystycl]

[Mystycl]

my favorite quote....

shirley: my duck is a wonderful duck, my duck can lay an egg... (lol)

mean old teacher: and just what is so wonderful about laying an egg....

shirley: well.... can you lay an egg?

[Yak Nicholson]

Shirley Temple, the child star phenomenon of the 1930s who went on to a career in international diplomacy, died Tuesday in California at age 85.

A statement from her family provided to news organizations said she died at home in Woodside, Calif., of natural causes. “She was surrounded by her family and caregivers,” the BBC quoted the statement as saying. “We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and… our beloved mother, grandmother [and] great-grandmother.”

Shirley Temple was a child prodigy with a non-stop movie hits starting with “Little Miss Marker” in 1934. She went on to entertain America and the world during the Depression keeping 20th Century Fox alive and well. At just 10, Shirley Temple was one of the nations top wage earners. By 1938 she was making $10,000 a week, a staggering sum in those days.

Unfortunately, Temple was not going to survive the transition to adult performer like others and her acting career would come to a grinding halt. Instead, she focused her efforts on Government. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress, but became a U.S. representative at the United Nations, ambassador to Ghana, U.S. chief of protocol under President Gerald Ford and President George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

But in her heyday, Temple was a national treasure and an American icon, as big a star around the world as Greta Garbo or Charlie Chaplin. And though, except for a brief TV stint in the late ’50s, Temple was never onscreen after the 1940s, subsequent generations grew up with her films on television and video.

According to Variety:

“In 1958 she appeared on television as host and occasional actress in NBC fairy-tale anthology series “The Shirley Temple Storybook.” It lasted a year.

Another effort, “The Shirley Temple Show,” in 1960, was similarly unsuccessful, but Temple Black made guest appearances during the early 1960s on programs including “The Red Skelton Show” and “Sing Along With Mitch.”

In January 1965, she starred in the sitcom pilot “Go Fight City Hall,” in which she portrayed a social worker, but the show never went to series.

What began as volunteer charity work and a commitment to environmental causes led to Temple running for Congress in 1967. She lost to Pete McCloskey. Active in Richard Nixon’s 1968 election campaign, she was rewarded by the president with an appointment as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations. Her work led to her appointment as a delegate to the International Environmental Council in 1972.

That year she underwent a mastectomy to remove a malignant tumor. She received 50,000 letters of sympathy and went on to speak publicly about breast cancer, which at the time was not discussed widely.

Temple Black sat on the boards of corporations and organizations including the Walt Disney Co. and the National Wildlife Federation.

In 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed her ambassador to Ghana and in 1976 he brought her back to Washington as the first woman chief of protocol.

After Ford lost the 1978 election, she returned home. A decade later, George W. Bush named her as ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

In 1999 Temple Black hosted AFI’s “100 Years… 100 Stars” special on CBS.

Her autobiography, “Child Star,” was published in 1988, and in 2001, she served as a consultant on an ABC telepic adaptation called “Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story.”

Temple received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and the Screen Actors Guild’s life achievement award in 2005.

Black and Temple remained married until his death in 2005.”

[Mystycl]