Temple Tuesday: Edgar & Shirley

As probably the most famous person of the 1930s, actress Shirley Temple made a number of interesting acquaintances and friends. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations was one. The first time she met him was when he visited her at her 20th Century-Fox studio bungalow/cottage in September 1937. From Shirley’s autobiography Child Star:

Nine men had appeared at our cottage gate, each wearing a snap-brim hat and with eyes slitted and stern. J. Edgar Hoover entered alone, a suddenly smiling man with dark wavy hair, while the others remained outside. “I know about you,” I said approvingly, “from ‘Gangbusters’ on radio.” Hoover looked pleased. “And I’ve heard about your police department.” “Do you have a pistol?” I asked. “No, but I brought you this.” He opened a finger-sized leather bag. “A Minox camera, just like G-men use to take secret pictures.” “You should have brought me a tommy gun,” I replied. “Instead I’ve come to get your fingerprints,” he said, laying out a card and ink pad on the tabletop. “Get up on my lap.” During the early 1930s big-time white-collar crime was minor, drug traffic tiny, and both blackmail and brothels regarded as local problems. Brutal kidnappings, however, had multiplied into an epidemic and bank robberies flourished like weeds. Into this freewheeling maze of crime and corruption stepped Hoover, fresh from cleaning out the politicized and demoralized old Investigative Bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice. Now he had become the single-minded personification of the new Federal Bureau of Investigation, his job and his vanity.…As he inked and rolled my thumb in its allotted square, I asked, “Are you married?” “No, I live with my mother,” he replied. “Then I’ll kiss you,” which I did—the start of a long, close friendship.

Shirley saw Hoover again during her Cross Country vacation in the summer of 1938. Below are shots of her and Hoover as he took her around the Federal Bureau of Investigation Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on June 24.



Shirley peers intently at the display case that Hoover is showing her. On the wall, it is interesting to see photos of potential kidnapping victims, the Sesvel Twins and the Dionne Quintuplets.





The Temple family called on Hoover over the years for help, as in this story that Shirley told in Child Star about the attack on Pearl Harbor:

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor descended with unanticipated suddenness. Brother George was stationed with the Marines at Ewa Plantation, a target of Japanese air onslaught, and for days afterwards we hard nothing from or about him. In desperation, Father finally turned directly to FBI Director Hoover, who passed word to George to call home. We then learned his entire company had been invited to a Japanese wedding the evening before the surprise attack. Exuberant on sake and reeling homeward, George had finally fallen asleep on the grassy parade ground before his barracks and under a canopy of tropical stars. With dawn came Japanese dive bombers screaming down to stafe the buildings, and setting his mess hall afire. George had watched the horrifying spectacle from mid-field, propped up on his elbow.

On January 20, 1949, Hoover gifted Shirley a very “special” item. The occasion of this gift was the inaugural parade for President Harry S. Truman. As Shirley later recalled:

He opened my purse and dropped in a tear-gas gun disguised as a black fountain pen. Not a toy and not available to the general public, he warned, and cautioned me on its use, his face stern and inro-jawed. Under no circumstances reveal where I had obtained it, and never point it unless ready to fire. It was the first time I had walked around with a loaded gun of any sort, and I relished the feeling.

Below is a shot of Shirley at Truman’s Inaugural Ball; the dress she wore that night was auctioned off by Theriault’s in 2015 and sold for $950.



From the catalog description:

Of very heavy weight silver satin with interwoven grey and white brocade design, the floor-length gown was designed to be worn strapless or with the detachable straps. The fitted bodice has unusual seaming to accentuate the woven flowers, and the flared skirt falls in deep folds to the floor. Included with gown are two vintage photographs, one being a color transparency. The dress was clearly a favorite of Shirley Temple for various social and publicity occasions. Most notably, in January 1949, Shirley wore the gown to the inaugural ball of Harry S. Truman. On September 23, 1949 a photograph of Shirley in this gown was featured on the cover of Cine Review magazine, and in a May 1949 issue of Movie Life she is shown gaily dancing a Mexican folk dance at a party for Errol Flynn.

When Shirley was dating Charles Black, the man who would become her second husband, she was still leery from her first marriage. She called on Hoover to do a background check to make sure everything on Charles was above board. All checked out and the two wed on December 26, 1950, remaining together until his death in 2005.

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Shirley’s Narrow Escape!

