Then there was the stigma of precocity. Her camera sense unnerved some of the greatest actors of the day. “This child frightens me,” Adolphe Menjou said when making Little Miss Marker. “She knows all the tricks.” Shirley would back him out of the camera, step on his lines, and steal his laughs. “She’s making a stooge out of me. . . . If she were forty years old . . . she wouldn’t have had time to learn all she knows about acting. . . . She’s an Ethel Barrymore at four [sic].” Making Now and Forever the same year with Gary Cooper, the six-year-old performed most of her own scenes in a single take, and when he needed three takes to complete one scene, she asked, “Mr. Cooper, I did mine in one. Why can’t you?” The publicity photographer George Hurrell, who began working with Shirley when she was seven, later marveled, “Shirley Temple had the photographic sense of someone four times her age.” How in the world could this demanding routine and uncanny professionalism be made the stuff of a normal, carefree childhood?36
Certainly, to preserve the image of a normal private life within the Temple household, Gertrude Temple’s dreams of a film career for her daughter and Shirley’s early dance instruction had to be minimized. Accounts of stars’ accidental discoveries, such as that of fifteen-year-old Lana Turner while sipping a Coke, were a staple of movie fan magazines. If Shirley’s film career sprang from a lucky break rather than years of preparation and knocking on studio doors, then she ducked the charge of being merely a parental puppet or a hothouse plant. A 1935 Fox publicity profile stressed that she did not come from “a theatrical family” and that “the baby star came into the film industry by accident.” While “dancing with a group of children,” the release said blandly, she “was selected for a small part in pictures.”37
Gertrude Temple learned to stick faithfully to this story. Shirley’s movie career, she frequently explained, emerged from the unforced development of natural gifts. “From the time Shirley started to talk she carried on imaginative play-acting,” and she danced “almost from the time she began to walk.” Mrs. Temple sent her infant daughter to a neighborhood dancing school simply because Shirley so enjoyed dancing and music. There scouts for Educational Films noticed her and asked permission to give her a screen test. “We thought it would be amusing,” Gertrude Temple said. “The tests were good, and what we had thought might be a novelty in Shirley’s life—facing a movie camera—suddenly became a problem for us to solve.” Santa Monica might be only twelve miles from Hollywood, but Mrs. Temple affirmed the values of the American heartland: “We didn’t want Shirley spoiled, didn’t want her made artificial, didn’t want her to lose her childhood, regardless of what screen fame meant otherwise. . . . So at first we were a bit doubtful about a screen career.” When she once slipped and mentioned in an interview Miss Meglin’s dance studio, well known for its training of child stage and screen performers and thus a dead giveaway of her intense ambitions for her daughter, she demanded that the published article speak vaguely of a neighborhood “dancing school” instead.38
Similarly, at each step of Shirley’s career, the goal was to emphasize the extreme solicitude of everyone around her, the film studio and her parents especially. Her personal welfare came first. This solicitude was supposedly enshrined in the contract that the Temple family negotiated with Fox on Shirley’s behalf in summer 1934. The agreement that irretrievably transformed Shirley into a commodity was celebrated as safeguarding her childhood. As reported in “The Private Life of Shirley Temple, Wonder Child of the Screen,” some of that contract’s provisions (the full text was never publicly disclosed) were protections that any parent might applaud and delights any child might envy. She was provided with her own cottage on the studio lot. (Its previous tenant, Gloria Swanson, and her steamy affair with actor Herbert Marshall were discreetly unmentioned.) A bulwark of privacy, it had a bedroom where she could rest, a schoolroom in which she had lessons from a private tutor, and a dining room with kitchenette, where she could take her meals, prepared by the studio chef according to her dietary needs, free from distractions or the fuss of coworkers. Decorated with pictures and furnished with toys and games, the cottage amply fulfilled Fox’s contractual obligation to “keep her as much as possible in the atmosphere of childhood.” Shirley appeared on the set only during shooting of her own scenes and, again under her contract, purportedly never for more than an hour a day—although directors and producers were