5 Things You May Not Know About Google Doodle Subject Shirley Temple

Anyone tapping into Alphabet’s GOOGL GOOG Google search engine on June 9 would have found a Doodle illustration celebrating Shirley Temple.

According to Google, the child movie star who grew up to be a diplomat was being honored because the Santa Monica History Museum exhibition called “Love, Shirley Temple” opened to the public on June 9, 2015.

While fans of old-time movies may recall Temple’s classic big-screen work, there was a great deal more to her life’s experience than singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and tap dancing with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Here are five facts about the movie moppet you may never have previously known.

1. Shirley Temple Was Never Sought For “The Wizard Of Oz”: For many years, an urban legend was spun that insisted Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer initially planned its big-budget musical version of “The Wizard of Oz” with Temple playing Dorothy, but she didn’t get the role because she was under contract at rival studio 20th Century Fox, which refused to make her available.

In reality, “Oz” producer Mervyn LeRoy always envisioned MGM contract player Judy Garland for Dorothy. Fox sought to make its own “Oz” with Temple via the 1940 “The Blue Bird,” a Technicolor epic that turned out to be her first box office flop.

2. Shirley Temple Eventually Wound Up In Oz: In 1960, the 32-year-old Temple was starring in her own children’s television series that adapted classic stories for the small screen. The first episode produced that season was “The Land of Oz,” based on the L. Frank Baum series.

There was no Dorothy in this tale, and Temple played Princess Ozma, who is turned by the witch Mombi into a boy servant. The episode was shot in color with an all-star cast including Agnes Moorehead as Mombi, Jonathan Winters as Lord General Nikidik, Ben Blue as Scarecrow and Sterling Holloway as Jack Pumpkinhead.

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3. A Corporate Board Pioneer: After stepping away from acting in the early 1960s, the star insisted on being known as Shirley Temple Black — the additional surname coming from her marriage to business executive Charles Black.

She also began to tap into her fame by breaking one of the most obvious glass ceilings: corporate boards, which had been an overwhelmingly all-male domain.

Temple Black became a prominent member on the boards of such diverse organizations as Walt Disney Co DIS, Del Monte Foods, Fireman’s Fund Insurance and the National Wildlife Federation. Admittedly, her celebrity gave her access to this previously exclusive world, but her presence sent a message women were more than capable of taking on the significant responsibilities that come with board membership.

4. A Career Change Via Party Talk: Temple Black threw her hat into the political ring in 1967 as a Republican candidate for Congress. She lost the race, but an unlikely encounter during the campaign ultimately changed her life.

At a fundraising party, Temple Black voiced her concern over how the apartheid government of South Africa was ruling over its South West Africa territory. Her remarks were overheard by a little-known foreign policy consultant who was surprised to hear the subject being addressed with such passion and insight.

The consultant was Henry Kissinger, and when he joined Richard Nixon’s presidential administration, Temple Black was recruited to serve in the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. Temple Black would go on to become U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia and was the first woman to serve as U.S. Chief of Protocol.

5. Breaking The Breast Cancer Taboo: Today, it is difficult to imagine open discussions about breast cancer were considered unsuitable for media coverage. Temple Black broke that taboo with a 1973 McCall’s magazine interview which offered a frank and in-depth discussion of her fight against breast cancer and her subsequent mastectomy.

So, those walkathons and fundraising events aimed to raise funds for breast cancer research and treatments can be traced to the one-time child star whose candor and courage put the spotlight on the disease.

(The June 9 Google Doodle honoring Shirley Temple. Image courtesy of Google.)