Hollywood icon Shirley Temple dead at 85

The former child actress who received an Oscar aged six, has died at age 85.

14:00 11 February 2014

Shirley Temple, Hollywood's definitive child star, has died aged 85. 

 

A superstar throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Temple was renowned for her work in films such as Curly Top and The Littlest Rebel – movies that helped save the film studio 20th Century Fox from closing. 

 

Other successful comedies and family-themed films included 'The Little Princess', 'Bright Eyes' and 'Stand Up and Cheer'. 

 

Temple was awarded a special Juvenile Oscar Award "in grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934."  She was just six-years-old at the time. 

 

Her transition to adulthood did not see the same box office successes, prompting Temple to retire from cinema aged 21 in 1950. While a brief TV stint would follow in the next decade, Temple concentrated on a career move into politics. 

 

Temple went on to be a Republican candidate for Congress and an acclaimed US diplomat, eventually becoming ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. 

 

Temple’s family released a statement: "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 for 55 years of the late and much missed Charles Alden Black."

 

Temple leaves behind three children from two marriages.