Back in 1934, in the movie Bright Eyes, a pint-sized Shirley Temple sang her heart out with “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” celebrating all kinds of sugary delights. But as she grew older, her tastes became more refined. “One night we were waiting in line to get drinks, and I joked, ‘You’re obviously not drinking a Shirley Temple,’” recalls her lifelong friend Barry Barsamian, who first met Shirley in 1996 when she was 68, speaking to Closer. “She looked up and said, ‘No! I’m having a Black Russian with vodka. I’ll call it a Shirley Temple Black!’”
Shirley, the star of Depression-era films like Wee Willie Winkie and The Little Princess, it turns out, wasn't a fan of the mocktail named after her. “She told me if you drink them, you'd risk diabetes because of all that sugar,” Barry adds, sharing insights about his friend who stepped away from show business in her 20s to pursue a career in international government relations later in life. She chronicled her extraordinary journey in her 1988 autobiography Child Star, where she also shared stories about raising her three kids.
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Now, her son, Charles Black Jr., shares that his mother had secretly written more intimate and personal memoirs intended for her fans. “Before she passed away, she completed the second volume of her autobiography,” Charles reveals, speaking of a brand-new tell-all set to release in 2018.
“She was a very private person,” Barry notes about Shirley in her later years, which makes this second autobiography all the more revealing. “She’d always tell me to call her around 10 a.m., after she’d had breakfast,” he recalls, giving insight into her dedication to the new book. “She said she was working on part two of Child Star, so we’d chat at 10 and then she’d dive into her writing for a few hours. She did this every day.”
Some secrets Shirley shared with Barry were reserved just for him. “She’d say, ‘I want you to feel honored because I don’t really talk about little Shirley with anyone except you and Michael Jackson,’” Barry recalls. “Apparently, Michael was a huge admirer and she mentioned there was a blown-up picture of her in his bedroom, which she found unusual, to say the least!”
From Child Star to Diplomat: Shirley's Journey
As a former child star himself, Michael Jackson could relate to the unique struggles Shirley faced. Born after two older brothers, Shirley was groomed by her mother, Gertrude, to be a star from day one. “When Shirley was in her crib, Gertrude would say, ‘Sparkle, Shirley!’ and Shirley would sparkle!” Marilyn Granas, 90, Shirley’s first film stand-in, tells Closer. “She was an extraordinary child — extremely bright and immensely talented.”
Still, Shirley endured traumatic conditions on set. Sometimes, when separated from Gertrude by a producer during filming, she was placed alone in a freezing-cold box. “Being a starlet was tough, and I was a starlet from three-and-a-half to five years of age,” Shirley shared, recalling the incident involving other kids her age. “When any of us misbehaved, we were sent one by one into the black box to cool off,” Shirley explained, describing a sound box that held a big block of ice. “I was in the dark with the door closed. I got a lot of earaches, styes, and other issues from it. The lesson was time is money. And it’s work, not play.”
