LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Shirley Temple: Great Depression
built 642 days ago
Shirley Jane Temple (born April 23, 1928) is an Academy Award-winning actress most famous for being an iconic American child actor of the 1930s, although she is ... notable for her diplomatic career as an adult. After rising to fame at the age of six with her breakthrough performance in Bright Eyes in 1934, she starred in a series of highly successful films which won her widespread public adulation and saw her become the top grossing star at the American box-office during the height of the Depression. She went on to star in films as a young adult in the 1940s. In later life, she became a United States ambassador and diplomat.
Source:
Through the rest of the decade Shirley Temple's star soared. And it was not only her delectable dimples and 56 corkscrew curls that would keep her at the top of the box office listings. She was a spectacularly talented child, able to sing and dance with style and genuine feeling. Gifted with perfect pitch, she was a legendary quick study who learned her lines and dance routines much faster than her older and more experienced co-stars. She would make 15 films in the next six years, becoming one of the most popular stars of the Great Depression years and making over $30 million for the newly organized Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. The company's chief executive, Darryl Zanuck, arranged for a staff of 19 writers to exclusively develop film projects for her.
Source:
[F]or this work, accomplished with joy and ease, Shirley received $10,000 per week and over 3500 letters thanking tier for the pleasure she gave. The disparity between Shirley’s work and the reality of most depression working experiences was ludicrous. And the frequency and consistency of descriptions of the sort just quoted indicates that the disparity was ... mesmerizing, much like the disclosure in 1932 that J. P. Morgan paid no income taxes.
Source:
According to legend, the film bombed because audiences disliked seeing Temple as a spoiled brat. This is probably overly generous: The Blue Bird simply isn't all that great once you've been exposed to The Wizard of Oz. But it does have a real edginess to it. As the film begins, Temple has captured a finch in the woods and is taking it home as a pet. A sick, homebound girl catches sight of her and offers a trade: her tattered but beloved doll for the bird. Temple mulls it over and says that she doesn't want the doll. It's too mangy and old. Besides, there's already another girl she wants to have the bird.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Great Depression