Shirley Temple Black, former Hollywood child star, dies at 85

Shirley Temple Black, who lifted America's spirits as a bright-eyed, dimpled child movie star during the Great Depression and later became a U.S. diplomat, died late on Monday at the age of 85, a family spokeswoman said in a statement.

Temple Black, who lured millions to the movies in the 1930s, "peacefully passed away" at her California home from natural causes, surrounded by her family and caregivers, the statement said on Tuesday.

"We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat and most importantly as our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and adored wife of 55 years," the statement said.

As actress Shirley Temple, she was precocious, bouncy and adorable with a head of curly hair, tap-dancing through songs like "On the Good Ship Lollipop." As Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, she was soft-spoken and earnest in postings in Ghana and what was then Czechoslovakia, out to disprove concerns that her previous career made her a diplomatic lightweight.

"I have no trouble being taken seriously as a woman and a diplomat here," Black said after her appointment as ambassador to Ghana in 1974. "My only problems have been with Americans who, in the beginning, refused to believe I had grown up since my movies."

Black, born April 23, 1928, started her entertainment career in the early 1930s and was famous by age 6. She became a national institution, and her raging popularity spawned look-alike dolls, dresses and dozens of other Shirley Temple items as she became one of the first stars to enjoy the fruits of the growing marketing mentality.

Shirley was 3 when her mother put her in dance school, where a talent scout spotted her and got her in "Baby Burlesk," a series of short movies with child actors spoofing adult movies. Movie studio executives took notice, and in 1934 she appeared in the film "Stand Up and Cheer!"; her song and dance number, "Baby, Take a Bow," stole the show. In 1935 she received a special Oscar for outstanding contribution to screen entertainment.

Her child career came to an end at age 12. She tried a few roles as a teenager — including opposite future President Ronald Reagan in "That Hagen Girl" — but retired from the screen in 1949 at age 21.

Temple was only 17 in 1945 when she married for the first time, to John Agar. Their five-year marriage produced a daughter.

In 1950 she wed Charles Black — a marriage that lasted until his death in 2005. They had two children.

Shirley Temple Black's interest in politics was sparked in the early 1950s when her husband was called back into the Navy to work in Washington. She did volunteer work for the Republican Party while attempting to make a comeback with two short-lived TV series, "Shirley Temple's Storybook" in 1959 and "The Shirley Temple Theater" a year later.

Seven years after that, she ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California but stayed in politics, helping raise more than $2 million for Richard Nixon's re-election campaign.

She was later named to the United States' team to the United Nations. Sometimes the public found it hard to accept her in diplomatic roles. In 1989 she pointed out her 20 years in public service were more than the 19 she spent in Hollywood.

In 1974, Gerald Ford appointed Black ambassador to Ghana and two years later made her chief of protocol. For the next decade she trained newly appointed ambassadors at the request of the State Department.

In 1989, George H.W. Bush made Black ambassador to Czechoslovakia — a sensitive Eastern European post normally reserved for career diplomats. 

In 1972, Black was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. She publicly discussed her surgery to educate women about the disease.

Reuters