The five-year-old who saved a Hollywood studio from bankruptcy

By: Aine Quinn / BBC
Translation: Telegrafi.com

In December 1933, five-year-old Shirley Temple signed a contract with fox studios, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. The BBC's "In History" section looks back at how she revived the studio's fortunes - and became a superstar. "The lesson was 'time is money' and 'it's work, not play'. I learned that before I became a star," she said.

When Shirley Temple was interviewed by the BBC in 1989 about her childhood as a superstar, she was enjoying a remarkable second leg in her career as an American diplomat. Despite once being Hollywood's highest paid star, she had to work because most of her millions of dollars were gone.

"You also escaped 20th Century Fox"from bankruptcy, right?" asked presenter Terry Wogan, the woman who was now known by her married name, Shirley Temple-Black. "I think so," she replied.

In 1933, fox studios was close to bankruptcy. Founded by William Fox in 1915, the studio flourished during the silent film era. When the Great Depression hit, the studio was operating at a loss, had millions of dollars in debt, and stock prices had been turned upside down. Salvation came in the form of a little blonde girl with curly hair.

Two weeks before signing the contract with the studio, she was cast in the film Stand Up and Cheer!, along with James Dunn who played her father. Although their roles were relatively small, the two made such an impression that they were immediately cast in more films together. Shirley Temple became a household name.

Temple's first foray into showbiz came when her mother took her to dance lessons when she was just two and a half years old. She told the BBC: "I had so much energy - and I wouldn't nap in the afternoon - that she took me to a dance school in the neighborhood, less than two miles [3.2 kilometers] from our house. And I would practice there, you know - I would learn the rumba and the tango."

It was that school where she was discovered by director Charles Lamont and where she was selected for a series of short films called Baby Burlesques. She was paid a total of $10 for each day of shooting, but rehearsals were unpaid. Temple did not speak well of this production. She said:

"He wasn't a big producer. He was a very cheap producer. He was part of a complex in Hollywood called the 'Poverty Column.'"

Lamont, along with producer Jack Hays, worked for the company Educational Films Corporation. The then-three-year-old starred in eight films, but filming was not a pleasant place for Temple or the other child actors. She described the punishment for misbehavior: "On our set, there were two sound boxes. One of them had a block of ice inside, and when any of us misbehaved, they would send us one by one into the black box to calm down and reflect. In the dark, with the door closed." She added: "I had a lot of ear infections, a lot of eye problems from that experience. I went into that box a few times."

Also, parents were not allowed to stay on the set with their children. Instead, Temple's mother sewed her costumes, gave her acting lessons, and curled her hair every night.

The themes of the films, today, seem very inappropriate. Temple described them as "imitations of adult films". One of the first characters she played was called Morelegs Sweet Trick, a play on words referring to the movie star, Marlene Dietrich. In the film War Babies, three-year-old Shirley is shown wearing an off-the-shoulder top and a diaper held on by a large safety pin, dancing for other children playing soldiers, who fight over her and give her candy. In the movie Polly Tix in Washington, she is a "prostitute" sent to seduce a "senator." In the first scene, she is wearing a vest and getting her nails done. Later, she appears in the senator's office adorned with pearls and tells the little boy, who plays the senator, that she has been sent to "entertain" him. Temple noted in her autobiography, Child Star, that the films were "cynical exploitation of our childhood innocence" and that they were sometimes "racist or sexist."

The next step was a series of small roles under contract with producer, screenwriter and director Jack Hays. When he went bankrupt, her father bought the contract back, realizing how bad it had been from the beginning. Shortly thereafter, Temple was spotted, dancing, by a songwriter she worked for Fox-in. She was invited to audition for the film Stand Up and Cheer!, which was in the process of filming. She got a small role, which meant two weeks with pay.

The film's premise was that the Great Depression was the result of a lack of "optimism," so auditions were held to find artists who would make people happy. Temple and James Dunn were partners in a dance scene. She had no time to learn new choreography, so she taught Dunn a dance she had previously learned for another show. Shortly after filming, she was offered a one-year contract, with the option of a seven-year extension, for $150 per week. Her mother was also paid to accompany her on set. The contract was signed on December 21, 1933. In her autobiography, Temple called this "the first in a series of dark clouds that would hang over her for the next seven years."

The next film of the duo Temple and Dunn was Baby, Take a Bow, which premiered in April 1934. It was also loaned out to other studios for thousands of dollars, far more than it paid itself. Later that year, the movie came out Bright Eyes. Written specifically for the duo, the film included a song that would become her signature hit: On the Good Ship Lollipop.

But, fox studios had suffered since the stock market crash of 1929 and, in 1934, Fox-joined with 20th Century Pictures to be done 20th Century Fox. According to the magazine Vanity Fair, the leader of Fox-it, Winfield Sheehan, said: "They didn't buy the studio Fox"They bought Shirley Temple."

In her first year with the new company, she appeared in 10 films. The year was so significant that at the 1935 Academy Awards, she was awarded the first Special Award for Supporting Actress - the youngest person ever to win the award.

Temple proved to be a huge hit with Depression-era audiences, who wanted to see upbeat and cheerful films in theaters. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said of it: "During this Depression, when the morale of the people is at its lowest ever, it is a wonderful thing that for only 15 cents an American can go to the movies, see the smiling face of a child and forget his worries."

As her films became more profitable, her salary also increased, until she became the highest-paid star in Hollywood - and this was at the age of 10. Her work schedule may have been busy, but as an adult she remembered it with nostalgia.

After signing the contract with Fox-in, his mother was always on the set with him. One particular thing that set Temple apart from other child stars was the close relationship he had with his parents. She dedicated her autobiography to "beloved mother". Other child stars were not so lucky.

In 1939, California passed the California Child Actors Act, commonly known as the Coogan Act, named after Jackie Coogan. Coogan, born 13 years before Temple, became one of the first child stars when he appeared alongside Charlie Chaplin in the 1921 blockbuster, The Kid. He earned millions of dollars, but it was spent by his mother and stepfather whom he sued in 1938. The legal battle led to the passage of a California law that specified working conditions and ensured that 15 percent of an actor's salary child to be placed in an account called Account Kugën.

Temple's good fortune with her parents didn't last long. Since her father had worked in banking, he became her financial manager. However, as she told the BBC, "he had dropped out of school after the seventh grade" and was tricked into making bad investments. "Of the $3.2 million I had made from everything - selling dolls, books, clothes and so on - I had $44 left in a trust account," she said.

Many aspects of her films have not stood the test of time. Temple told the BBC that, although she and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson were the first interracial partners in a dance scene, any scenes where they touched each other were often cut during editing. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Hollywood was often a dangerous place for young actors. Long after her film career ended, Temple recalled the predatory behavior she experienced when she was just 12 years old.

She retired from films at the age of 22; her last film was A Kiss for Corliss in 1949. But that wasn't the end of her interesting career - she continued to work in international relations and served in the US government as ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

In the interview, Temple told Wogan that working as ambassador to Ghana "was the best of my life".

Wogan asked him: “Are you tired of that song Good Ship Lollipop"?

"No," Temple replied. "She has taken me very far"! /Telegraph/