Temple Tuesday: Will Rogers, A Plaque, and City Hall

One new photo in the collection has resulted in yet another Shirley Temple rabbit hole. Many of you have seen these previously posted shots of two of the biggest stars back in 1935, Will Rogers and Shirley Temple.





Rogers died tragically in a plane crash on August 15, 1935.  His home studio, Fox, dedicated a plaque and a $250,000 soundstage to him on November 14, 1935. Louis B. Mayer, Rupert Hughes, Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Shirley, Governor Frank F. Merriam, and Irvin Cobb assembled for the unveiling:



More than 300 people participated in the dedication and luncheon. Rogers’ son, Will Rogers, Jr., attended the event but did not make a presentation.



Favorite songs of the late actor were sung by Gladys Swarthout and John Boles, including “Old Faithful.” Shirley was quoted as saying, “I loved him, too.” She was the first star to shoot on the newly dedicated stage which had been built back in 1933. The building, Stage 8, still stands today.



Fred Stone (who played the Scarecrow on stage in “The Wizard of Oz” and was a close friend of Rogers), Shirley, Irvin Cobb, and Shirley’s mother, Gertrude Temple:



On December 1, 1935, Bill Robinson and Shirley donned their costumes from “The Littlest Rebel” and performed their famous stair dance routine at a Will Rogers memorial “Show of Shows” held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which also helped raise funds for the Will Rogers Memorial Fund. The show raised $15,000 and attracted more than 6000 spectators, with hundreds more waiting outside, hoping to hear the show over the loud-speakers.



Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink opened the show with a rousing rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” The opera singer is buried here in San Diego at Greenwood Memorial Park. Her portrait hangs in the mausoleum. Yes, Melissa - she has a Shirley connection!



Also performing that night were Sophie Tucker, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland.

Below is an image of Shirley with the Will Rogers Plaque, almost thirty years later on January 6, 1965, when she returned to her home studio to film the pilot for a proposed TV series, “Go Fight City Hall”:



Frances Klamt, Shirley’s childhood teacher, was there for Shirley’s return:



The Los Angeles Times, Friday, January 8, 1965

A Curly Comeback: Shirley Temple Taps at TV Door

Shirley Temple came home Wednesday. Home to 20th Century-Fox, the studio where she once reigned as the moppet queen of cinema, the incomparable Curly Top. They gave her a grand welcome. There was a banner across the studio gate proclaiming Welcome Home, Shirley! And a champagne luncheon with studio brass and many an old friend she knew 30 years ago and more—including Frances Klant[sp], her personal schoolteacher in those early days and still resident teacher on the lot. The welcome was certainly her due, for it has been said, and truly, that without Shirley Temple there would not be a 20th Century-Fox — Curly Top built the studio. She’s now before the cameras on those same sound stages where she sang “The Good Ship Lollypop[sp]” and danced with Bill Robinson in films that packed theaters in every nook and cranny of the world. Only things have changed—her work now will be for television. She’s making the pilot film for a new series for the ABC network next season in which she will play a young social worker. Costarring with her are Jack Kruschen and Bill Hayes. If all goes well, the series will swing into full production in May and Shirley said she has been promised she can complete her year’s work by September. She will either commute from her home in Atherton and her quiet life as Mrs. Charles Black, housewife and mother, or take a house here for the summer. “Susan is nearly 17 and graduates from high school in June and I know I have to be home for that and to see her off to college in September,” said Shirley. “But the young ones (Charles Jr., 12, and Lori, 10) love the ocean and maybe we can find a place on the sea for the summer.” At the luncheon, Shirley was flanked by Bill Self, head of Fox’s burgeoning TV division, and ABC president Tom Moore. Nostalgia flowed with the champagne. Self brought out Shirley’s original contract when the studio signed her on Dec. 9, 1933, at the age of 5, for $150 a week. Shirley recalled that by the time she left the studio (at 12) she’d left all her baby teeth behind and had celebrated each birthday in the studio commisssary where the luncheon was held. But things had changed. As she stepped out of the commissary, she was in the square of Peyton Place amid phony snowdrifts glistening in the sun of another era of snow business.



Shirley was also quoted as saying, “I feel right at home here. This is where I lost most of my baby teeth, and this is where I went to school. Almost nothing has changed.” A few test frames shot for the pilot:



In the pilot, Shirley wore a truly unflattering blonde wig. Below she poses with Jack Kruschen.



