Temple Tuesday: The Two-Timing Dress!

Sometimes when trying to solve a mystery, you already have the answer at your fingertips but are too dense to notice. This is such a case. In 1934, Shirley Temple starred in the Fox picture, “Baby Take A Bow.” For many of the publicity stills, she posed in this cute polka-dot dress. Here she is with costars James Dunn and Claire Trevor, appropriately taking a bow:

There was even a doll produced at the time by Ideal wearing that very same dress:

The odd part about this is that the dress is never seen in the final film. To my knowledge, there are no stills of a deleted scene showing where Shirley might have worn this dress during the film. And yet, it figured prominently in the film’s publicity. Recently, I noticed the below photo on ebay:

The caption on the back reads:

LUNCH FOR THREE - Clara Lou Sheridan, Shirley Temple and Lee Tracy together for lunch in the studio cafe.

What appeared odd was that it was marked as a Paramount still, even though Shirley wore this dress in a Fox movie. Naturally, I contacted Melissa (aka “The Colonel”) who was just as baffled as I was. Moments later, she had purchased the photo as a gift and it was on its way to me. This mystery had to be solved!

The dishes provided no clues, but it was interesting to see The Hollywood Reporter on the table:

I noticed Shirley’s stand-in, Marilyn Granas in the background on the left.

Melissa sleuthed and found out that Clara Lou Sheridan was the one and only Ann Sheridan, voted as “The Oomph Girl” in 1939 by a committee of 25 men who thought the actress had the most "oomph" of any girl in America. I took over from there and noticed that “You Belong to Me” was ta Paramount production with both Lee Tracy and Sheridan (in an unbilled part) and released on September 14, 1934, putting this photo at that time.

Shirley made two films for Paramount: “Little Miss Marker,” released June 1, 1934 and “Now and Forever,” released August 31, 1934. “Baby Take A Bow” at Fox was released June 30, 1934. To say Shirley was a busy girl is an understatement. Then I started looking at the numbering system on publicity stills of the time. “Baby Take A Bow” stills were numbered 158, “Marker” 1491, and “Now and Forever” 1732. Houston, we have a match! Apparently this “mystery” still was intended to promote “Now and Forever.” But why was Shirley wearing a dress from a Fox movie? Most likely this busy little bee was rushing between studios, perhaps doing re-takes or looping “Now and Forever.” Another deduction is that Shirley wasn’t really joining Sheridan and Tracy for lunch, but instead dining with Marilyn. Already in my collection was this photo proving that theory:

What I once “assumed” was the Fox Commissary was really over at Paramount. Again, the numbering system matches “Now and Forever.” Looking further at my collection, I noticed this still. Poor Shirley didn’t get to enjoy lunch very much that day; she was so tired her eyes couldn’t stay open! I have no idea who these other two folks are that surround her.

Final shot for today shows famed pinup artist Alberto Vargas sketching Shirley. What did she pose in? The “Baby Take a Bow” dress of course!

That dress sure got a lot of use, so it’s not surprising that it was MIA during the 2015 “Love, Shirley Temple” auction of Shirley’s movie costumes. The poor thing probably disintegrated.

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.