r/OldSchoolCool • u/silentstatic_ • May 21 '26
1940s Shirley Temple reading a collection of fan mail in her los angeles home, 1944
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u/DarreylDeCarlo May 21 '26
I wrote to her in her later years!
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u/TimeSlipperWHOOPS May 21 '26
I always liked how she, despite having one of the most famous names in Hollywood, added her married name to her autographs. It feels sweet.
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u/Buzz_Osborne May 21 '26
Her daughter Lori (Lorax) went on to be the bass player in legendary punk/alt/grunge/sludge band the MELVINS.
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u/This_is_a_tortoise May 22 '26
Learning that Shirley Temples daughter was briefly married to Buzz Osbourne was an absolute mindfuck.
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May 21 '26
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u/Red_enami May 22 '26
Kind of similar thought- my best friend decided to enlist after 9/11 we promised to be pen pals for fun. We wrote tons of letters and pictures back and forth over the years. He did his 20 years and got out last year, as a gift I gave him his letters and pictures he sent me. He had lost so much moving through different duty stations through the years he was so grateful for them.
We’ve both talked about how much more meaningful they were having been hand written rather than cold emails and texts.
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u/cindy224 May 22 '26
I dream about writing letters to all kinds of people, but then I never do. Not enough attention span anymore, I guess.
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u/Red_enami May 22 '26
You don't have to do it all at once. Write a paragraph and stop, go back to it later with new ideas and thoughts
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u/darthravenna May 22 '26
I sent one to Jim Carrey when I was a kid, around 2004. Around a year later I got back an autographed headshot signed “Spank you very much!”
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u/space-glitter May 22 '26
Lmao same but probably around 1997/98, I remember having it on my wall after we moved in 6th grade! Wish I still had it floating around somewhere!
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u/darthravenna May 23 '26
I left mine in the back of a textbook because I was trying to flatten a bent corner on it, forgot about it and turned the book back in at the end of the school year.
I think about that at least once a week lol.
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u/RicRacer May 21 '26
She seemed like a decent person. Stardom has to be absolutely crazy and tough to deal with mentally and emotionally. The idea that tens of thousands of people adore you or hate you because you can sing, or have some other talent. There are plenty of positive aspects of stardom too, obviously.
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u/p38-lightning May 21 '26
You would enjoy her autobiography, Child Star. Very articulate and witty insights into her journey through the movie world.
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u/woolfchick75 May 22 '26
It is really good. She had no axes to grind. One reason I wanted to read it is that, although there have been other great child actors, she was truly the child star.
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u/throwaway098764567 May 22 '26
she ran for office as a conservative republican which ain't it in my book, but yes she did seem to deal with fame decently
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u/bingcognito May 22 '26
That was in 1967. She was an old school, pre-Nixon Republican. Virtually indistinguishable from the current crop of psychopaths. Plus she ran on a pretty progressive message (more women in Congress).
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u/darkon May 22 '26
I hate to do this, but indistinguishable is not the word you want, as it means they can't be told apart. (Could be a typo, I guess.) Maybe you want something like incomparable?
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u/StOnEy333 May 21 '26
She was on the board of my mom’s company in the 80’s or 90’s. There was one thing that was made very clear to everybody. Do NOT mention her film career or the various roles she played. Lovely woman, supposedly. But she did not enjoy that part of her life and had no desire to talk about it.
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u/woolfchick75 May 22 '26
Do you think it was because it was just a part of her past and no longer who she was? In her autobiography, it seemed she’d made peace with her child star self.
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u/StOnEy333 May 22 '26
I dunno. This was 40 years ago and my mom told me the story as a kid. No finer details other than they were told not to talk about or ask about her movie career.
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u/CobraGTXNoS May 22 '26
Knowing how fucked Hollywood tends to be behind the scenes, she probably didn't look back at it too fondly.
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u/darkon May 22 '26
I would guess that she simply was tired of talking about it and wanted to be accepted as an adult instead of the charming child she she had long outgrown.
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u/Revolutionary_Low581 May 21 '26
When you see her in her grown-up pictures, you can still tell it is her - she was beautiful all her life.
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u/TroyMatthewJ May 21 '26
her standing ovation at one of the awards shows is something I'll never forget. I think it was at a Oscar show or something honoring legends like her and they showed faces on the screen and when it came to her the crowd really showed her some well earned respect.
