The well known stereotype of the relentlessly pushy, control-freakish Stage Mother is mostly based on Judy Garland’s mother Ethel Gumm and to a lesser degree Rose Hovick, mother of Gypsy Rose Lee. Ethel Gumm had Judy and her sisters Mary Jane and Virgina on stage performing since Judy was two years old.
Judy inherited her singing ability from her father, Frank Gumm. During Judy’s childhood, Frank Gumm lost several jobs due to reports of his relationships with men. This would cause Frank to uproot the whole family and move to yet another small town.
While mothers were generally kept off the immediate sound-stage during these disciplinary actions, Temple’s mother, Gertrude, operated within the harsh realities of the 1930s Hollywood studio system.
Gertrude was fiercely protective of Shirley in many ways—monitoring her daughter constantly and even refusing to leave her alone on a set after an incident where a director frightened Shirley to make her cry—yet she and other parents of child actors had virtually no creative or operational control over the studio’s on-set methods, like the black box.
Temple herself noted that the punishment was harsh and caused physical discomfort like earaches, but
it taught a stark lesson about discipline and the value of time in the professional world of film-making.