Temple Tuesday: Shirley’s Lost Block

Besides the mystery drumhead, Shirley Temple also signed a cement block when she performed “The Blue Bird” on Christmas Eve 1939 as part of The Screen Guild Theater with Nelson Eddy. What happened to Shirley’s bird jewelry is a mystery, as it didn’t show up at any of the family estate auctions.

What isn’t a mystery is where Shirley’s performance took place, which was the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Boulevard:

The Theatre was known for its Wall of Fame, which included signed cement blocks from the era’s biggest celebrities, such as Joan Crawford and Clark Gable.

This 1940 Ansel Adams photo shows the position of Shirley’s block, which was located on the bottom row between Earl Carroll and Ronald Colman.

The Wall of Fame even made the cover of LIFE magazine, February 14, 1944, which technically means Shirley was on the cover four times (also in 1938, 1942, and 1958). As the years went by, her block was obscured by the fence and the hedges in front.

The theatre changed hands in 1968 and the blocks were removed and stored in the basement. Not all of them came off very easily and some were broken during the removal process. I located the owner of approximately 80 or so of the blocks; unfortunately, Shirley’s is not among that grouping.

Apparently Milt Larsen, founder of the Magic Castle, once had a large grouping of the blocks. Here’s the response I received from a representative of Milt’s when I attempted to see if he still had Shirley’s:

Milt does not have any of the cement blocks; the broken ones were taken by the late Gene Autry. Milt did piece them together and did tracings, which were mounted on styrofoam blocks, that looked like cement, which were mounted at the old Variety Arts Building in downtown LA. They were removed when he gave up that location. They are in our storage unit.

The rep had no idea if Shirley’s had ever been in Milt’s collection, nor did he seem to have an easily accessible inventory list. I hate dead ends.

On a related Shirley note, here’s a vintage ticket from the Earl Carroll Theatre which just happened to be on Shirley’s 14th birthday, April 23, 1942:

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

The Earl Carroll Theatre

This 1950’s vintage shot shows the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Boulevard. Built in 1938, it was designed in the Moderne style by architect Gordon Kaufmann and known for the 20-foot-high neon head caricature of entertainer Beryl Wallace, one of Earl Carroll's "most beautiful girls in the world." The sign survived until 1968 when it was removed. Here’s a previously published shot from 1954 that shows a wider view of Sunset Boulevard where the Theatre was located. The Palladium on the left-hand side is still in business.



The Earl Carroll Theatre opened with a lavish revue called “Broadway to Hollywood” featuring sixty showgirls. Hollywood’s biggest stars turned up for the occasion, including Marlene Dietrich, Edgar Bergen, Claudette Colbert, Errol Flynn, and Betty Grable.

The façade also showcased a “Wall of Fame,” on which were mounted more than a hundred individual blocks autographed by Hollywood celebrities from the 1930s and 1940s. Note “Blessings Joan Crawford” towards the center. I wonder what happened to these concrete gems?



Here’s a detailed view of the vintage auto:



The theater was sold after the deaths of Earl Carroll and Beryl Wallace on June 17, 1948 in a United Airlines flight crash. From 1997-2017, the building was home to the Nickelodeon cable channel.



In 2016, the Los Angeles City Council designated the building an Historic-Cultural Monument and also approved a proposal to construct a new mixed-use building on the western portion of the site of the theater building. The project will retain the historic building and incorporate new construction on the adjacent surface parking lot. The new development will be seven stories tall. Just what LA needs...more development. Yikes.

See more photos at my main website.