“Outside, there was ‘the shriek of a low-flying jet plane…distant shouts in the street and a rattle of gunfire.’ A member of the hotel staff had come to warn her of the invasion. The country was in the midst of the Prague Spring, with citizens protesting for freedom from the strict repression of the USSR.Īsleep in her hotel room in Prague, Temple was “was soon awakened by a hammering at her door,” Edwards writes. She had been to Czechoslovakia in August of 1968 to meet with the country’s reforming leader, Alexander Dubček, on behalf of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, of which she was cofounder. It was a particularly sensitive post to a Communist country just as Communism was crumbling all over Eastern Europe. In 1989, President George Bush named Temple ambassador to Czechoslovakia. “The door was immediately opened, and Gertrude whispered, ‘Don’t cry!’ … It was an early lesson.” “On a publicity tour, a mayor had accidentally slammed a car door on three of her fingers,” Edwards writes. She claimed her childhood had more than prepared her for a life in diplomacy. According to Edwards, after Gerald Ford named Temple ambassador to Ghana in 1974, Kissinger quipped he had always wanted to “get movie stars into a position where they had to come when I called them, and now that I’ve solved the problem, I’m married.” Temple’s toughest critic would be legendary Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He was especially proud of Temple’s entry into politics in the 1960s, leading wags to dub him “the consort.”īut Temple would soon find the world of politics and diplomacy just as tough as the movie business. I think she’s some sort of deity…and I support her in everything she does,” Black said, per Edwards. “Her whole life has been spent in various types of public service, either by entertaining people or by serving them. The couple would forge an enormously successful marriage, which lasted until Black’s death in 2005. She then gave her husband a hug, and the press a knowing wink. Black,” Temple quipped, according to Edwards. At a press conference to announce the marriage, she declared that after 19 years, she was quitting movies. Then she let me have it in the same area I’d attacked the first lady.”ĭespite her assault of the first lady, Temple would later claim Eleanor as one of her childhood heroes: “I think she influenced me, got me interested in human rights and human dignity for all people.”Īfter a short marriage at the age of 17 to actor John Agar, Temple wed San Francisco blue blood Charles Alden Black in 1950. But no one saw me do it except my mother, and she didn’t blow the whistle on me until we got back to the hotel. She jumped quite smartly, and the Secret Service men assigned to her were extremely upset for a while. I hit her with a pebble from my slingshot. Roosevelt bending over, I couldn’t resist. ![]() ![]() “I was in my little dress with the puffed sleeves and white shoes and had this very feminine lace purse-which contained the slingshot I always carried with me. Roosevelt was bending over an outdoor grill cooking some hamburgers for us,” Temple remembered, according to Edwards. They eventually gave in and were won over by the charming Roosevelts, with Temple perhaps getting a bit too comfortable. According to Edwards, as staunch Republicans, her parents were initially wary of accepting the Democrats’ invitation. Temple got into even more mischief when her family was invited to a cookout with the president and first lady at their Hyde Park home. “Pretending she was her mother (which I am sure fooled no one!) she ordered ice cream sent in from the Chez Paris,” the studio commissary. ![]() “There was a daybed with a white phone beside it,” Cary recalled. Writer Diana Serra Cary, a former child star known as Baby Peggy, recalled meeting Temple in her studio bungalow. Although she worked six days a week to crank out the content Americans so desperately needed, Temple still found time to be a (somewhat) normal kid.
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