Temple Tuesday: Two Cakes for Shirley

Shirley’s home studio, Fox, celebrated her seventh birthday at least twice. In the photo above, Shirley is seen at the party given in the studio commissary on Friday, April 26. The accompanying publicity blurb calls it her sixth birthday, as a year had been shaved off her life to make her appear more remarkable to the public.

SHIRLEY TEMPLE CELEBRATES SIXTH BIRTHDAY

Shirley Temple, Fox Film Star, was hostess to 25 children today at a birthday party given on the studio lot. The youngsters entertained by the diminutive actress are the children of Los Angeles newspaper men. Shirley celebrated her sixth birthday and cut into a cake weighing 14 pounds. 4/27/35



I was hoping the child seen below was Spanky, from the “Our Gang” comedies, but alas, it is not.



On the same day, Shirley posed in front of the recently unveiled Alberto Vargas mural in the Fox Commissary.

Shirley Temple points with pride to her picture on the wall of the Café de Paris at Fox Film studio. Fox stars who have made five successful pictures are honored in this Mural Hall of Fame. Shirley has the honor of representing Hollywood in the collection. The portrait is by Alberto Vargas, noted Peruvian artist.



The party was supposed to be held ON her birthday, Tuesday, April 23, 1935, as reported by the Los Angeles Citizen News on April 22:

Shirley Temple Will Give Birthday Party

Being six years old is the occasion for Shirley Temple, child screen star, to celebrate tomorrow at the Fox Studio. She has invited 25 friends, some of them playmates from Santa Monica.

A day later, the plans were changed, as reported by the Daily Breeze:

‘Sniffles, Keep Shirley Abed on Sixth Birthday

Shirley Temple, the screen’s tiny but mighty star, observed her sixth birthday anniversary today in bed in her Santa Monica home, confined, according to her own diagnosis, by “sniffles.” A studio party to which 35 guests had been invited was postponed by personal messages the little actress dispatched over telegraph wires. The message read: “My birthday party has been postponed because I have the sniffles and have to stay at home. We will have the party in a few days and I will let you know about it and hope to see you there.” The child’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. George P. Temple, said Shirley was not seriously ill and that the party was deferred until probably Friday merely to safeguard her guests from possibly contracting the “sniffles.” Meanwhile, more than 100 birthday remembrances from fans, friends and relatives remained unopened, a pleasure to be reserved for Shirley at her party. At Shirley’s own request, the party is to be devoted principally to playing. To assure the little star of what she regards as a good time, Mrs. Temple said she had invited two of Shirley’s old-time friends who “play with her instead of staring at her.” The rest of the guests will be children of Southern California newspapermen. “Many of the children Shirley meets nowadays and wants to play with stand and stare at her,” Mrs. Temple said. “They seem awed by her presence. For this reason two of her old playmates will be at the party. They consider her merely another girl and not a novelty.” In addition to ice cream and cake and games, Shirley’s party will boast a Punch and Judy show and an act by trained animals. A motion picture show also will be presented and the movie will be the kind Shirley and all other children prefer, a comedy.

By April 29, the L.A. Times reported concerned readers that “Shirley Temple all better after a bad cold.” The party ended up occurring on Friday, April 26, and made the Daily News on the 29th:



One tiny mystery remains. If Shirley had the “sniffles” on the day of her birthday and the Fox party had to be postponed, then what is the backstory of the photo below and the accompanying caption?



Shirley Temple, who is starred in “Our Little Girl,” is shown looking at a fine cake Nick Janios, manager of the Fox Film Café de Paris, had made for her. Nick took the cake 55 miles to the baby star, who is working on location at Sherwood Forest, California.

Possibly Shirley filmed on the morning of her birthday where a cake was delivered to Sherwood Forest, and decided to postpone the party at the studio. Either way, it looks like Shirley scored TWO cakes! Janis can be seen again at Shirley’s April 1940 20th Century-Fox birthday with another one of his amazing creations:



See more Shirley Temple birthday photos at my main website.

