Shirley Temple filmography
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This article is about Shirley Temple's theatrical films. For her television show, see Shirley Temple's Storybook.

Shirley Temple (1928–2014) was an American child actress, dancer, and singer who began her film career in 1931, and continued successfully through 1949. When Educational Pictures director Charles Lamont scouted Meglan Dancing School for prospective talent, three-year-old student Temple hid behind the piano. Lamont spotted her and immediately decided she was the one he was looking for. Starting at $10 a day, she was eventually under contract for $50 per film. The production company generated its Baby Burlesks one-reeler film short satires of Hollywood films in 1931–1933, produced by Jack Hays and directed by Lamont. Temple made eight Baby Burlesks films, and 10 other short films, before being signed to star in feature-length motion pictures.

The role that launched her feature film career was a short song-and-dance sequence in the 1934 movie Stand Up and Cheer! for Fox Film, with James Dunn as her father. Her performance impressed studio executives so much that they immediately cast the duo in a follow-up film, Baby Take a Bow, with Temple again playing Dunn's daughter.[2] Following the release of that film, Temple's parents negotiated two 7-year Fox contracts, one for Shirley as the performer, and the other for her mother as her guardian. Her parents had stipulations inserted to protect their daughter's privacy, while Fox retained control of all her public appearances. The bulk of the financial recompense went into revocable trusts. Later that same year, the film Bright Eyes was written as a starring vehicle for Temple, teaming her once again with Dunn.[4] In this film, Temple sang the song most identified with her: "On the Good Ship Lollipop".[5]

In addition to Dunn, Temple danced in her films with some of the most famous and accomplished entertainers of her era: Buddy Ebsen, Jack Haley, Alice Faye, George Murphy, Jimmy Durante, Charlotte Greenwood, and Jack Oakie. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was her favorite partner.[6] "It was kind of a magic between us", she later reminisced, and said he taught her how to execute her dance moves by syncing with the rhythm of the music, as opposed to watching her steps.[7] In 1935's The Little Colonel, the first of their four films together, they made history as the first interracial couple to dance on screen.[8][9]

Temple's films, made for between $400,000 and $700,000 each, earned millions of dollars in gross receipts in the United States and Canada.[10] Her films ranked number-one at the box office in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1938.[11][12] The success of her films was also credited with saving her studio, 20th Century Fox, from bankruptcy during the Great Depression.[11]

At the 7th Academy Awards in 1935, Temple was honored with the first Academy Juvenile Award.[13] That same year, her hand prints and bare foot prints were immortalized in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. At previous hand and foot print ceremonies, other celebrities traditionally left hand and shoe prints in the cement. The bare feet distraction was her idea to divert attention away from a gap in her smile left by a baby tooth that had fallen out. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.[15] Following the end of her film career, Temple had a two-season run of Shirley Temple's Storybook anthology on the NBC television network.[16]

During the years 1974–1989, she served in the United States diplomatic corps under her married name of Shirley Temple Black.[17]

Features

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Title Year Role Notes Ref(s) The Red-Haired Alibi 1932 Gloria Shelton [18] Out All Night 1933 Child Credited as Shirley Jane Temple [19] To the Last Man Mary Stanley Uncredited [20] Carolina 1934 Joan Connelly Scenes cut [21] As the Earth Turns Child Uncredited [22] Stand Up and Cheer! Shirley Dugan Dance partner: James Dunn [23] Baby Take a Bow Shirley Ellison [24] Bright Eyes Shirley Blake [25] Change of Heart Shirley (girl on airplane) Uncredited [26] Little Miss Marker Marthy "Marky" Jane [27] Now I'll Tell Mary Doran Preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive [28] Now and Forever Penelope "Penny" Day [29] George White's Scandals Daughter of Scandal Girl [30] The Little Colonel 1935 Lloyd Sherman Dance partner: Bill Robinson [31] Our Little Girl Molly Middleton [32] Curly Top Elizabeth Blair [33] The Littlest Rebel Virginia "Virgie"' Cary Dance partner: Bill Robinson [34] Captain January 1936 Helen "Star" Mason Dance partner: Buddy Ebsen [35] Poor Little Rich Girl Barbara Barry Dance partners: Jack Haley and Alice Faye [36] Dimples Sylvia "Dimples" Dolores Appleby [37] Stowaway Barbara "Ching-Ching" Stewart [38] Wee Willie Winkie 1937 Priscilla "Winkie" Williams [39] Heidi Heidi Kramer [40] Ali Baba Goes to Town Herself Uncredited cameo [41] Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm 1938 Rebecca Winstead Dance partner: Bill Robinson [42] Little Miss Broadway Betsy Brown Shea Dance partners: George Murphy and Jimmy Durante [43] Just Around the Corner Penny Hale Dance partner: Bill Robinson [44] The Little Princess 1939 Sara Crewe [45] Susannah of the Mounties Susannah "Sue" Sheldon [46] The Blue Bird 1940 Mytyl [47] Young People Wendy Ballantine Dance partners: Charlotte Greenwood and Jack Oakie [48] Kathleen 1941 Kathleen Davis [49] Miss Annie Rooney 1942 Annie Rooney [50] Since You Went Away 1944 Bridget "Brig" Hilton [51] I'll Be Seeing You Barbara Marshall [52] Kiss and Tell 1945 Corliss Archer [53] Honeymoon 1947 Barbara Olmstead [54] The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer Susan Released in the UK as Bachelor Knight That Hagen Girl Mary Hagen [56] Fort Apache 1948 Philadelphia Thursday [57] Mr. Belvedere Goes to College 1949 Ellen Baker [58] Adventure in Baltimore Dinah Sheldon [59] The Story of Seabiscuit Margaret O'Hara Knowles [60] A Kiss for Corliss Corliss Archer [61] America at the Movies 1976 Herself [62]

Baby Burlesks

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Baby Burlesks credits of Shirley Temple Title Year Role Notes Ref(s) Runt Page 1931 Lulu Parsnips uncredited War Babies 1932 Charmaine [64] The Pie-Covered Wagon Shirley [65] Glad Rags to Riches Nell/La Belle Diaperina [66] Kid in Hollywood Morelegs Sweettrick [67] The Kid's Last Fight Shirley [68] Kid 'in' Africa Madame Cradlebait [69] Polly Tix in Washington 1933 Polly Tix [70]

Other short films

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Other short film credits of Shirley Temple Title Year Role Notes Ref(s) Dora's Dunking Doughnuts 1933 Shirley Educational Pictures, Inc. [71] Merrily Yours Mary Lou Rogers What's to Do? Pardon My Pups 1934 Managed Money New Deal Rhythm Mandalay The Hollywood Gad-About Herself Educational Films, Inc. [76] Our Girl Shirley 1942 Herself Re-issue combined Managed Money and Pardon My Pups American Creed 1946 Herself [78]

Bibliography

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Temple Black, Shirley (1988). Child star. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-005532-2.

Edwards, Anne (2017). Shirley Temple: American Princess. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4930-2692-0.

Pitts, Michael R. (2019). Astor Pictures: A Filmography and History of the Reissue King, 1933–1965. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-7649-4.

Windeler, Robert (1978). The Films of Shirley Temple. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0-8065-0615-9.

The American Creed (1946)