Little Miss Marker (1934) Wonder

Little Miss Marker is from a Damon Runyon story by the same name that had first appeared in Colliers in 1932, about a little girl who is left with a bookie as collateral for a bet.


Shirley Temple was just two years old in 1930 when her mother Gertrude noticed that she had an unusually good sense of rhythm for a toddler, and decided to enroll her in Meglin's Dance School (which had a long association with show biz: Judy Garland also went to Meglin). Not long thereafter a director, Charles Lamont from "poverty row" studio Educational Pictures, spotted Shirley at Meglin's (hiding under a piano), and offered her a contract, casting her initially in the "Baby Burlesks" short films, a series of oddly ribald spoofs of feature films starring preschool-age actors playing adult characters. The work, however, came with an eerie twist on early Hollywood child labor; Temple, when she acted up, would be given a time-out in a solitary confinement box with only a block of ice to sit on, which, years later in her autobiography, she would write off as a "profound" lesson that "Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble." Shirley's talent and ability to remember lines quickly moved her to 'star' in that series, and she soon moved up into the studio's Frolics of Youth two-reelers, playing playing Mary Lou Rogers, the little sister in a contemporary suburban family. To underwrite production costs at Educational Pictures, she and her child co-stars modeled for breakfast cereals and other products. She was lent to Tower Productions for a small role in her first feature film (The Red-Haired Alibi) in 1932 and, in 1933, to Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros. Pictures for various (mostly uncredited) bit parts. After Educational Pictures declared bankruptcy in 1933, her father managed to purchase her contract for just $25.

It was at just about that time that a Fox Films songwriter, Jay Gorney, spotted her dancing in a movie theater lobby to promote a Frolics of Youth film, and offered her a screen test for the movie Stand Up and Cheer! which had a dance number titled "Baby take a Bow" he'd written that he thought she'd be perfect for. She got the part, but when she arrived at the studio on the day of the shoot, the director complained that a tight filming schedule meant that there would be no time to teach her the steps to the piece, and instead re-worked the choreography to allow her to do a routine she already knew from dance school (perhaps the same one that caught Gorney's eye at the theater). The result was that Shirley was able to dance with an uncommon confidence and abandon for a five year old - she knew the steps by heart - and the "Baby take a Bow" segment stole the movie, and landed her on every piece of the film's promotional material, posters and advertising, leading Fox to sign her to a longer and better paying contract

But Fox next cast Shirley (and, incidentally, Ginger Rogers) in a film with no dancing, Change of Heart, in which young Shirley was given just a handful of lines to speak. Shirley's mother Gertrude was furious.

She had heard though, of a part that was being cast at Paramount, a little girl's part in a Damon Runyon story that she thought would be a perfect fit for Shirley. Even before the Fox contract had come along, she'd had Shirley audition for the role. Although she'd been rejected, the part was still uncast, and filming was about to begin. This time, Gertrude, armed with good reviews of Shirley's work at Fox, managed to get Shirley in front of the film's director, Alexander Hall. Temple later recounted the audition in her autobiography:

Hall: Okay Shirley, say: "Scram!"
Shirley: "Scram!"
Hall: Say, "Get outta here!"
Shirley: "Get outta here!"
Hall: Okay!
Shirley: Okay!
Hall: No, I mean, okay, you've got the part!

Little Miss Marker turned out to be a huge hit for Paramount, and again Shirley was at the center of it. Paramount, which had taken Temple 'on loan' for the part, offered to buy out her contract for $50,000, which Fox turned down, instead offering her $1,000 per week and a bonus of $15,000 per picture (at a time when 25 cents bought a meal!). She finished up 1934 by appearing in three more films: Baby take a Bow in which she dances again with James Dunn, Now and Forever, with Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard, then finally in a movie written specifically for her, Bright Eyes, (again with James Dunn), in which she introduced the song "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and became a household name. The song sold 500,000 sheet-music copies. In February 1935, Shirley Temple became the first child star to be honored with a miniature Juvenile Oscar for her film accomplishments, and she added her footprints and handprints to the forecourt at Grauman's Chinese Theatre a month later. President Franklin Roosevelt said about Temple, "It is a splendid thing that for just fifteen cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles."

There was one sad postscript to the story: During the filming of Little Miss Marker, Shirley became very attached to, and friends with 19 year old Dorothy Dell, who played Big Steve's girlfriend Bangles. Unfortunately, Dell was killed in an auto accident shortly after making the film. The news was withheld from Shirley for as long as possible, but when Shirley was later preparing for a crying scene in Now and Forever, a member of the crew 'helpfully' told the little girl of her friend's death. Before she could even absorb the news, the director yelled action, and Shirley performed the emotional scene sincerely grief stricken by the news she'd just heard. There was no second take needed.

Most of this, mind you, took place in the course of just a little over a year's time, from her 'discovery' in the theater lobby to the Academy Awards. Little Shirley Temple, America's sweetheart, was by then just 6 and-a-half years old.