Sunday with Shirley: Temple for Easter

When it came to publicity shots, number one Box Office Star Shirley Temple posed for every occasion! Easter 1935 had Shirley wearing this Renè Hubert designed outfit that was most likely intended for the movie “Our Little Girl,” released in May 1935. The accompanying caption:

AGAIN the stars of Hollywood are rebels in the world of fashion. Their Spring hats are new and novel inspirations—not copies of a dictated vogue. Even petite Shirley Temple has a very definite idea about her Easter bonnet—and a bonnet she has—fashioned of piquet, which actually ties in a pert white bow under her chin!

The outfit was not seen in the finished film. Another shot from the same photo session was used in Photoplay magazine, May 1935:



Not to let a good outfit go to waste, it was repurposed with a different hat and a fur capelet and worn by Shirley at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre ceremony where she immortalized her signature in cement on March 14, 1935:



Back to Easter, and “Our Little Girl”! Shirley took time between takes to pose with this darling little bunny in a basket for a few Easter-theme photos:





The Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News featured Shirley in an Easter fashion bit on April 22, 1935, wearing the same outfit from “Our Little Girl”:



As reported by the Progress Bulletin on April 19, 1935, children could celebrate WITH Shirley at an Easter Egg Hunt:

Children’s Matinee Features Egg Hunt And Shirley Temple

An Easter egg hunt and the showing of a Shirley Temple picture will be the major attractions at the Fox Saturday Morning Children’s club matinee at 10 a.m. tomorrow in the Fox Pomona theatre, according to plans announced today. Shirley Temple, whose tremendous popularity extends to both children and adults, will be seen at this morning matinee only in her feature picture “Stand Up and Cheer,” in which she made on of her greatest hits. The other featured attraction, the Easter egg hunt, is expected to be one of the most popular events ever arranged for the club. There will be lots of Easter eggs hidden away, for the boys and girls to find.

The cynic in me believes the above story was intentionally misleading people into thinking that Shirley herself would be at the matinee on Easter Morning. I highly doubt the Temple family traveled to Pomona for Easter morning…but I could be wrong.

For Easter 1938, Shirley Temple posed at an altar, clutching a hymnal, while looking heavenward. 



The accompanying caption:

There is a definite spirit of sanctity in this Easter picture of Shirley Temple, the Nation’s No. 1 box office star, whose latest 20th Century-Fox starring picture is “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” Even to a child like Shirley, Easter means more than colored eggs, and soft-eared bunnies, and the peaceful wisdom in Shirley’s expression tells the whole story.

For Easter 1939, Shirley posed with what appears to be the same hymnal. It must have been a popular edition at 20th Century-Fox! The accompanying caption:

EASTER HYMN — The screen’s number one star makes a lovely looking choir boy against the background of stained-glass windows. But to Shirley Temple, as to every other youngster, Easter symbolizes more than hymns and the Sunday service - it means Easter vacation from school and painted easter-eggs as well as all the other paraphernalia that makes this one of the happiest seasons of the year. Her latest picture is “Susannah of the Mounties.”



This alternate pose came with a different caption:

CHOIR BOY — The robes of a choir-boy ideally suit Shirley Temple’s innocence and childhood charm. The tenth birthday of the 20th Century-Fox number one star of the screen comes shortly after Easter and that for Shirley is all the more reason for celebrating the holiday. Her latest picture is “Susannah of the Mounties.”



Just before the end of her 20th Century-Fox contract in 1940, Shirley posed with some Easter lilies in this gorgeous Kodachrome image:



For those that celebrate Easter, I hope it is a happy one!

See more Shirley Temple holiday photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Joel McCrea

In the 1935 Shirley Temple film “Our Little Girl,” Shirley’s parents were played by Joel McCrea and Rosemary Ames. It is probably one of my least favorite Temple movies as it is an extremely heavy movie, dealing with divorce and how it affects the “little girl.” While his name has faded over the years, Joel McCrea had a solid career from the 1930’s-1950’s working with some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, and Cecil B. DeMille.