Kruschen was to play the lead of a public assistance department and Shirley was his supervisor. Vincent Sherman produced and directed the show which was written by Nate Monaster (“The Donna Reed Show” and “The Milton Berle Show”). From Rita Dubas, Shirley expert supreme:  “I’m not sure if the pilot ever aired. I remember that Shirley’s children didn’t want a bleached-blonde mom, so the producers found a wig for her to wear instead.”

Rita also sent me this blurb from TV Guide, February 6, 1965:

The title of Shirley Temple’s comedy pilot may change from “Go Fight City Hall” to “The Shirley Temple Show.” She starred as a social worker with Jack Kruschen as her supervisor and Cloris Leachman as a co-worker. [The pilot was eventually produced under the title “The Shirley Temple Show” but failed to sell.]

Rita questioned the accuracy of “The Shirley Temple Show” being the final title of the pilot, as that would have risked confusing people with her storybook anthology series from 1960 of the same name.



Was it the writing? Was it the wig? Whatever it was, the pilot failed to sell the series and has been buried ever since. And so ends another rabbit hole excursion.

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Blue Bird Blowout!

Faithful readers of this blog know that I am somewhat obsessed with the 1940 Shirley Temple film, “The Blue Bird.” While many consider it a poor stepchild to “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), I believe it stands on its own as an artistic triumph that gave Shirley an opportunity to play against type as a brat. In the above publicity still, Shirley is shown with Al Shean, who played her grandfather in the film. Shean was also the uncle to the famous Marx Brothers.

To avoid competition with “Gone with the Wind” which was released on December 15, 1939, 20th Century-Fox studio chief Darryl Zanuck decided to delay the premiere of “The Blue Bird” for another month.



The above photo shows Gene Markey (producer for the movie), Virginia Zanuck (Darryl’s wife), Joseph M. Schenck (Fox chairman of the board), Darryl Zanuck, and Hedy Lamarr (MGM actress and wife of Markey) as they arrived at Grand Central Terminal in New York City, December 19, 1940 for the film’s New York.

From The Motion Picture Herald, December 30, 1939:

The premiere of “The Blue Bird,” starring Shirley Temple, has been advanced to January 19th from January 17th to permit a Friday night opening. “Swanee River” opens December 29th at the Roxy theatre. Darryl F. Zanuck, vice-president in charge of production, will attend the premiere of “The Blue Bird” at the Hollywood theatre and remain in New York for the opening of “The Grapes of Wrath” at the Rivoli January 24th. Al Jolson and Don Ameche will appear in a broadcast of “Swanee River” on December 29th. Charles E. McCarthy, director of advertising and publicity for Twentieth Century-Fox, has put John Goring in charge of the roadshow of “The Blue Bird.”

Below is a page from the movie’s pressbook, featuring a variety of posters that theatres could choose from for promotion:



Motion Picture Daily gave their account of the premiere:

‘Blue Bird’ Lures Industry’s Top Executives to Premiere

Undaunted by the severity of the weather last night, 1,500 persons jammed the Hollywood Theatre to capacity to see the world premiere of “The Blue Bird,” 20th Century-Fox color feature. When the 80-minute show ended, the audience, with ovations and exclamatory words of approval, acclaimed the cinematic version of Maurice Maeterlinck’s famous fantasy. Included in the audience were practically all of the leading officials of 20th-Fox, besides executives from other motion picture companies. Notable among those present were the following: Darryl Zanuck, 20th-Fox studio chief; S.R. Kent, president; Joseph M. Schenck, chairman of the board; Will Hays, Jesse Lasky, Ernst Lubitsch, Barney Balaban, Herman Wobber, Spyros Skouras, Charles Skouras, Edwin L. Weisl, Gene Markey, associate producer of “The Blue Bird,” and scores of other industry officials. Other celebrities noticed among the “First Nighters,” most of whom were accompanied by their wives and formally dressed, were William Paley, CBS president; Postmaster General James A. Farley, Conde Nast, Irving Berlin, Jack Cohn, Andre Kostelanetz, Sidney Lanfield and many others. Crowds congregated early in front of the Hollywood where arc lights illuminated the front. Autograph seekers and others eager to see celebrities composed a large portion of the throng. When glamorous Hedy Lamarr arrived, scores struggled to catch a glimpse of her and husband, Markey.



From The New Dynamo, the in-house publication of 20th Century-Fox:

‘THE BLUE BIRD’ FLIES IN TRIUMPH OVER BROADWAY CELEBRITIES BRAVE SUB-ZERO WEATHER TO HAIL ‘BLUE BIRD’

Mr. Zanuck came 3,000 miles to get, first-hand, the reaction of this premiere audience. For more than a year he planned “The Blue Bird.” For months he supervised its production and cutting. And as Philadelphia’s Showman Al Boyd put it: “If its exploitation and presentation is given only one-half the thought this completed picture indicates went into its planning and production, ‘The Blue Bird’ will do the SRO business it certainly deserves to and can do.” And Mr. Boyd is not one of those gentlemen given to making hasty conclusions. He has been too long in the business to speak merely for the sake of being heard.

