Silver Screen (May-Oct 1934)

T em By Patricia Keats A Visit with the Cutest Kid in Pictures, on the Set of her JNJat' Movie, u~Njow and Forever" with Gary Coover and Carole Lombard. play, talking to "the other little girl," investigating the "props," and just generally radiating sunshine all over the stage. I've never seen a child with such a consistently happy disposition, and her mother says she has been like that ever since she was a tiny baby. The only trouble they ever have with her on the set is making her cry when the scene calls for it— it just goes against Shirley's nature. They put her in a chair in a corner, take "Grumpy," her teddy bear, away from her, and allow no one but her mother to speak to her. This is supposed to make Shirley melancholy, so she'll be "in the mood" for a dramatic scene which, when shown on the screen, will simply wrench your heart right out of its socket. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Like most children Shirley has "Dorothy," an imaginary little girl who always does things wrong, and "Poochie" and "Corky," two imaginary little pups who are always into mischief, so Shirley really doesn't mind so terribly much whether those old meanie grown-ups talk to her or not. But she is a child you .can reason with, and most of the time she is quite willing to cooperate— so the other day when Buster Crabbe, whom she adores, breezed onto the set for a game of "pretend" with Shirley, she gravely informed him, "Sorry, Buster, I can't play with you now. I'm being sad." Carole Lombard told me that she was frightened to death the first day she worked with Shirley (with my precocious youngster complex I can certainly appreciate that). Carole, who has been in pictures since she was fifteen, has worked with them all (and has carried the picture for most all, I may say) has never been frightened by a fellow artist before, but Miss Temple and her uncanny manner of remembering her lines simply had Carole down for awhile. Under Shirley's critical scrutiny, Carole went through one of her big scenes— and just because she wanted to show off, naturally she blew up in her lines. "Blew-up" is cinemania for "faltered." Shirley giggled and then ran and threw her arms around Carole. "Oh, you've got a Dorothy too, haven't you, Carole?" she said. And ever since then Carole and Shirley have been the best of pals because they have a "secret understanding." Every time Shirley blows up in a line —which isn't often, as she has a miraculous memory— she says: "That wasn't Shirley Temple, that was Dorothy." And then she'll wink at Carole, who has a Dorothy too. Mrs. Temple is the most sensible of mothers, a quiet, rather good-looking woman with Shirley's quick smile, and unlike most "baby star" mamas she has never once tried to "boss" the studio or direct her darling's pictures. This has endeared her to all of Shirley's directors and to the studio executives. She was married at eighteen to George F. Temple, who is now the manager of a branch of the California Bank (and that's where Shirley's pay check goes every week). There are three children, Jack who is eighteen and George who is fourteen, high school boys, and both crazy about their kid sister. Shirley was born in Santa Monica, April 23, I929, and from the time she was able to wiggle her little feet she started dancing. So the Temples sent her to a children's dancing school in Hollywood. There a "talent scout" from the Educational [Continued on page 62] The other day when Shirley was getting :'into the mood" for a scene, Buster Crabbe came in. "Sorry Bus Gary Cooper draws a picture for Shirley while Carole Lombard looks on. Shirley made "Little Miss Ma rker" with Dorothy Dell, who was killed in an auto accident. Her death was Shirley's first meeting with Grief. for September 1934 27