In “Our Little Girl,” McCrea plays the dedicated doctor who gets so caught up in his lab formulas that he begins to neglect his wife and daughter. Eventually, the wife begins to stray, the family falls apart, and a divorce seems imminent. Since this is a Temple movie, you can figure out who single-handedly puts everything back together.



In her autobiography, Child Star, Shirley recalled an embarrassing moment that did not endear her to McCrea:

My puppy, Sniff, and I were examining a grasshopper at close range. Suddenly I sneezed. Two front porcelain dental caps fluttered off into space and disappeared among the dry grass blades. Without them filming could not proceed, so everyone crawled around gently fingering through the stubble to recover my caps, a search in vain. Rather than being charmed, McCrea was annoyed at the delay, particularly when director John Robertson was forced to cancel all filming and sent us home again for my “instant” dentist to practice his magic. En route, I was seated beside McCrea; a loose tooth dislodged itself into my hand. It is hard to carry on a romantic reconciliation with one’s teeth falling out.



According to the AFI website, McCrea was originally considered as the male lead in the blockbuster “King Kong” (1933) but eventually Bruce Cabot was hired “because he was perceived as better suited to the physical demands of the part.” One of McCrea’s best remembered films is the Preston Sturges off-beat comedy, “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941).



Edited from the Sturges biography, Between Flops by James Curtis:

Sturges wrote Sullivan’s Travels with a specific actor in mind: Joel McCrea. It was a story that demanded the kind of low-key sincerity in which McCrea specialized. Sturges liked the actor’s blank, no-nonsense quality that made him a favorite with top directors. “He knew he could mold me,” McCrea said. “Most of the other male stars bring a certain thing; Cagney, for instance, would always be Cagney. But this guy was John L. Sullivan—he couldn’t be a movie star. He could be Sturges, he could be me.” McCrea and Sturges had known each other casually for nearly a decade. “I first met Preston out at Fox,” he recalled, “where he had just written a script called “The Power and the Glory”…I went over there to see Spence Tracy on the set and I was just sitting there and the script was on the side of the chair so I picked it up and looked at it. It was so good and the dialogue was so good I remarked about it and Preston was there. He was kind of standing in the back and he bowed graciously and said, ‘I’m delighted you think that’s a good script.’ I said, ‘Well, the dialogue is really outstanding.’ It was kind of a nice meeting because I was complimenting him without knowing who he was.” Years later, after lunching with Cecil B. DeMille in the Paramount commissary, McCrea passed Sturges’ table. “I’d like to talk to you,” Sturges told him. “I’ve written a script for  you.” The actor was unconvinced. “No one writes a script for me,” he replied. “They write a script for Gary Cooper and if they can’t get him they use me.” Sturges laughed. “He got a kick out of that,” said McCrea. “He said, ‘No, no. This wasn’t written for anyone else. It’s called Sullivan’s Travels and it’s all original with me, it’s not taken from anything. It’s all mine.’ So I said, ‘Well, that’s very interesting.’ So I went over to his office and he gave me a script and we had a nice visit. I liked him right away. He was a very intelligent fellow and I really was interested in it.…He was what you could call ‘intelligently conceited. He knew he was great. He knew what he was doing was good. He didn’t question that what he was doing was going to get great reviews from the very first day he started shooting.”

Like many of Sturges’ films, this one bears repeated viewings to completely appreciate it. A warning should also be attached to it for those who are expecting a knee-slapping laughfest. While considered a comedy, it is unvarnished in its depiction of those who are less fortunate. Sturges didn’t want to make a message movie and intended this one as a satire of all the “serious” moviemakers. Yet, the second part of the movie is a bit heavy-handed and depressing, albeit with an abrupt “happy ending.” Coincidentally, the cameraman on this film was the same one from “Our Little Girl,” John Seitz. 



Sturges and McCrea also worked together on “The Palm Beach Story” (1942), a classic screwball comedy starring Claudette Colbert, Mary Astor, and Rudy Vallee. Lighter in tone than “Sullivan’s”, it too lends itself to repeated viewings because of its rapid-fire dialogue and off the wall situations. Colbert is magnificent and so is Mary Astor. McCrea is perfection as the dour husband whose lack of financial success causes his wife (Colbert) to drift.



