Shirley Temple: Hollywood's Most Famous Child Star — Depression-Era Stardom, the Studio System, and an Extraordinary Second Act
About this episode
This episode explores the life and career of Shirley Temple, Hollywood's most famous child star, detailing her rise to fame and the challenges she faced as she grew up in the studio system.
Shirley Temple was the most famous child star Hollywood had ever seen — a six-year-old who became America's biggest box-office attraction, helped carry Twentieth Century-Fox through the Great Depression, and grew up inside a studio system built around keeping her little for as long as possible. From the bizarre Baby Burlesks shorts to Little Miss Marker , Bright Eyes , and "On the Good Ship Lollipop," Shirley became a national phenomenon almost overnight. Before she was seven, her face was everywhere, merchandise bore her name, and entire films were being designed around the curls, dimples, songs, and optimism audiences loved. This episode follows Shirley through the height of her childhood fame: her Academy Juvenile Award, groundbreaking dances with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in The Little Colonel , four years as America's number-one box-office star, and films including Curly Top , Wee Willie Winkie , Heidi , and The Little Princess . It also looks behind the image — at the exhausting schedules, the Twentieth Century-Fox publicity machine, the Graham Greene libel case, and the uncomfortable ways Hollywood sometimes packaged her childhood innocence. But Shirley Temple was growing…
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