It’s amazing how one new photo can spawn so much more, like the above photo I recently acquired of Shirley Temple and some unknown gent. Well, unknown to me that is. Reaching out to Shirley expert supreme, Rita Dubas, I had the answer immediately: Torsten Flodén, a Swedish writer for Filmjournalen Magazine. Not only did Rita have the name, she supplied me with a much better quality print. Comparing the two, you can see what a difference a first generation print makes. Don’t even get me started about the crappy downloads people find on the internet and then attempt to pass them off as their own.
Another benefit to obtaining an original print is the information you often find on the back, like this “approved” stamp, dating the shot to approximately April 1936.
The interview/photo were right after Shirley finished filming “Poor Little Rich Girl” (1936) and while rehearsals for “Dimples” (1936) had begun. As if that wasn’t enough, Rita also generously supplied the August 16, 1936 article that Torsten wrote after he met Shirley, titled “The World’s Biggest Little Star”:
The copy of the shot I have at the top of the article obviously lacks the inscription from Shirley. Despite that, I still love the dreamy quality of this publicity still.
Additional pages from the Filmjournalen magazine article:
Fortunately, most of the images in this article also exist in my collection, such as the Important Events card:
Shirley at two years:
I don’t have a vintage print of this particular one, so a detailed view from Rita’s scan will have to do!
Shirley driving the child-sized gas-powered Tether Racing Car that was gifted to her by frequent co-star and dancing partner, Bill Robinson car, parked outside her Fox bungalow:
The car was auctioned off in 2015 after Shirley’s death and fetched $34,000. I don’t have the exact image from Shirley’s 1936 birthday used in the article, but I can offer up these two alternative shots as a consolation prize:
The detailed shots of Shirley’s legs and hands were part of a session to publicize “Curly Top” (1935):
Rita outdid herself (so what’s new?!?) by translating the ENTIRE article! Here it is, full of interesting tidbits:
It is not easy to tell the story of Shirley Temple so that it does not sound like – a fairy tale. For it is really something quite fantastic. I mean all this, which in recent years has grown up around Shirley. I say "around" on purpose. For the little creature who is the cause of it all is exactly as one wants her to be, hopes she will be, even if one thinks it is incredible that she can be – before one meets her. But everything else seems incomprehensible and inexplicable. And the more one thinks about it, the stranger it becomes. One says to oneself: It is not true. And yet one knows that it is.
SHIRLEY TEMPLE is right now Hollywood's absolute biggest star, according to the principle of assessment, that the starlet is the biggest, who draws the most audience and thus gives her company the biggest bucks. It makes the same difference whether we worship Garbo or we worship Charles Boyer, Marlene Dietrich or Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire, Myrna Loy or William Pawell [sic]. All right, say the high film directors in Hollywood, we understand you and we appreciate your taste and of course they are all very good. But it cannot be helped, they are in the shelter. In the lead marches a little seven-year-old child with the world's most golden-blond corkscrew curls, with dimples in her cheeks, a small pouty nose on very dancing girlish feet. She has the very respectable annual income of 1,000,000 Swedish kronor a year – as much as the king of Sweden has in his pocket – and her name is: Shirley Temple.
So little Shirley has become "the biggest film event" in American cinema for many, many years. She has certainly become a world sensation. I am just reading a letter I received from Hollywood, which says that Shirley has more organized admiration than any other star. Shirley has 384 clubs in as many American cities with a total membership of 3,800,000. While she was making her latest film, "The Bowery Princess," a new Shirley Temple society was formed in Chicago, which immediately had 50,000 registered members. In addition to this there are 489 Shirley Temple clubs in forty-three countries outside America, and their total membership is 5,000,000. At the moment an international Shirley Temple circle has also been formed under the supervision of Shirley's own mother, and in this circle a new little chairman is elected every month. Right now there is a little Hollywood girl named Tamar Cooper who is six years old. [Rita’s note: this “circle” is the Templers, hosted by Mrs. Harmony Haines Woodward for Screen Play magazine. Screen Play must have been associated with Filmjournalen to promote this club in an article. It lasted about six months].
Shirley's mail has also swelled to such an alarming degree that her company has had to set up a special secretary just to deal with it. It is estimated that Shirley receives an average of 2,000 letters a day. People write to her about everything, ask her about everything and give her everything. Just recently, little admiring friends in Australia sent her a live baby kangaroo, which was housed for a while in the garden of the small private bungalow with three rooms and a kitchen, which Shirley received as a gift on the studio grounds. But the kangaroo disturbed the peace both of the little dwarf hamsters, who previously ruled there in unfettered majesty and who are the apple of Shirley's eye, and so Mother Temple thought it safest to donate it to the Hollywood Film Zoo. However, Shirley goes there at least every other Sunday to visit it.
I must admit that I was quite curious when I went to meet little Shirley Temple one day. What would she be like? Every single person I had met in Hollywood before had said about Shirley: "You must meet her and become good friends with her – there is no nicer girl." I would like to believe them all, but deep down there was at least a little black-as-night suspicion lurking. Was it really possible, I thought. Hadn't all this that had grown up around her: the million a year, the 2,000 letters a day, the millions of organized admirers and the even more unorganized millions, the film work, Hollywood ruined her a little? That little Baby LeRoy didn't take any damage to his soul from filming and world fame was not so much to be surprised at, since he was so young that he could hardly have had any idea of what he was really doing when he was filming.