McCrea was married to actress Frances Dee from 1933 until his death at age 84 in 1990. The two had three sons together. McCrea once listed his job as “rancher” and his hobby as “acting.” He owned a 3,000 acre ranch where he lived, raised cattle, and rode horses.

See more Shirley Temple and Joel McCrea photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Name That Dress!

It was one of those Shirley mysteries that has haunted us (meaning me and Melissa, aka “The Colonel”) for years. What did she wear underneath her René Hubert designed cap, coat, and capelet at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre ceremony on March 14, 1935? The one publicity shot that I owned from the evening (above) shows absolutely nothing, other than cement artist Jean “Mr. Footprint” Klossner pushing Shirley’s tiny little hand into the wet concrete slab. Recently, I added this alternate shot to my library, and the mystery began to unravel!



From the publicity caption:

“Love to the world,” in solid concrete. On the floor of the Chinese Theatre forecourt in Hollywood went the famous handwriting of the world’s greatest baby film star, Shirley Temple. “The Little Colonel,” her latest Fox Film production, opened at the famous Hollywood theatre, and Shirley left her name, her footprints and hand-prints in the concrete for future generations to see.

The wardrobe shot below shows Shirley wearing the beret, white ermine cape, and wool coat without any clue as to the garment underneath. Melissa had previously told me that she thought this coat and hat were created for “Our Little Girl” (1935), but either never used or part of a scene that was deleted before release.



Many have surmised that the dress Shirley wore under the Grauman’s coat was the same one she wore to the Oscars on February 27, 1935 (seen below with Claudette Colbert).



This theory came about because of this porcelain Shirley Temple doll released by the Danbury Mint, which was a recreation of the Grauman’s ceremony…



and came with the Oscar dress underneath. Shirley herself authorized this doll, so it was assumed that the two went together.



Back to my recent photo acquisition: I zoomed in to see if the edge of the dress underneath showed at all, and sure enough: I saw what appeared to be a stripe in the fabric! 



The dress also appeared to have a bit of a sheen to it. Two clues! I sent the pics to Melissa and immediately called her.



In the game of “Name that dress in 20 pixels or less…” Melissa succeeded brilliantly. Within seconds she said, “Well, that could be the pom-pom dress from ‘Our Little Girl.’” Yup. Houston, we had a match.



Shirley fan Connie M. weighed in with a few photos from her archives, such as the wardrobe shot below for “Our Little Girl,” showing the pom-pom dress.



For confirmation, I reached out to the great Rita D., Shirley expert supreme. Not only did she confirm, but she also dropped another nugget of gold. The coat worn at Grauman’s was also used in a number of publicity photos, minus the ermine cape. Why had I never noticed this before?





From Rita:

I checked everything I have on the coat and the negative numbers line up to the filming of “Our Little Girl” (production dates according to the AFI Catalog database for the film were February 11 – March 23, 1935; retakes/added scenes: April 1935). I’m sure the coat was intended for “Our Little Girl” as well, since it was designed by René Hubert, the designer for the film. The shots above are the same coat without the ermine cape but with an added bonnet, used just in time for Easter 1935 and “Heaven’s Gate” (the original title of “Our Little Girl”) publicity. This may have been the way it was going to be used in the film. Here’s an example of a birthday layout from Photoplay, May 1935, using one of the alternate coat photos when the production was still called “Heaven’s Gate.”



There might have been a planned (and squashed) Easter scene in “Our Little Girl,” since there are a few photos of Shirley in the bolero dress with an Easter egg candy container, bunnies and a basket tagged for the film (photo below). It would make sense with this coat/bonnet outfit and those props, if so. It could also have been advance Easter publicity since the film was released in May, after the holiday.



