EXCLUSIVE: Marty Tudor has been working with the family estate of Shirley Temple and will have access to the rights of the child actress-turned Ghana and Czechoslovakia ambassador across streaming, film, stage and more. There are also two unpublished autobiographies by Temple which Tudor is helping the estate get published.
The life of Temple, who was discovered dancing in a theater lobby by Fox Film songwriter Jay Gorney, is largely an untapped IP; one prolific adaptation of her life was the 2001 Disney Channel movie, Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story. That was based on Temple’s autobiography of the same name and it starred Connie Britton.
Tudor is an industry vet, who managed the careers of Paula Abdul and Jon Cryer, and of late has been behind a series of Hologram concert shows starting in 2018 with performances by the late Maria Callas, Roy Orbison, and Whitney Houston. Hiss Orbison-Buddy Holly hologram tour was booked for 58 dates while Houston’s was a 36-date tour in Europe. Tudor’s credits include the Cryer movie Hiding Out, the 1995 TV movie Sahara, the 2004 TV special Carol Burnett: Let’s Bump Up the Lightsand the 2005 Disney TV movie, Once Upon a Mattress starring Burnett, Zooey Deschanel and Tracey Ullman.
Temple began her film career in 1931. The 1934 movie Bright Eyes put her on the map as a singing child star with her signature ditty “On the Good Ship Lollipop”. In 1935, she received a miniature Juvenile Oscar. She did segue to roles as a teenager, notably starring opposite Cary Grant in 1947’s The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer which won an Oscar for Sidney Sheldon’s adapted screenplay. Sheldon would go on to create the 1960s hit series I Dream of Jeannie and the 1979-early 1980s series Hart to Hart. Temple’s last movie was the 1949 comedy A Kiss for Corliss opposite David Niven. She hosted Shirley Temple’s Storybook from 1958-1961 before beginning her diplomatic career in 1969. Her friends included former FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover who gifted her a tear gas pen at the age of 20 to help protect her against any death threats. She also befriended Amelia Earhart; the duo reportedly known for their discussions about feminism, Hamlet and chewing gum. Temple as a child learned geography by tracing Earhart’s flights.
“There’s so much more to American icon Shirley Temple’s life that people aren’t aware of. She was the US delegate in the United Nations, a female Ambassador to Ghana and Czechslovakia, she was a breast cancer survivor, she fought sexism as the first female US Chief of Protocol. What appeals to me, as a father of a daughter, is that Shirley continues to be an amazing inspiration and role model for young girls. We see a lot of kid actors who go the wrong way, she did not. There’s an amazing human being here with a big story who gave back as opposed to a pop star in it for the glory,” Tudor tells Deadline.
The Temple Black family tells Deadline in a statement: “As the 100th anniversary of our Mom’s birthday approaches, we are so pleased at the idea of sharing with the world the lesser-known second half of her incredible life story. She often observed that ‘the Little Girl opened the door’, but then our Mom stepped through it, confident, courageous, authentic – all grown up.”
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