Shirley Temple Black (1928 - 2014)

Shirley Temple Black
April 23, 1928 - February 10, 2014

Shirley Temple Black, Depression-era child star turned statesperson, died yesterday at the age of 85 in her Bay Area home of Woodside, according to the New York Times and others.

Her extensive body of films in the 1930s made her an international star, and she remains to this day the most successful child actor of all time. She retired from acting at the age of 22.

In the 1950s, following her marriage to Charles Alden Black, she entered politics and became a prominent fundraiser for Republicans. President Richard Nixon appointed her to be a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1969. She then served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, was President Gerald Ford's chief of protocol from 1976 to 1977, and then served as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1989 during the fall of communism.