Shirley Temple Black, the dimpled child star of the Great Depression era who later became a U.S. ambassador to Ghana, died late Monday at age 85 in her California home, Reuters reports.
As an actress, Temple was precocious, tap-dancing to songs like “On The Good Ship Lollipop” and bouncing her way into audiences hearts.
Temple ranks 18th on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest female American
screen legends of all time, according to Wikipedia. Her child movie career ended when she was 12, and though she continued to act, she retired from the screen in 1949 at age 21.
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six,” Temple recalled, according to TheGuardian. “Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked me for my autograph.”
As Ghana Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, she was soft spoken and earnest, determined to disprove concerns that her child star career made her a diplomatic lightweight, Reuters reports.
Temple Black admits the public found it hard to accept her in diplomatic roles. However her 20 years in public service exceeded the 19 she spent in Hollywood.
In 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed Temple Black ambassador to Ghana. She served until 1976. Two years later he made her chief of protocol. For the next decade she trained newly appointed ambassadors at the request of the State Department.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush made Black ambassador to Prague — a sensitive Eastern European post normally reserved for career diplomats.
Temple got her first ambassador appointment (to Ghana) after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger heard her talk about Namibia at a party and, in her words, was “surprised that I even knew the word,” 680News reports.
She had to prove herself repeatedly at a time when few women got such posts,
let along pretty former actresses. But she earned the respect of colleagues and world
leaders, according to 680News.
Temple Black ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for Congress in 1967 in support of the Vietnam War, and served in Richard Nixon’s administration as a member of the delegation to the U.N. General Assembly.
During the Ronald Reagan presidency — she also co-starred with him — she served as a State Department trainer. In the first Bush administration, she was ambassador to
Czechoslovakia during the historic days when the Iron Curtain fell.
“After I heard her speak, I realized that Shirley Temple has not rested on her laurels as a child movie star,” Saudi Arabian Ambassador Jamil Baroody said in 1969, according to 680News. “She has emerged as a sincere activist and an exponent of youth and its aspirations.”
Temple Black had to defend her appointment as ambassador to Ghana after it was announced in 1974.
“There are many of us who should be in a position to bring peace to the world. … Most of the people in Ghana wouldn’t know me as an actress. They’d know me for my work at the U.N.,” she said.
In 1975, Ghana’s new ambassador showed up for work in a Ghanaian outfit — printed cotton head scarf and gown — and startled embassy pros by discussing the economy in great detail, the Associated Press reported from Accra, 680News reports.
“The poise, charm and hard work that made her one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood in her childhood has won Uncle Sam unexpected box office appeal in West Africa,” the AP reported at the time.
Four days after Temple arrived in Ghana, she presented her credentials to the Ghanaian head of state, Colonel Ignatius Acheampong.
She described the experience as “probably the most thrilling moment of my life,”according to ShirleyTempleFans. “Standing alone in a little canopied setting with the Ghanaian Air Force band playing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was almost too much. I was covered in gooseflesh. Then the talking drums of welcome really covered me with gooseflesh: the talking drums go all the way to the pit of your stomach.”
During her Ghana ambassadorship, “there are no major problems in U.S.-Ghana relations and the feelings are good,” she said. However, she was concerned with problems in Ghana including the country’s unsuccessful quest for its own oil in view of world oil prices, worldwide inflation, and debts left over from the regime of Kwame Nkrumah.
It was hoped that the government’s Operation Feed Yourself program would reduce the country’s dependence on imports, Temple said. Temple was especially interested in providing anti-measles vaccines and other health aids to Ghanaians.
“My job is to stimulate American action here, and to look after the interest of my country in trade and diplomacy in Ghana. I’d like to see more done in terms of health assistance, particularly maternal child care, and in trying to encourage U.S. business interests to get involved,” she said, according to ShirleyTempleFans.
Temple described a grueling work day in her job as Ghana Ambassador. “I work a 17 hour day, and I’m personally responsible for 108 staff members in the embassy,” she said. “If anything goes wrong, I’m to blame. And if there are sudden developments, I’d have to make split-second decisions and they’d have to be the right ones.
“It’s a tremendous work load but I have no regrets. I’ve not been bored for an instant. My
biggest problem is that I rise at 6 a.m. and work steadily all day.
“At night there is almost always an official function that I must attend. And in Ghana everyone eats late; dinner seldom starts before 9 p.m. I get very little sleep, but I still feel so robust I sometimes wear everybody else out.”
During Temple’s ambassadorship to Ghana, the government of Ghana was stable, and the country’s relationship with the U.S. was secure, according to ShirleyTempleFans.
