This week's edition of Cinema Chat, Michigan Theater Director, Russ Collins sits down to talk with WEMU's Program Director, Patrick Campion to talk about about the latest upcoming movies downtown and around town. The conversation starts with a discussion on the impact of Shirley Temple on film and American culture.
Listen here:
Cinema Chat is a regular feature heard each Thursday during Morning Edition on 89.1 WEMU.
SHIRLEY TEMPLE A GREAT, PINT-SIZED MOVIE STAR
Shirley Temple, Hollywood’s most famous child star ever, has died in Woodside, CA at the age of 85. The cause of death was not disclosed. She made her first appearance on the screen at the age of 3, and by the time she turned 13, she had already appeared in 46 feature films. She made seven movies in 1934 alone, including Bright Eyes, in which she sang the song with which she was most closely identified, “The Good Ship Lollipop.” She did a memorable tap dance with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in the Civil War musical The Little Colonel. During the Great Depression, She was the top box-office attraction from 1935 through 1938. At one point, President Franklin Roosevelt famously declared, “As long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.” In middle age she was a diplomat to the UN and ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia and finally chief of protocol at the State Department.