Schenck is missing from this newspaper photo showing Zanuck and entourage at the premiere:



Much of the beautiful and moody expressionistic art for the film was created by Hy Rubin, an American illustrator (1905–1960). His work was published in the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping magazines. His last studio was located behind the T in the Times Square building in New York City. 



For the artistic, black and white cartoon panels were available to moviegoers for coloring:



Below is a still from a deleted scene that occurred at the beginning of the movie when Shirley’s character’s father is about to go to war. Russell Hicks played the father and Spring Byington the mother.



Below are Tylo the dog and Tylette the cat:



…and Eddie Collins and Gale Sondergaard who played their human counterparts in the movie.



Whenever Shirley made a film, the studio was typically littered with visitors who wanted to meet the famous young actress. “The Blue Bird” was no exception. Note the costume/wardrobe board at the bottom left of the photo.



In between takes, Shirley did her schoolwork with studio teacher Frances Klamt.



In case you want a glance at the book Shirley is working from:



I hope all of you have a very fun New Year’s Eve - see you in 2025!

See more “The Blue Bird” photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Rita to the Rescue!

The above photo shows Shirley Temple receiving her Rose Parade Grand Marshal ribbon from Tournament of Roses Chairman Lathrop K. Leishman, November 21, 1938. Shirley was to preside over the annual parade on the morning of January 2, 1939.



Seeing the flagstone flooring, in these images, I thought perhaps they were taken on the porch of her Brentwood home, seen below.



The style of door just didn’t line up with any of my photos, so I did what anyone would do. I reached out to the #1 Shirley Temple expert, author and designer Rita Dubas.



She quickly responded and let me know that these were taken at Shirley’s 20th Century-Fox Bungalow. Not long after she filled me in, I acquired the photo below, which expands the view to include the fence.



Yes! A match! Now it all makes sense. Below we see Shirley getting ready to film “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1938), leaving her Bungalow hand-in-hand with studio tutor Frances Klamt.



Below, at her bungalow again, this time between takes for “Just Around the Corner” (1938).



An overall view of the bungalow then…



and sadly how it looked when I saw it in person a few years ago.



Thanks as always, Rita! Another Shirley mystery solved.

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Trailers and Tutors

The September 1938 issue of Better Homes & Gardens ran a feature story on Shirley titled, “Mrs. Shultz visits Shirley Temple.”



Gladys Denny Shultz was part of the magazine’s Child Care & Training Department, and was sent to Hollywood to interview Shirley on the set of “Just Around the Corner” (1938) which was still being referred to as “Lucky Penny” at the time this article was written.

How do you bring up a child to have a million-dollar personality? That’s what I went to Hollywood to discover, if I could, and I came away with a brand new appreciation of a happy, healthy little girl and her mother—of Shirley Temple and Mrs. Temple.…I had an excellent chance to watch Shirley—at the studio, doing scenes for “Lucky Penny,” rehearsing and discussing the next “take,” studying her lessons in snatches in the little dream trailer which is her schoolroom during pictures, with her mother, her teacher, her director, other children in the cast, and with several dozen more people all engaged in making the important Temple pictures. I saw her in action thru a long grueling afternoon as she made and remade a difficult sequence that had the adults on pins and needles long before it was over.…Shirley off the screen is perhaps even more remarkable than the Shirley in pictures. To me, she’s most attractive in real life. The camera makes her seem plumper than she is—her 68 pounds is just a good, sturdy, 9-year-old weight for her 50-inch height. Neither can a camera really show her healthy, glowing complexion. Shirley never wears make-up. To prepare her for a scene, Mrs. Temple merely sees to it that her curls are in order.…In the scene they were shooting…Shirley was supposed to snip off the long red ringlets of Bennie Bartlett with electric clippers, in the dog lounge in the basement of a luxurious apartment house. It was Shirley’s first experience at barbering, and she wasn’t quite sure about the clippers. She attached the job gingerly, afraid alike of cutting her fingers and shearing Bennie of his real curls. For those Shirley clips in the picture are false ones, artfully interpolated in the glowing mass of Bennie’s own crowning glory. The children rehearsed the scene and then were ready with lines and action. But things went all wrong. Every time Shirley took hold of an artificial curl, it would come off in her hand before she could touch the clippers to it, and it was necessary to start over again. As the afternoon wore on, Shirley got more and more intrigued with those clippers. Between attempts, her eyes darted about the set, seeking whom she might pretend to clip, and discussing the possibilities with delight. Then, as will happen, and as would have happened much sooner with another child, the fun began to get a little hysterical. At once Mrs. Temple leaned forward on her stool and said, not sharply, but as tho she meant it, “That’s enough now, Shirley. Let’s attend to business.” Instantly Shirley snapped into character again. Before they stopped, the scene was in the bag, Shirley operating the clippers in the final take with impish abandon.…There’s a very beautiful bond of love and understanding between mother and daughter. Mrs. Temple is simply quietly determined that what Shirley does shall be done right.



