She appeared in 29 films from the ages of 3 to 10 but in only 14 films from the ages of 14 to 21. Temple retired from film in 1950 at the age of 22.

Like many women born in the 1900s, I grew up wishing I could be all that this child star joyfully represented. She was so very real to us in every movie we saw. 

There is so much delightful information and videos available still which will keep her alive for years to come and hopefully be introduced to the children and grandchildren yet to come. 

She was always represented as a precocious child who almost always pulled our heart strings and made us smile whether she was singing, dancing or just sticking up for the underdog in a very special way. Hollywood wasn't always kind to our Beloved Shirley Temple Black. But she thrived until her death at age 85. 

As I got older and had had a few of my own experiences with men taking my affectionate gestures as an opening to take more liberties, I often worried about her being a child actor in a man’s world where it wasn’t uncommon for those in power to demand “extras” for helping her reach stardom. I am happy to know that she was strong willed enough to nip most of these in the bud and focus on the joy of her work. 

Only when she decided to give up acting to pursue an education did she find out that her parents, mainly her father had mishandled the fortune she had acquired through all her work, and she only had a very small percentage of it for her future. Being that Shirley was in real life much like her characters, she said in her biography, “I felt neither disappointment nor anger.”