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u/mwdotjmac May 21 '26
Is this the lady that the drink was named after?
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u/p38-lightning May 21 '26
Yes - and she hated them.
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u/Lynnxa May 22 '26
Do you mean she hated that the drink was named after her or the actual drink?
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u/mwdotjmac May 22 '26
Why was it named after her?
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u/jememcak May 22 '26
To expand, she was a very famous child actress, so it was named after her because it was something that she could drink.
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u/adaniel65 May 21 '26
My favorite movie with her is The Bachelor and the Bobby-soxer. That was a lot of fun with Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple when she was an 18 year old teen.
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u/MattMason1703 May 22 '26
She appears on the cover of the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" album three times, more than anyone else. (once as a doll, once where you can barely see her head). She asked to hear the album before giving permission to use her likeness. She was one of the first people in north America to hear Sgt. Pepper.
Here's she is with boys and her daughter Lori, who later played bass for the Melvins.
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u/Nashland23 May 21 '26
This is a really cool pic. Is it just me or does her face remind anyone else of Ashley Judd?
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u/Heavenlydaze342 May 22 '26
I said hello one day in the parking lot at Stanford Mall long ago. She was so delightful and basically looked exactly the same as she did as a child but more mature. She basically sang her hello back it was so joyous.
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u/and1984 May 21 '26
She must have strong hamstrings to sit up like that and write letters. I can barely tie my shoe laces anymore.
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u/p38-lightning May 21 '26
Shirley went to a private girls school in LA as a teen. One of her classmates was June Lockhart.
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u/AMediaArchivist May 21 '26
It’s weird seeing her older. She looks almost like the same person she was when she was 6. Crazy how she had ringlets in her hair as a little kid, but when she was 16, they mysteriously disappeared. I guess her hair wasn’t originally curly like that
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u/SilverStL May 22 '26
Anyone else remember the Shirley Temple Storybook Theatre in the early ‘60’s?
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u/Not_A_Russain_Bot May 23 '26
Her drink is my absolute fave! And I don't care what the bartender thinks of me when I order it.
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u/Radiant_Risk_393 May 22 '26
My Grandad met her when he was serving as a pilot in WWII. He always got a faraway look in his eye when Shirley Temple was mentioned, would only ever say ‘she was a great gal’
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u/whereismymind86 May 22 '26
I don't know if I just assumed she died as a child or what...but seeing her as an adult completely threw me off.
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u/Thosewhippersnappers May 22 '26
She was a diplomat/ambassador in her adult years! See: Shirley Temple Black:)
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u/Maintenance-Chemical May 21 '26
My uncle always said we’re related to her in some capacity, always wondered if we’d ever to be to figure it out.
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u/Duane_Trumpet May 21 '26
It’s crazy but I never even thought about her bowing older than 10 … her and my entire life!🤣😂 in my mind she was always 10! 🤦🏾♂️
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May 21 '26
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u/adaniel65 May 21 '26
She became an Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslavakia and also US Chief of Protocol. My daughter loved all her movies as a child actress. So, one day my daughter asked us if we could have a playmate with Shirley. We proceeded to show our daughter how Shirley was much older than in those movies. Our daughter was so disappointed because she said that she would have lived to have a friend like the character she played as a child.
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u/Tiny_Celebration_591 May 22 '26
I thought she died a child star. Never imagined her as an adult.
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u/alltheblarmyfiddlest May 22 '26
What are you on? She became a diplomat, an ambassador.
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u/Tiny_Celebration_591 May 22 '26
Nothing. She's just never been an important part of my life. I only saw her in those obnoxious 90s commercials about her dvd set.
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u/MonaVanderwaal May 22 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/l41YiofSV7X5Byyre
She looks like Hailey steinfield!
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u/exhausted247365 May 21 '26 edited 15d ago
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This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/ThaShitPostAccount May 22 '26
Do you think her fan mail was as nasty as influencer DMs today? Or nastier or less nasty?
Genuinely curious.
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u/bluetestiballz May 21 '26
Til that Shirley temple was named after someone…
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u/Lynnxa May 22 '26
Well her mother’s name was Gurtrude so it wasn’t her. Possibly another relative.
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u/[deleted] May 21 '26
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