Temple Tuesday: Shirley at Shugie's

This November 1944 image shows Shirley Temple at Sugie’s Tropics in Beverly Hills, with owner Harry Sugarman in the center, sitting next to her good friend, Betty Jean Lail. The soldiers on the ends of the booth are their dates, Bob and Brown (no last names!). Betty Jean’s copy of the photo had this written on the back:

This date was all on the spur of the moment. I had been out with Gertrude [Shirley’s mother] all day long and while I was out Shirley called mother and they made the date. It was fun to go with them, but I couldn’t stand the Lt. I was with. We went to the Pladium [sp] and it was awful. It certainly isn’t my idea of a place to dance. Besides he couldn’t dance.

Shirley and Betty Jean met at the Westlake School for Girls. The photo below shows them circa 1940; Shirley is in the first row, third from right; Betty Jean is next to her, center of the row.



Their meeting was detailed in Shirley’s autobiography, Child Star, where Betty Jean was referred to as “Plump Girl”:

Struggling under an armload of seventh-grade texts, I was assigned an unoccupied seat at a broad wooden desk in the rear row, one already shared by a plump girl with red. hair. Smiling briefly, she slid sideways along our common bench to ake room, then stared fixedly into her book.…Any alien celebrity suddenly plopped into a class of eleven ordinary girls could hardly expect effusive greetings.…It was difficult to see where I fitted, let alone worm my way in.…Sole exception in this isolation was my seatmate, Plump Girl. Enforced proximity probably evoked common ground, a jolly, extroverted view of things. From the outset her companionship saved me from being a complete loner.

Shirley became President of the Camp-Fire Girls and is shown at home in this October 1940 image folding Christmas Seals which would be mailed as part of an annual appeal for funds to fight tuberculosis. Betty Jean is the smiling girl second from right:



The 1942 photo below shows Betty Jean standing above Shirley:



Betty Jean was one of Shirley’s bridesmaids in her 1945 wedding to John Agar. By this time, Betty Jean (far left) had dropped the excess pounds.



The two remained life-long friends, as can be seen in the photo below:



Back to Sugie’s…a little more than three years later after the first photo in this post was taken, Shirley and then husband John Agar were back at Sugie’s “celebrating” their third wedding anniversary, September 1948. 



A vintage Sugie’s menu:



Shirley even had a drink named after her: “Adolescence,” which was described as “Not a kick in a carload.”



The previously posted image below shows the couple a year later, inside the Vine Street location of Sugie’s. At least Shirley is smiling this time, on the occasion of their fourth anniversary!



Over at Tiki Central, I found this image of the exterior of the Vine Street Tropics:



The Beverly Hills location closed on August 21, 1953, as seen in this clipping from The Los Angeles Mirror:



Oh, to have been able to go to this sale, advertised in December of 1952!



See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Shirley Steps Out

The two photos in today's post show Shirley Temple and her husband at the time, John Agar, painting the town red. I believe these images are from 1948 or 1949, when the couple were on the verge of divorce...and it shows. John does not seem too thrilled to be out with his legendary spouse. The first image shows them at The Tropics on Vine Street, opened by Harry "Sugie" Sugarman in 1939. His first location opened in 1936, on 421 North Rodeo Drive. His bars were the earliest of the Pre-Polynesian Pop spots that catered to the motion picture industry. Guests came to see the stars, drink the strong cocktails, and soak up the tropical atmosphere (bamboo, palm trees, and Beverly Hills' first outdoor patio).

Filipino bartenders whipped up drinks named for Sugarman's movie star friends, such as Thin Ice (Sonja Henie: "If your girlfriend is frigid, one of these will break the ice"), Samoa of Samoa (Bette Davis: "Liquid Lightning…sets you on fire!"), Untamed (Lana Turner: "One drink and you're tighter—than Lana Turner's sweater"), Deep Purple (Cesar Romero: "Colorful as the 'Cisco Kid' himself"), and Zulu (George Brent). Sugarman is also the man who came up with the idea for the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Beverly Hills Tropics was sold to Harry Arnheim in the mid 1940's, and then purchased by Steve Crane (former husband of Lana Turner) and turned into the Luau in 1953. In December 1979, the Luau was torn down and replaced by the Rodeo Collection shopping mall.

This photo was taken by Hollywood Fan Magazine photographer Hyman Fink. Zooming in for a closeup you can see the photo of Duke Kahanamoku, a Hawaiian competition swimmer, actor, lawman, early beach volleyball player, and businessman who made surfing famous. Kahanamoku was also a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming.



This other image from the same evening shows the not-so-happy couple down the street at the Brown Derby Restaurant. Maybe the awful hat Shirley is wearing was the real cause of the problems between the two!



Jimmy Durante's signature can be seen in this closeup; the Derby was famous for the caricatures on the wall of famous celebrities. The ones in this photo were by Eddie Vitch, who had approached Derby owner Robert Cobb in 1931 and offered to draw caricatures of the famous guests who dined there.



Here's Shirley with The Great Schnozzola himself in a still from a deleted musical sequence filmed for 1938's "Little Miss Broadway" called, "Hop, Skip, Jump and Slide":



The 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz" opens nationwide in theaters today for a limited engagement in a brand spanking new 3D version;



The reviews so far have raved about how fantastic the (almost) 75 year old film looks; I can't wait to check it out.



See more Shirley Temple photos on my Shirley Temple web pages.