notorious for overriding such restrictions. All coaching on her lines was to take place in her cottage, often by her mother, who drew a salary for her services. Fox provided medical supervision to ensure Shirley’s healthy development. Her regimen included a nutritious diet, ample exercise and relaxation, and plenty of sleep—all detailed in publicity materials for the instruction of others. Perhaps the most notable difference between Shirley’s life and the lives of her fans was that she was forbidden to go to the movies at night. Studio officials aimed to keep her from imitating other performers and also from realizing her own importance. A preening little moppet would be box-office poison. In this last goal, public relations and self-interest converged. “She can’t get spoiled,” Winfield Sheehan warned Gertrude Temple. “She gets spoiled, it shows in the eyes.”39
Articles on Shirley presented her life on the set as thoroughly normal, supremely educational, and more fun than a circus. William Seiter, who directed Shirley in four films, declared, “It makes me laugh to hear people ask: ‘But aren’t stage children cheated out of their childhood?’ Shirley has a grander time than any kid I know—with her school work and her movie work.” The atmosphere on the set was light and joyous. “Everything’s a game with Shirley. . . . She likes to clown and tease, she likes to peep through a door before she comes in. Then, when she’s played enough, you say: ‘O. K. Shirley’—and, whatever’s to be done, she goes to work and does it.” Between shots, Shirley mastered her lessons at her own pace, faster than in a conventional schoolroom. Her mind was unusually retentive, readers were told, and she reportedly had an IQ of 155. Yet, as a piece in Ladies’ Home Journal reported, “she conforms to the pattern from which the little girl next door is cut. She makes mud pies and plays jacks.”40 Movie magazines bulged with photographs of her in energetically normal activities: feeding fish, swinging on a gate, riding a bike, twirling a lariat, and the like, or, in another, proceeding through a day in her life from breakfast to bedtime prayers. Even her height and weight, which might have been seen as sensitive points, were presented as close to the average for a girl of her presumed age.41
Such depictions placed Shirley within the comfortable larger narrative of “egalitarian distinction,” in which movie stars much resembled their fans in their personal tastes and private pleasures. The qualities that stars and fans shared far outnumbered those that differentiated them, such stories stressed, and, indeed, the essence of a star’s distinctive gift was characteristically indefinable. A special “something” had by a stroke of luck grabbed the attention of Hollywood producers, for whom it was as mysterious and compelling as it was to fans. But was it luck or destiny? In a tradition of success stories stretching back through Horatio Alger novels to Puritan narratives, the star’s elevation from the multitude represented both a seal of merit and a sign of grace. A deserving star would prove worthy of such favor by seizing the opportunity that Hollywood extended without losing the common touch. Public acclaim would not alter the star’s private self.42
When Shirley Temple rose to stardom, her mother was elevated to the position of a child-rearing expert, repeatedly telling the story of “How I Raised Shirley Temple” to reporters, mothers, and movie fans in the United States and abroad. Middle-class parents read such articles avidly, although no one seemed the least interested in how she raised her two sons. They were irrelevant to what millions considered the central drama of the Temple household, one all the more compelling because it was set in the midst of the Great Depression. That drama concerned how to enjoy Shirley’s success to the utmost while insulating her from its excesses and preserving her private
life. A plethora of experts could give instruction on how to raise normal children, but none of them could speak from personal experience about how to raise this golden child who could transform entire industries, achieve worldwide fame, and earn a fortune while remaining a delightful and dutiful daughter. How could Shirley remain at once so powerful and so innocent? What was Mrs. Temple’s secret?43
