Shirley Temple was one child star who grew up without the prescribed train wreck. She survived breast cancer--long before the Susan G Komen Foundation--and even spoke of her mastectomy from her recovery bed and urged other women to check themselves and not be afraid. She served her country as an ambassador and diplomat throughout the world. But who can forget her sweet face, ringlet curly hair and age-appropriate dancing in the early movies?
I can still hear her voice coming from an old record player sitting in the corner of the Grange Hall in Gilroy, California, with a tap dancing teacher (who for all I knew may have worked with Shirley temple in those early days of film) shouting out the steps...hands on knees, bounce, point, point, bounce....♫ monkey and rabbits...loop to loop...gosh, oh gee, but I have fun, swallowing animals one by one.♫
My favorite comment made by her family after her passing Monday night was that for all the wonderful things she did in her life, it was really WHO she was to them that made the difference in the world. She was their mother, grandmother, a wife of 55 years. Ultimately, that is what we will each be gauged by...who we were to others.
I'm sad to hear of her passing, but glad I got to see a Hollywood success story, and a lovely women who lived--from what I could see on the outside--true to herself once the glamor of the movies shook off of her.
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