Posted on 02/19/2014 10:03:28 AM PST by Rummyfan
On The Hugh Hewitt Show last week, I made, like many other commentators, a rather obvious point about Shirley Temple:
She was the child star - so in other words, by the time she was 22, she should be on drugs, and her life's a wreck, and she's getting thrown in the celebrity wing of the L.A. County Jail like Lindsay Lohan or whatever. But she was a child star back when they were still reasonably sane.
But that's selling her short. What separates her from the likes of Lindsay Lohan & Co is not just the lack of post-child-stardom dysfunction, but the nature of the stardom itself: They can't do anything, and she could do everything - to a very high standard. She was a top-rank dancer, a great singer, and an affecting actress. Even in the early Thirties, as opposed to the Age of Twerking Skanks, it was hard to find anyone who did all three that well. Bing Crosby was a peerless singer and terrific actor, but not much of a dancing man. Fred Astaire was the greatest dancer of all time and a wonderfully charming singer but he rarely dug deep as an actor. And then there was Shirley Temple, who did all three, and so well that every child star since pales in comparison. She's not really a "child star" at all, so much as a star who happens to be a child.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Something a little lighter but still a great read. I Thank God for Mark Steyn!
She could be the greatest child actress of all time. Comparing Shirley Temple Black to any child actress today would be like comparing Ronald Reagan to Barry Obama.
The child stars back then were no more sane than the ones today. They just had different ways to self-destruct. Very few of them lived happy adult lives. Shirley Temple was unusual even back then.
If I can't get this damn "Animal Crackers" song out of my head soon I'm putting on a Miley Cyrus video.
LYRICS FROM “Good Ship Lolliipop”: On The Good Ship Lollipop
It’s a sweet trip to a candy shop
Where bon-bons play
On the sunny beach of Peppermint Bay
Lemonade stands everywhere
Crackerjack bands fill the air
And there you are
Happy landing on a chocolate bar...
I have a 3 yr old kid and I seriously doubt any production today would use such happy, childish lyrics.
And she was a Republican.
[ But she was a child star back when they were still reasonably sane.
The child stars back then were no more sane than the ones today. They just had different ways to self-destruct. Very few of them lived happy adult lives. Shirley Temple was unusual even back then. ]
How instrumental were her parents in keeping her on the right track?
When people worship a child like a deity because they are on TV or in movies, it goes to their head unless they have a very well grounded family. This leads to very bad habits because nobody tells them “NO”.
It takes a little longer for adult stars like Oprah but eventually they succumb and start to think they are godlike and invincible.
Yep. Think Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.
With the possible, and I say possible, exception of Judy Garland, who almost single-handedly changed popular music female vocal singing style from bel canto (think "opera warbling," e.g. Deanna Durbin) to a "jazzy" form of female crooning; she could also act, though her dancing wasn't up to Temple's standards. The difference between Garland and Temple was that Temple was allowed to grow up, while Garland was put on drugs to try to force her to keep her child figure, and by the time she was allowed to be an adult in movies, the drugs had taken hold, and never let go from then on.
Agreed; consider Georgie Price and Eddie Cantor.
“The difference between Garland and Temple was that Temple was allowed to grow up...”
I don’t think this is an apt comparison. Judy Garland wasn’t a “child actor” like Shirley Temple.
Garland wasn’t even signed by MGM till she was thirteen. She had a big, grown-up voice, and sounded much the same at sixteen as she did at forty. With the exception of Dorothy, whom she played as a sort of a ageless every girl/teen/woman, she never played a child in the movies.
Shirley Temple’s career flatlined as an adult precisely because she cemented her film identity as a child. Audiences loved her as a child. And nobody could mistake the voice of “On the Good Ship Lollipop” as that of anything but a kid. Subsequently she was forced to retired at 21 because she wasn’t Shirley Temple, little girl, anymore, and no one would go see her movies.
Meanwhile, at 21, Judy Garland was enjoying one of her greatest film successes, “Meet Me in St. Louis.”
And L.B. Mayer didn’t drug Garland up to “keep her child figure.” He doped her up because he thought she was fat. He wanted her camera skinny.
Anyone see the Miley Cyrus train wreck?
X-rated stage show. Billy Ray Cyrus and wife approved...
I can't quibble with you; it is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. I might quibble with you about one minor point concerning Garland:
she never played a child in the movies
In the 1936 short Every Sunday, Judy was 14. Is she playing a 14-year-old, or someone older, or someone younger? It's hard for me to tell.
On the one hand, she's wearing a dress that establishes a bit of an hourglass shape, and it's fairly obvious that she's wearing a bra, both of which make her look, to me, 14 or older. (My mother pubesced at 13 in 1941, and she was the first in her class to do so, something much more common then than now.)
On the other hand, in the 1930s, children, particularly well-dressed children, were made to look like little adults, and there seems to be an effort with Judy's dress to hide the breast curves, which may be an attempt to make her look younger than 14. Contrast Judy's look in this short with Ann Miller's look at the same age of 14, one year later, here (FF to 9:00), where Ann looks practically grown up; this gives us a clue that tells me that Judy is meant to look, if not younger than 14, certainly no older.
HAHA, “Every Sunday” is so WEIRD — a short made for the sole purpose of pitting Garland vs. Durbin, with the winner getting to keep her MGM contract. MGM only wanted one of these girl singers on the payroll, so you really do have to watch it as the deadly serious cage match it was.
They look young, but they are unmistakably teenagers. To me, Garland looks bound and corseted within an inch of her life to make her look thinner, not younger — especially standing next to a thinner (and arguably prettier) Durbin. I think the hairstyle and clothes are intended to make Durbin look younger so she wouldn’t look two and a half years older than Garland (which she was).
Anyway, it was an interesting sing-off, and even though she’s clearly talented, Durbin just sort of fades into Garland’s shadow, doesn’t she? Garland really brought it (and kept her contract). Who knows? On a different day, Durbin might have ended up playing Dorothy!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.