Talking Entertainment: Shirley Temple, Gone But Not Forgotten

Kipp Whittaker | Feb 14, 2014 3:00 pm | Add a comment | 2653 reads

With the recent passing of American child film star Shirley Temple, we were surprised to learn just how popular she was here in China. The LA Times wrote this week that forty years after retiring from Hollywood in the 80‘s and after her second career as a diplomat, “her star was enjoying an improbable -- and meteoric -- rise.”

After China started opening up to the west, state run television would screen translated family friendly foreign films, and who could be more deliciously family friendly than Mrs. Temple. All of her depression era films were dubbed into Mandarin, creating a new fan base on the opposite side of the world.

As a diplomat, Shirley Temple Black visited China in 1977 and made her presence felt, but part of her influence stemmed from a little Hollywood magic as seen in the 1936 20th Century Fox motion Picture, Stowaway.

In the film, Temple plays Barbara "Chin-Ching" Stewart, an orphan living in Sanchow, China, and accidentally becomes a stowaway on a rich playboy's ship. After being discovered, she plays cupid for the other protagonists of the film that would eventually adopt her in this rags to riches story. In making the film, Temple learned 40 Mandarin Chinese characters, later saying that the process required about six months of instruction.

In keeping with the practice of worshipping temples in China, Trouble Bar will be celebrating the life of Shirley Temple this week with the various namesake cocktails that have been created with her in mind. Customers who are able to answer trivia questions about her life will receive a free taste. So get over there soon and check it out.

Shirley Temple is but one of the few Western actors that are beloved by Chinese audiences. Here is an interesting list of the top ten foreign thespians, provided by China Daily, who have conquered the hearts of the Chinese people throughout the years. A couple of them might surprise you.

In sitcom news, The Global Times reported that the fourth season of the domestically made iPartment was released to online video platforms last month, and has continued to break web-cast records. On the first day of its release, there were over 200 million views, and by the season finale over 1.72 billion people were following the program. This is shattering previous records, proving that the video streaming platform is becoming the most important platform for a television series in China.

More ways to entertain yourself this week: