- At age six she became the first recipient of the juvenile Academy Award. To this day she is the youngest person ever to receive an Academy Award. After receiving her award from actor/writer Irvin S. Cobb, she politely thanked him, then turned to her mother and asked, "Mommy, can I go home now?" Many years later, in an appearance on the 1984 Oscar show, Temple explained what had happened. At the 1935 Oscar banquet, her special award was one of the last to be presented that evening. She had been forced to sit through the entire awards ceremony, watching all the other awards being handed out. By the time she got her award, at about 10:00 p.m., she was exhausted and ready to go home to bed.
- Bill Robinson (aka "Bojangles Robinson") was her idol when she was a child, and she got to work with him on four pictures.
- When she was seven years old her life was insured with Lloyd's of London, and the contract stipulated that no benefits would be paid if the child film star met with death or injury while intoxicated.
- In 1989 was appointed United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia.
- In a 1988 interview with Larry King, she stated that out of the $3 million she generated for 20th Century-Fox she only saw $45,000 in her trust fund.
- Her mother, Gertrude Temple, did her hair in pin curls for each movie. Every hairstyle had exactly 56 curls.
- Has three children: Susan Agar (aka Linda Susan Agar), whom Charles Black later adopted, (b. January 30, 1948), Charles Black Jr. (aka Charles Alden Black Jr. "Charlie") (born in Bethesda, Maryland on April 24, 1952) and Lori Black (aka Lori Alden Black) (b. April 9, 1954). Oddly enough, both daughters were not only born in the same hospital in Santa Monica, CA, but both were delivered by the same doctor who had delivered Shirley herself.
- She presented Walt Disney with his special Academy Award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). It was a standard-sized Oscar with seven little Oscars.
- Shirley Jones and Shirley MacLaine were both named after her.
- When Gary Cooper first met her on the set of their movie Now and Forever (1934), he asked for her autograph.
- While she was filming Susannah of the Mounties (1939) the Blackfoot tribe gave her the Indian name Bright Shining Star.
- At age six she was the youngest presenter at the Oscars ever. She presented the "Best Actress" award in 1935. The winner was Claudette Colbert.
- When she was to play the role of Beauty in a production of "Beauty and the Beast," she was amused when her then very young daughter remarked, "Gee, Mom, you'll make a swell Beast!".
- A non-alcoholic cocktail, "The Shirley Temple", was created in her honor. It consists of ginger ale (or 7-Up), grenadine and orange juice, topped with a maraschino cherry and a slice of lemon.
- Appears on the cover of The Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
- In the summer of 1976 she was named Chief of Protocol for the US State Department.
- On September 9, 1936, she received a new contract from 20th Century-Fox, retroactive, paying her over $50,000 per film.
- She was elected to the board of directors of Walt Disney Productions in May 1974.
- She calls it corny but admitted that she fell in love with Charles Black at first sight. They met while she was in Honolulu. He was working for a shipping company there at the time.
- Charles Black, the San Francisco businessman she married after divorcing John Agar, admitted to her, while they were courting, that he had never seen any of her movies.
- Temple was Buddy Ebsen's best friend and he used to be her dancing partner.
- She was the last surviving film star mentioned in the song "Let's Go to the Movies" featured in the film version of Annie (1982).
- In the fall of 1974 she was appointed American Ambassador to Ghana. Her excellent record during her two years in that position prompted Henry Kissinger to refer to her as "able and tough".
- She became very close to Will Rogers after signing with Fox. When Rogers died in a 1935 airplane crash, she was inconsolable for days afterward. Studio chief Joseph M. Schenck, who was in England at the time, bought her a pony and had it shipped to the US on the Queen Mary. When she learned that the pony was to be flown from New York to Los Angeles, she insisted that it be shipped by rail to avoid another crash.
- Second husband Charles Black was a businessman and maritime issues consultant. He served on a Commerce Department advisory committee and several National Research Council panels. He also co-founded a Massachusetts-based company that developed unmanned deep-ocean search and survey imaging systems. He died of bone marrow disease at age 86 in 2005. It had been diagnosed three years earlier.
- In 1938, at the peak of her fame, a ten-year-old Shirley Temple was publicly accused of being an unwitting agent of the Communist Party. Her accuser was Congressman Martin Dies of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Dies' baseless accusation against Temple led to a national outcry which nearly ended Dies' political career. At the peak of this uproar, the Roosevelt Administration intervened and warned Dies not to slander Temple further.
- Her daughter "Lorax" (Lori Black) was the bass player for the rock band The Melvins .
- In 1974 she was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana.
- She was voted the 38th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
- According to her autobiography, when Shirley sought her mother's permission to marry first husband John Agar because she believed herself to be underage, Temple was shocked to discover that her parents and 20th Century-Fox had lied about her true age for years - she was actually two years older than the public believed her to be. This discovery caused a rift in the Temple family that was never resolved.
- She was considered to play Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), and there are several stories about why she didn't. One is that 20th Century-Fox refused to lend her to MGM. Another was that MGM considered her singing limitations "insurmountable". In either case, Judy Garland got the part.
- She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine St. on February 8, 1960.
- Was bitten on the finger by a baby alligator that belonged to exotic animal trainer Ralph Helfer.
- A chain smoker throughout her adult life, although she generally avoided being seen smoking in public.
- In 1972 she was sworn in as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the President's Council on Environment. It was while serving in that position that she underwent a radical mastectomy.
- From 1964-66 she chaired the program division of the San Francisco Film Festival. She resigned that position when she objected to the "pornographic" content of Mai Zetterling's Night Games (1966).
- Even in her old age she still griped about not getting the role of Dorothy Gale in the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939).
- On Easter Sunday 1936, Joel McCrea sent Shirley a live bunny as a gift.
- Was named #18 Actress, The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends.
- She was named a delegate to the United Nations, in 1969, by President Richard Nixon.
- In 1969 she was appointed United States Delegate to the United Nations.
- By 1950 she earned $3.21 million (adjusted for inflation is the equivalent of $35,570,263 million in 2021) but only received $44,000 in her trust and the deed to her $45,000 dollhouse after she stopped acting.
- On August 4, 2019, she was honored with a day of her film work during the Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars.
- She was considered for the role of Veda Pierce in the Joan Crawford drama Mildred Pierce (1945), which went to Ann Blyth.
- When she was a teenager her bodyguard was Louis Dean Palmer, whom she called "Palmtree".
- Only appeared in one film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Since You Went Away (1944).
- Pictured on a 'forever' USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 18 April 2016.
- She was allegedly offered roles in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Babes on Broadway (1941), Barnacle Bill (1941), Panama Hattie (1942), Best Foot Forward (1943), National Velvet (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Junior Miss (1945), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Razor's Edge (1946), Till the End of Time (1946), Life with Father (1947), Portrait of Jennie (1948), The Blue Lagoon (1949), Little Women (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Roman Holiday (1953).
- While at MGM in 1941, Shirley's mother turned down Babes on Broadway (1941), Panama Hattie (1942), National Velvet (1944), an Andy Hardy entry and Barnacle Bill (1941) for Shirley as not showcasing the child star properly. MGM finally put her into Kathleen (1941) and settled her contract.
- She became a Dame of Malta, although not from the officially recognized Roman Catholic order but rather from a non-Roman Catholic-unaffiliated entity.
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