Tributes are pouring in from Hollywood following the death of original child star Shirley Temple.
Temple, who enjoyed a stellar film career before moving into politics in the 1960s, died at her home in Woodside, California from natural causes on Monday. She was 85.
Although Temple had been out of the public eye for many years, her death has sent the world of showbiz into mourning and dozens of stars have expressed their sorrow on Twitter.
Referencing Temple's most famous song, actress Whoopi Goldberg writes, "The Good Ship Lollypop (sic) has sailed today with Shirley Temple aboard a true 1 of a kind. If you don't know her.. google or YouTube her. R.I.P."
And Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin wrote, "Shirley Temple brightened spirits when the world was dark. I'll never forget her kind words to me at the Oscars. A star forever. RIP."
HOLLYWOOD STAR
Shirley Temple, the Hollywood child star captured hearts in Depression-era America with her blonde ringlets and dimpled smile, shot to stardom with songs including her signature tune On the Good Ship Lollipop.
"We announce with great sadness that ambassador Shirley Temple Black, former Hollywood child star and forever 'America's little darling', peacefully passed away at her Woodside, California, home" a family statement said.
Delighting audiences with her singing, dancing and sweet innocence at a time when money and jobs were scarce, the star of Curly Top and The Little Princess became, at six, the youngest person to win an Oscar.
Former US president Franklin D Roosevelt once declared that "as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right".
Born April 23, 1928, in Santa Monica, California, Temple made her debut in Baby Burlesques, short films that parodied the major motion pictures of the day, but in which children played the leading roles.
After the controversial films were banned in 1933, the child star turned to feature films and starred in Stand Up and Cheer the following year.
Several movies followed in the years to come, including Bright Eyes, which featured On the Good Ship Lollipop, followed by Heidi and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Egged on by her mother to "sparkle, Shirley, sparkle", she became a wildly popular child star.
She reigned at the box office from 1936 to 1938, and starred in more than 40 movies, most of them before she turned 12 and won a juvenile Academy Award in 1935.
Though she made films as a teenager and a young woman, her career lacked the lustre it had in its early years.
CAREER IN POLITICS
During the administration of Ronald Reagan - her former co-star - she served as a State Department trainer. And in the first Bush administration, she was ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the historic days when the Iron Curtain fell.
"She is like a fresh breeze that has gently blown into our midst," Saudi Arabian ambassador Jamil Baroody said in 1969.
"After I heard her speak, I realised that Shirley Temple has not rested on her laurels as a child movie star. She has emerged as a sincere activist and an exponent of youth and its aspirations."
"The pose, 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.
Temple said her interest in international work came after her brother George was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1952.
She became active in MS societies and helped found an international federation of MS groups. She said her United Nations service in the late 1960s made her more aware of the needs of the Third World.
"I felt right away that the superpowers always seemed to like talking to each other, and there weren't enough countries talking to the developing countries," she told the AP in 1975.
Temple also battled breast cancer in the early 1970s.
She wed her second husband, Charles Black, in December 1950 and she continued acting on television and radio.Black was feted by the prestigious Kennedy Center Honours in 1998, and she was named one of the greatest movie stars of all time by Premiere magazine and Entertainment Weekly.
She also figures on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Greatest Screen Legends.
Charles Black died on August 4, 2005.
Temple is survived by her three children Lori, Charlie and Susan.
