Bill Robinson (aka "Bojangles Robinson") was her idol when she was a child, and she got to work with him on four pictures.
11/1/06: She broke her wrist in a fall at her northern California home.
1936: She received a new contract from 20th Century-Fox, retroactive on September 9, paying her over $50,000 per film.
2005: Premiere Magazine ranked her as #33 on a list of the Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in their Stars in Our Constellation feature.
A close friend and supporter of Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
A soft cocktail - Shirley Temple - was created in her honor consisting of, Ginger Ale (or 7-Up), Grenadine and Orange Juice, topped with a Maraschino Cherry and a slice of lemon.
A vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, when running for Congress as a Republican in 1967 Temple consistently argued that the US needed to send more troops to South East Asia.
According to author Garry Wills in "John Wayne's America", director John Ford had serious issues with women, which carried over onto his sets. When he made Wee Willie Winkie (1937) with Shirley, she was a child as well as the top box office star in America and he treated her well. When she was cast in Fort Apache (1948), she was a young woman and he did not. Like her role in Wee Willie Winkie (1937), she played the "cute but unmanageable troublemaker at the post" who is befriended by and relies on an avuncular sergeant, both times played by Victor McLaglen. McLaglen had been blackballed by Ford for the previous seven years, but was brought back into the Ford stock company with this film. When Ford met Shirley, whose husband John Agar he had also cast in the picture, he rudely asked her, "Now where did you go to school, Shirley? Did you graduate?".
Actresses Shirley Jones and Shirley MacLaine were both named after her.
Appears on sleeve of The Beatles's "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
At age six she became the first recipient of the juvenile academy award.
At the age of 6, she was the youngest presenter at the Oscars ever. She presented the "Best Actress" award in 1935. The winner was Claudette Colbert.
Auditioned twice to be in "Our Gang" / "The Little Rascals." She apparently failed the first audition, and made the second while she was appearing in the "Baby Burlesks" series. "Our Gang" director Robert F. McGowan refused to agree to Shirley's mother's request that Shirley receive star billing with "Our Gang," so she didn't get in.
Aunt of Marina Black.
Became a Dame of Malta, although NOT from the officially recognized Roman Catholic order -- but rather from a non-Roman Catholic unaffiliated entity.
Briefly considered for the role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but it was determined that her singing limitations were "insurmountable," and Judy Garland, MGM's first choice, was cast instead.
Charles Black, the San Francisco businessman she married after divorcing John Agar, admitted to her while they were courting that he had never seen any of her movies.
From the late 1960s onward she was increasingly active in Republican Party politics. She served as U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia and held other government-related positions.
Has three children: Linda Susan Agar, whom Charles Black later adopted, (b. January 30, 1948), Charles Alden Black Jr. "Charlie" (born in Bethesda, Maryland, April 24, 1952) and Lori Alden Black (b. April 9, 1954). Both daughters were born in Santa Monica, California, at the same hospital, not to mention delivered by the same doctor, as Shirley had been years before.
Her childhood home is located at 231 Rockingham Avenue, Brentwood, California.