Eighty years ago, Shirley Temple narrowly escaped an attempt on her life when she appeared on radio for the very first time. December 24, 1939, Nelson Eddy was the host and narrator for the Screen Guild presentation of “The Blue Bird.” As Shirley recalled the incident in her autobiography “Child Star”:

“In a rare exception to Mother’s policy, I was permitted to appear on a Christmas Eve benefit radio broadcast of the Screen Guild Theatre, featuring me in a half-hour dramatic except from the film and a ‘Silent Night’ due with Nelson Eddy. An untimely sore throat worried me a little, but I knew Eddy could carry me if my voice weakened. My upstairs theatre dressing room faced directly onto a parking lot. Standing at the window I looked out while Mother fussed around with the back of my hair, and I saw a scruffily dressed woman carrying a large handbag come along below, peering up into each window as if searching. When she saw me, her face lit up with recognition. Scowling, she raised her fist and shouted something unintelligible. “What is she doing?” I asked Mother, who simply dropped the venetian blind, and urged me to concentrate on my lines. As a general precaution, however, she reported the odd event to a theatre official. Jumpy about possible public disturbance, he in turn passed the word to local police, who upgraded the incident to a possible kidnapping and involved the local FBI.”



Midway through Shirley’s performance of “Someday You'll Find Your Bluebird,” she looked into the audience and saw the same woman, seated in the front row.

“Slowly the woman rose, like one transfixed, raising her gun until it pointed directly at me. [Two security men] had spotted the woman, and both came crowding and stumbling past the extended legs of seated patrons...I just shrank down behind my microphone, my voice locked on another ‘oo-oo-oo.’ Why the woman did not pull the trigger before being roughly seized by the two men is hers to answer and mine to bless. Disarmed and lifted bodily, she made no sound audible over the orchestra music, nor did the orchestra leader, his back to the disturbance, miss a beat...Next day an FBI agent called. The woman’s gun had been loaded and she had indeed intended to kill me, for stealing her daughter’s soul. Several hours before my birth, she had borne a girl, and at the very hour of my birth, her baby had died. My soul was in fact her daughter’s, she claimed. To avenge the theft, she had set out to kill my body. Although the tale seemed understandable to me, Mother would have known its crucial fallacy. My birthday the woman was using was 1929, the one fabricated long before by Winfield Sheehan [of Fox studio]. In truth it was by one year, so somebody else had stolen the soul.”



At the end of the show, Nelson and Shirley sang a duet of “Silent Night.” Smiling for the cameras, they hugged each other, masking the very serious incident that had occurred just moments before. Shirley’s parting words to the radio audience held more meaning than any of the listeners that night could have been aware of: “This has been a very exciting Christmas Eve for me!”



As the saying goes, the show must go on!

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Return of the Ruby Slippers

“The Wizard of Oz” is still making headlines, almost 80 years after its 1939 release. The news was abuzz yesterday with the announcement that an original pair of Ruby Slippers stolen back in 2005 had been returned, thanks to the work of the FBI. I wonder if the designer of the shoes, Adrian, could ever have imagined that his shoes would cross paths with that famed organization of crime?

Most had given up on them ever being found, as the common story was that they'd been stolen by pranksters who got scared and destroyed them/dumped them in a lake/mining pit to avoid leaving any evidence that might land them in jail.



The story has all the makings of a riveting crime caper: stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, back in August of 2005, there was no security camera video, the alarm had not been turned on, and the thief left no fingerprints and few clues, other than a smashed display case and a lone red sequin. The blame game was played and everyone (including owner Michael Shaw and the museum) was a suspect.



The FBI has released few details so far, simply stating that all is still under investigation. Whether or not the full story will ever be released to the public remains to be seen. For me, the big question is where will they end up? Michael Shaw was paid $800,000 by the insurance company for his loss in 2007, so technically the insurance company owns the shoes.



Would Shaw want them back if that were possible? Back in 2015, he stated:

“There’s more to my life than a pair of pumps. I have no desire to have them again. After years of bringing joy and happiness to so many thousands and thousands of people by being able to see them, now to me they’re a nightmare. I’m not going to talk about it anymore. I’m sick of it. They’re gone. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

It appears that Shaw has now changed his tune and wants them back, but their value is well over the $800,000 that the insurance company paid him back in 2007. Recent estimates say they could fetch more than $2 million.

Personally, I hope they land at the Smithsonian or some other institution that has the backing to restore them and put them on display for the public.

For a current article with the few details available about the recovery, visit CBS News.

For one of the best articles on the web pre-recovery, visit the Newsweek website.

See more photos at my main website.