American actress Shirley Temple dies at 85

Hollywood star Shirley Temple has died aged 85, her family said on Tuesday morning.

Born Shirley Temple Black on April 23, 1928, her varied career took her from being a film and television actress, singer, dancer to being appointed US ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

Temple began her film career in 1932 at the age of three, and in 1934 found international fame in Bright Eyes. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a youth to cinema before starring in hits such as Curly Top and Heidi during the mid-to-late 1930s. She was voted the top box-office attraction in a Motion Picture Herald poll for four consecutive years (1935–38). Some observers believe she peaked too soon; her star quality at the box office declined as she reached adolescence and she retired completely from films in 1950 at the age of 22.

Temple returned to show business in 1958 in a televised anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. She sat on the boards of corporations and organisations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation.

In 1967, she ran unsuccessfully for United States Congress, and was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and to Czechoslovakia in 1989. In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star. Temple is the recipient of awards and honours including Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

She is No. 18 on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest female American screen legends of all time.