Last Stop for the Good Ship Lollipop

Or

Temple of Doom

 

Or

Black Out

 

Or

Last Stop for Curly Top

(Kudos to Kirsti)

 

Or

Shirley You Can't Be Serious

(Additional accolades for Kirsti)

 

Or

Head Redhead Dead

(Further fanfare for Kirsti)

 

Or

Czeched Out?

(Tip o’ the cap to Brian Hight)

 

Or

Paint it Black

(Can I get a whoop whoop for Steve?)

Rough times continue for the State Department, as a popular former ambassador has died, and Republicans demand hearings on what the Obama Administration could have done to prevent it. Shirley Temple Black, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time, set a high mark for child stars by not getting addicted to anything and having a successful life once the applause died down that few child stars who followed even came close to matching. Tap dancing, singing and smiling in 23 movies in the 1930s, Temple openly mocked a national laid low by the Depression. The stunned and masochistic nation made her the most popular movie star in America from 1935 to 1939, while she received more mail than Greet Garbo and was photographed more often than Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even dancing in several films with an elderly black man, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who would remain a close friend of Temple’s until his death, could not shake a segregated nation’s fascination with the ebullient wonder. She appeared in 50 films by the time she was 10, but the nation lost interest once adolescence set in, not unlike the Catholic Church and altar boys. Although she appeared in a few decent movies after her America’s sweetheart phase, such as The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer and the John Wayne-John Ford-Henry Fonda epic Fort Apache (opposite her soon to be ex-husband John Agar), Temple was basically washed up by the time she hit puberty, with her last big-screen appearance coming in A Kiss for Corliss at the age of 21. Rather than sign autographs at car shows for the rest of her life or sue for residuals from the sickeningly sweet non-alcoholic beverage invented by The Brown Derby in her honor, she embarked on one of the most surprising second acts in American history, being named a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1969, ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976 (an appointment that outraged some career diplomats, many of whom later conceded her performance was exemplary), US Chief of Protocol from 1976 to 1977, then ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992, where her sunny optimism brought down Communism. America so loved Temple that even her press conference to discuss her mastectomy in 1972 drew rave reviews, and she was lauded for helping to make it acceptable to discuss breast cancer.

No More Shining Future

Or

One Hundred Men and a Corpse

Deanna Durbin, the Canadian Shirley Temple, has died at the age of 91. Like Temple, Durbin was a singing and dancing child movie star during the Depression, so successful that she saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy. Like Temple, she disappeared from public view after her young adult career failed to match her child star days – Durbin by moving to France, Temple by working at the UN. Durbin hit start status with her first film, Three Smart Girls and played wholesome, spunky, can-do kid sisters and daughters who would fix their adult’s screw-ups. in a total of 21 movies over the next 12 years before abruptly retiring. In 1938, she got a mini Oscar for “significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.” At her peak in 1946, she was the second-highest paid woman in America – at $323,477, just $5,000 behind Bette Davis.

Keiko the Bucket

Or
Fin-ished
In the tale of yet another child actor who couldn’t handle life after the spotlight had faded, Free Willy star Keiko died after contracting pneumonia at the age of 27. His rapid rise to fame and fall from grace is a whale of a tale. Taken from his native Iceland to a shabby Mexican water park, Keiko was found and starred in three Free Willy movies. International blubbering led to his return to Iceland, where after a time in captivity, orca-nizers released him into the wild. But how you gonna keep him down on the farm after he’s seen Paree? Keiko made a B-line for Norway and human contact, and he continued to bask in his fame, as tourists and locals fed him and lured him inland. Scientists believe this abandonment of his natural lifestyle may have lowered his immune system, and ultimately led to his flushing.

Deep-Sixed

Jonathan Brandis, '90s teen hearthrob but unable to turn that into an adult career, died in an apparent suicide last week at the age of 27. Brandis was responsible for the Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter, Ladybugs and played Lucas Wolenczek, boy genius, on two seasons of the underwater sci-fi series, SeaQuest DSV. In his defense…. yeah, I got nothing. Brandis reportedly attempted suicide November 11, but the story didn't break until yesterday. One fan website reported a conversation with the LA coroner's office, where the coroner said he had received dozens of phone calls from fans, but nary a one from the media. A suicide, probably due at least in part to a career no one cared about, that goes unnoticed and unreported for more than a week? Talk about adding insult to injury.