Although Gertrude Temple undoubtedly downplayed her desire to see her daughter in movies, her determination to keep Shirley unspoiled appears genuine. From the moment that Shirley became famous, she received what her mother called “a constant flow of flattering, petting, and attention.” As one journalist described Shirley’s predicament, “Strangers seeing her on the studio lot, or in those unavoidable moments when she would go from the Temple car into a shop or a restaurant, would cry out with little gasps of ecstasy, would instantly cut off any escape, would grasp her chin and turn her small face up to be stared at and commented upon in extravagant language, which included eulogies also upon her cleverness and charm, her adorable eyes, her wonderful curls!” Gertrude Temple’s challenge was to muffle that attention whenever possible so as to keep Shirley’s fame from overwhelming her personal development. “Mommy, why do people always want to touch me and ask questions?” her daughter asked. “Shirley,” her mother replied, “haven’t you ever noticed that everybody loves little kittens and rabbits and baby birds? Don’t you love them? You’re just like a little kitten—a little rabbit. And you’re a happy child, too. People like happiness.” Shirley accepted this explanation, and her mother sighed in relief. Yet her dread persisted: “I was afraid it was dawning upon her that those people adored her image and her acting. I was afraid she would begin to act for me.” She added, “I want her to be natural, innocent, sweet. If she ceases to be that, I shall have lost her—and motion pictures will have lost her, too.”44
On the set and off, Gertrude became Shirley’s watchdog, fiercely defending her daughter’s interests but also shielding her from the pressures of moviemaking. Contending as she did that “making movies is chiefly play-acting and make-believe to Shirley,” she declared, “I make it my job to keep it that way, to smooth away any feeling of tension or excitement.” She also shielded her from effusive praise, believing “no one is pleasant with a superiority complex.”45
Yet inevitably, in extending the emotional ties between mother and daughter from the privacy of home to the glare of the studio, they became intricately braided. Emotions are the stuff of acting, and the simulation and evocation of emotional effects is a key job of the child actor. In preparing Shirley at bedtime for a role, Gertrude meticulously rehearsed the script, acting out all of the parts, feeding Shirley her individual cue lines, and then having Shirley recite her lines for the next day’s shooting while Gertrude played the other roles. In this fashion they ran through the script three times before kissing each other good night. Although Shirley Temple Black maintained that her mother entrusted to her minor refinements, Gertrude mapped the emotional terrain of each film, drilled Shirley in her role, and also communicated her emotional investment in her daughter’s success.46
On at least one occasion, a director yanked the emotional ties between mother and daughter for the sake of a dramatic effect. When Alexander Hall needed Shirley to cry in a scene for Little Miss Marker, he told her, “I want you to think that you’ll never see your mother again. Think hard, she’s gone, gone for good. She’ll never, never, never come back.” Gertrude Temple was furious, not only at the emotional manipulation but also because she considered her daughter an accomplished crier.47
Beyond all the emotional demands involved in satisfying directors and others on the set, Shirley sought to satisfy her mother. Stage and screen mothers are notorious for living through their children, their daughters especially, and the most fiercely determined of them from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century make a formidable roll call: Mary Ann Crabtree, mother of Lotta; Jennie Cockrell Bierbower (later Janis), mother of Elsie Janis; Charlotte Smith, mother of Mary Pickford; Rose Hovick, mother of June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee; Lela Rogers, mother of Ginger; Ethel Gumm, mother of Judy Garland. Gertrude Temple was never as ruthless and controlling as some in this list, but she was proudly and single-mindedly devoted to her daughter and keenly jealous of any rival for her success. Virtually every substantial description of their relationship emphasized Mrs. Temple’s stern protectiveness, and the emotional control she demanded from her offspring. Gertrude’s pet name for her daughter was “Presh,” short for Precious, and the last words of Shirley Temple Black’s memoir Child Star, published a decade after her mother’s death in 1977 and dedicated to her, are “Thanks, Mom.” Yet she also observed that her mother was “no namby-pamby. . . . Always inside that velvet glove was a hard hand,” demanding obedience. Less affectionately, director Allan Dwan, who worked with Shirley on Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Young People, observed, “Shirley was the product of her mother . . . the instrument on which her mother played.”48