The photo below is courtesy of Melissa (aka “The Colonel”) who was recently gifted a copy of it by fellow Shirley’s Army member, Lori. It was Shirley expert supreme, the great Rita D, who let us know what the occasion was for this photo shoot, and then I hunted down a copy of the magazine itself. Yes, it takes an Army! Now you can see Shirley’s Fox studio trailer which was cropped out of the magazine article.



This photo from my collection also shows Mrs. Shultz, along with Shirley’s beloved studio tutor, Frances Klamt, inside the trailer.



Here’s what Mrs. Shultz had to say about Frances Klampt:

Miss Frances Klammt, Shirley’s teacher, is an M.A. who taught five years in the Los Angeles public schools before taking over Shirley’s education two years ago. She represents both the Los Angeles Board of Education and the Child Labor Board and has authority to halt production if anything occurs on the set which she considers harmful to Shirley, or if they’re not getting in the three hours’ schooling daily which the law requires for movie children. Even when the Temples vacation between pictures, Miss Klammt goes wherever they go, for Shirley must have her three hours of schooling every day that other children are in school. It’s often piecemeal study, but, as Miss Klammt pointed out, “Shirley possesses marvelous powers of concentration. She throws herself into a scene for al she’s worth, then instantly centers upon her studies the moment she sits down at her table.”



Another interior view of Shirley’s trailer taken during the filming of “Just Around the Corner”:



Shirley had to catch a snack between takes in her trailer during the filming of “Little Miss Broadway” (1938). Gotta’ keep that energy up!



A series of three shots taken during filming of “The Little Princess” (1939) with Miss Klamt:





Time for the cameras!



Shirley’s cute little trailer was the perfect place to keep up on her correspondence:



SPELLING COUNTS! A note about the spelling of Shirley’s tutor’s name. In the BH&G article, it is written as “Klammt.” In a vintage 1935 drawing Shirley created to give to her tutor, she wrote “Miss Klamt.”



When Shirley was welcomed back to the Fox lot in 1948 with a gala party, the publicity blurbs used the “Klamt” spelling.



By the time Shirley wrote her autobiography Child Star in 1988, Shirley referred to her as “Miss Klampt.” Shirley expert supreme Rita D also used “Klampt” in her book, as did author Gavin Lambert in his Natalie Wood bio, as did former pupils (and “Sound of Music” stars) Charmian Carr, Nicholas Hammond, Angela Cartwright, and Kym Karath.



The Palo Verde Valley Times referred to her as “Frances M. (Klamt) Willis” in her May 23, 2008 obituary as does imdb. In the A&E Shirley Temple documentary, she was interviewed and the onscreen credit reads, “Klamt.” I would hope they got it right for that one at least!



But that’s not all in the questionable spelling department for this post! The author of the BH&G article, Gladys Denny Shultz, was written up this way by the New York Times for her June 22, 1984 obituary:

Gladys Denny Schultz, a writer and editor, died of cancer Tuesday in Allentown, Pa., where she was staying with the family of her son, Peter. She was 88 years old and had retired to San Diego, Calif., in 1972. Mrs. Schultz was a writer and correspondent for The Ladies Home Journal from 1946 to 1961. Earlier she had been a child care writer for Better Homes and Gardens from 1927 to 1945. Mrs. Schultz was the author of several books. Among them, she wrote or edited ''It's Time You Knew,'' a discussion of sex problems of younger girls, (1955), “Lady from Savannah: The Life of Juliette Low,” a biography of the founder of the Girl Scout movement, (1958 - see cover below), ''Letters to Jane,'' a revised edition of a book published in 1947, (1960), and ''Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale,'' (1962). In addition to her son, she is survived by a daughter, Eleanor Dale, of East Lansing Mich., six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.



So much for the NYT’s spellchecker! Thanks to Mrs. Shultz for her vintage insights into Shirley’s world!

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.