But Shirley Temple – she was at least eight years old, or about to be, when I first met her. A girl of seven probably knows a lot more than we older people think. Because little children have intuition, if nothing else. I didn't think I would meet a little diva, because I had heard so many good things about her before that I understood that she wasn't. But I thought she would be a bit self-indulgent and spoiled. Self-conscious, if nothing else. So the big presentation took place together with Mother Temple and Uncle "Doc" Bishop, who is Shirley's special protector in the studio. Yes, it's just as well to lay the cards on the table right away. There is no such thing as Shirley Temple, at least I have never seen one. To say that she is a little weird, natural and completely "movie-spoiled" girl is saying so little. She is something more: A little personality. Funny, lively, intelligent, heart-wrenching.
Yes, absolutely heartbreaking, if you know what I mean. It's as impossible not to spontaneously and instantly like Shirley Temple as it is to knock over Rockefeller Center by simply blowing on it. She must have been born with sympathy in some strange way. Is she as nice as she is in the movies, a thousand people have certainly asked me in and after Hollywood. There is only one answer: She's nicer. Because in the movies she's more or less a construction. She plays a role, does what she's told. But in private life she's just as much unconsciously, all by herself. I think she looks at her film work and her fame, which she's now beginning to be aware of, in exactly the same way as any little seven-year-old who has some talent – to sing or recite a verse, for example – looks at this as her special ability.
She thinks it's all so much fun. When she's filming, she never wants to stop. When everyone from the director to the cameraman is dead tired in the evening and has to finish their work for the day, Shirley almost becomes a little bit of an imp. Just like all children who are playing and who always have the most fun when the game has to end. Shirley takes the whole filming as one big and delightful game. She thinks it's the most fun when she gets to dance or sing. Dancing is in her blood in a way. As soon as Shirley hears music, she has to move to the beat. I've talked to both her dance teacher and her famous dance instructor, who is currently none other than Bill Robinson – you may remember the one who taught little Eleanor Whitney to tap – and they all agree that Shirley is a phenomenon when it comes to dancing. She grasps the most difficult movements instantly and she doesn't just copy. She reshapes the dance program in a personal, inimitable way.
One day, as I was watching, there was a movement that Shirley found a little awkward when she was dancing with Robinson. "Raise your shoulders more, little Shirley," said Mother Temple, "that will make it easier." "I can raise my shoulders as much as Mother wants," replied Shirley immediately, "but then I won't reach the floor." Little Shirley always comes up with the funniest ideas. One day she was to be photographed with two very famous writers. (One of them wasn't me). Just as the photographer was about to take the photo, Shirley leaned over to one of them and said, "Tell me, which of you two is the most famous, because I might as well look at him when the photo is taken." Shirley receives private lessons in the studio, and while I was out there she passed her second preparatory class with flying colors. She reads by heart quite fluently and adds in her head as fast as lightning.
She likes to play with her rabbits and feed her dwarf hen, she has a pet doll, which she never lets go of, she had that before she became the famous Shirley Temple for that matter. You have probably heard how she was discovered for the film before. She went to a dance school in Hollywood and when a director wanted to make a short film series called "Baby Burlesques" he cast Shirley for one of the roles. Then she got to do some child roles in regular films and right on cue, before Hollywood itself had any idea about it, Shirley was famous with the general public, world famous. Now they write films especially for Shirley Temple just like they write films for Garbo and other big stars. Shirley also has another hobby for that matter. She collects stamps. So if you want to make her really happy, send her some rare Swedish ones. She has lots of the regular Swedish stamps. Then she has an autograph book, because no matter how famous she is, she has also been caught by the autograph collecting bug.
And you have no idea what great names she has there. Gary Cooper and Charlie Chaplin, Mary Peckford [sic] and Douglas Fairbanks. But there are also names like Smith and Brown and Johnson. They are her friends among the study workers. You are not allowed to write in Shirley's book just because you happen to be famous – you are only allowed to write there if you happen to become good friends, really good friends with Shirley. A great sign of sympathy from Shirley is when she plays her favorite game with visitors in her private bungalow which is also a playhouse on the studio grounds. Do you want to learn Shirley's favorite game? You start by drawing a square, consisting of 25 small dotted squares. So you have: (shows a grid of hash marks for 25 squares)
Then you connect the dots with lines in turn. Both players get to draw one line each. The goal is to get a square as quickly as possible. Then you get to put your initial in it, you get that square, and at the same time you get an extra line as a prize. The person who, when all the squares are filled in, has their letter in the most has won. Shirley was a master at this game and I lost I think twenty times out of twenty-five. Here is a "game" that we played together and which I of course lost: (photo of square game)
Shirley always had a lot of fun when we played that game together. She called it Yum-Yum. She always put an S and I always put a T. "It's just ST, just ST — just Shirley Temple, you've lost everything,” she would say when we were adding up who had won. "They’re not usually that bad anyway. But we'll do it again. You never give up, says Mom."Below is a detailed section of the article that gives a visual for the game mentioned:
As yet another bonus, Rita shared this photo Shirley shot between takes of “Dimples” with Tamar Cooper, who was mentioned in the article:
The back gives a few more clues about what is going on, with the caption, “Shirley and her Sept. President, Tamar Cooper.” As Rita pointed out, the adoring look the little girl is giving Shirley is priceless! Also note the reference at top to “The Bowery Princess”; this was the name of “Dimples” when the film began production. That title was deemed a bit unsavory for Shirley, and thus switched out for the film’s release.
A million thanks to Rita for always coming through above and beyond the original request!
See more Shirley Temple photos at my
main website.