Her daughter’s success, Gertrude admitted to reporters, transformed her life almost as much as Shirley’s. Previously, she followed a “pleasant routine” that included household duties, bridge games, women’s clubs, lectures, and frequent evenings out with her husband. All that changed overnight. “I must be with Shirley all day at the studio, and at night I go over her lines with her for the next day’s work. Although she is in bed early I hate to leave her alone with the boys and the housekeeper. George goes out alone sometimes now to the pictures, but I am usually too tired for that, anyway.”49
Despite Shirley’s celebrity, her mother insisted, by no means was her child permitted to run the Temple household. Mrs. Temple did not shrink from the task of disciplinarian. The consensus of the burgeoning advice on child rearing in the 1920s and 1930s discouraged or condemned punishment. “A punishment never has the effect to correct or improve,” declared the psychiatrist Benzion Liber in The Child and the Home. “Usually it has the contrary effect, leaving, besides, a more or less pronounced feeling of rancor or hatred against the physically stronger person who orders or executes the punishment.” Gertrude Temple disagreed. Some child psychologists frowned on corporal punishment, she acknowledged, “but it works.” In How I Raised Shirley Temple, she stated, “I believe firmly in the old maxim, ‘spare the rod and you spoil the child.’ I think a child must feel that you are willing to back up your demands with force if necessary. This conviction gives you moral support as far as the child’s thoughts are concerned. And I do not believe a spoiled child is ever a happy one.” “Discipline is enforced relentlessly by her mother,” a reporter declared approvingly. Ordinarily, a word sufficed, but “on at least two known occasions a more solid punishment under the dainty lingerie was administered.” When in 1936 Time magazine published an admiring story on Shirley, its cover bore not a beaming portrait of the child star but a candid photograph of Mrs. Temple disciplining her child on the film set. Clearly, the dominant concern was not that Shirley was treated too harshly but too leniently.50
At least one observer testified to Mrs. Temple’s firm hand. George Hurrell, who conducted a number of photographic sessions with Shirley at the studio and at her home, always in her mother’s presence, later observed, “Shirley was often sharply disciplined. I tried to intervene once—and only once, because Mrs. Temple snapped, ‘Tend to your photography, Mr. Hurrell, and I’ll attend to my daughter!’ ”51
In the eyes of the public, the vindication of Mrs. Temple’s method was Shirley’s personality. Both male and female journalists repeatedly marveled over her poise, charm, serenity, good humor, and docility—qualities especially prized in a little girl. Scrutinizing her in 1936, a reporter could find no hint of affectation: “The sunniness she radiates on the screen belongs not to ‘Bright Eyes’ nor ‘Curly Top’ nor ‘Little Miss Marker,’ but lies deep in the disposition of Shirley Temple.” “She has been described widely as a precocious youngster,” a reporter for the Boston Globe added in
1938, “and yet there is nothing of the precocious about her. In spite of her accomplishments and the intense consideration that surrounds her, she is still just a little girl, fond of dolls, exactly like a number of pretty and attractive 9-year-olds in any neighborhood in every respect save one. She has an ability to understand and get along with grown-ups. She does exactly what she is told, and she does it with a smile and without resentment, even when she is tired and would probably much prefer to be doing something else.” In such praise, reporters enshrined a more tractable little girl than she often played in her films. She might fling mud at her grandfather in The Little Colonel, shove the building manager into the swimming pool in Just around the Corner, or dump coal ashes on her tormentor in The Little Princess, but this assertive spirit was less prized off the screen.52
Such testimonies to Shirley’s unspoiled character also had precedents. The most famous film child star prior to Shirley Temple had been Jackie Coogan, and he too had been acclaimed as a thoroughly natural and unspoiled child. Here too his mother was given the lion’s share of the credit. Still, the boyish qualities that she prized in him marked a significant contrast with those that Gertrude Temple and reporters praised in Shirley: “Jackie is all alive—and all boy. . . . I don’t want my son to be a Little Lord Fauntleroy. I want him to be the sort of a child that he portrays on the screen—robust and appealing and muddy—and if necessary, a little bad.”53
The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America Page 22