At the 2015 Theriault’s ‘Love, Shirley Temple’ auction, the coat, beret, and ermine cape came up for sale. I was able to see them at the Santa Monica History Museum beforehand:



The pom-pom dress also came up for auction:



From the catalog description:

SHIRLEY TEMPLE'S SILK POM-POM DRESS FROM THE 1935 FILM "OUR LITTLE GIRL" Lot Number: 264. Of robin's egg blue and ivory silk crepe, the simply cut dress has alternate panels, softly draping short sleeves, and is trimmed by blue woolen knit pom-poms. Generally excellent. The dress has the original studio inventory tag "4753". Included with the doll are two vintage photographs of Shirley wearing the costume in her role of Molly in “Our Little Girl.” The dress is worn by Molly (Shirley) in the scene where she admits to her mother that she told Rolf that "we don't like him" and "we want him to go away and never come back".

In an amazing case of serendipity, luck, good fortune, you name it…the same person just happened to buy both the coat set AND the pom-pom dress…without knowing that they went together that historic evening at Grauman’s. Melissa immediately notified her and she was thrilled with the information!

And there you have yet another Shirley mystery solved by the trio of Daveland, The Colonel, and Rita D!

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: Our Little Girl and René

Costumes for Shirley’s 1935 film “Our Little Girl” were designed by Swiss-born René Hubert (1895-1976), who studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in St. Gallen and at the Beaux Arts in Paris, and later worked for fashion designer/parfumier Jean Patou. He did some costume design for theatrical revues in Berlin and France (including for the Folies Bergère), where Gloria Swanson discovered him. She persuaded Hubert to join her in Hollywood at Paramount as designer for her entire personal and professional wardrobe. Hubert also made the rounds at the other studios: MGM (1927-1931); 20th Century-Fox (1931-1935), where he also did the gowns for Shirley’s “Curly Top”; at Alexander Korda’s London Films (1935-1938), where he designed the futuristic costumes for “Things to Come” (1936); then back to Fox (1943-1950). He excelled at period costume on many historical dramas, including “That Hamilton Woman” (1941) and “Anastasia” (1956). Although he was nominated twice for an Oscar (1954 and 1964), he did not win either time. Back to “Our Little Girl”…

Hubert was probably the most fashion-forward designers that Shirley worked with during her childhood career. His designs for her are adorable, yet still innovative and timeless. Children of today could still wear these and look contemporary. The Ideal Toy Company reproduced many of Hubert’s outfits from the movie for their Shirley Temple doll. Here are a few comparisons of the real thing and the miniature doll version. Ideal typically released their costumes with different fabrics; this particular hat and coat set (Shirley models the outfit in this post’s first photo) was yellow:

Many years later, the Danbury Mint did their own version of the hat and coat as part of their Shirley Temple Dress-Up doll series:

What was under the coat? This adorable little gingham dress and bolero top, known as the “September Saturday” outfit:

The actual three-piece silk ensemble Shirley wore, as it looked in the 2015 Theriault’s auction, “Love, Shirley Temple”:

The 1930’s Ideal version, which was also made in a variety of fabrics and colors:

Here is the “Musical Note” dress that Shirley wore. Note the flared sleeves:

…and the Ideal version:

The “Scottie Dog” dress that Shirley wore, constructed of silk-like linen with an inverted box pleat down the front.

How about those yarn leashes?

Hubert’s original sketch, with the fabric swatch he selected in the upper left-hand corner:

…and the Ideal version:

There was such a high demand for these dolls that Ideal had to farm out some of the sewing work to moms at home. This probably accounts for why there are so many variations in craftsmanship, materials, and design. This blue version only had two scotties:

My favorite one of the bunch is the blue cotton/linen “Saturday-In-May Cake Dress,” with its art deco inspired striping along the sleeves and front panel.

It would appear that at some point over the years the distinctive belt was lost.

The Ideal version rounded the belt, which was a very nice touch:

Another favorite Hubert design from the movie was this alphabet dress, which I do not believe was ever released in doll form:

Made of cream silk sateen, it survived over the years and hit the auction block in 2015, too:

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.