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Factbox : Facts about Shirley Temple Black, former ambassador, child star

(Reuters) - Before she was Ambassador Shirley Temple Black in Czechoslovakia and Ghana, she was little Shirley Temple, the precocious dimpled child actress whose movies helped Americans temporarily forget the misery of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
/ Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Before she was Ambassador Shirley Temple Black in Czechoslovakia and Ghana, she was little Shirley Temple, the precocious dimpled child actress whose movies helped Americans temporarily forget the misery of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Following are facts about Black:

* Temple's superstardom made her one of the first celebrities to be widely marketed. Dolls were manufactured in her image and dresses like the ones she wore on screen became popular. Her face adorned everything from collectible plates and playing cards to jewelry and coloring books. Even a non-alcoholic cocktail (grenadine, ginger ale and a cherry) was named for her.

* Temple's co-stars included Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Buddy Ebsen, Cary Grant, Lionel Barrymore, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Jimmy Durante.

* Her first movies were part of the "Baby Burlesk" series in which toddler actors starred in spoofs of adult movies.

* When she showed up in Prague in 1989 as U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia Shirley Temple Black, President Gustav Husak told her he was a fan of her movies. Black had been in Prague in 1968 for a conference when Soviet tanks rolled in to quash a communist reform movement.

* Her hair was always styled in 56 ringlets for her movies.

(Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Rosalind Russell)