Shirley Temple

Question: I know the Oscar statuettes are about a foot tall and weigh 8 pounds, but what are they made of, and is it true that they got their name because someone said it looked like their Uncle Oscar? That sounds like a made-up story.

Answer: Last part first: The official story is indeed that Margaret Herrick, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' first librarian in 1931 and its executive director from 1943 to 1971 (and for whom the Academy's Los Angeles library, where I've done my share of research, is named), saw one of the statuettes (designed by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for the first ceremony in 1929) on a desk and exclaimed that it looked just like her Uncle Oscar. Which is sort of alarming in that it implies that her uncle was a bald nudist with a thing for (perhaps compensatory) swords. Many people prefer the slightly ruder version in which Bette Davis sugge read more

Question: I have submitted this question to a lot of columns but have never received an answer. Yet I know that this program existed. I'd like to purchase it for myself (and — oh, yeah — the grandchildren). Can you help? My question is: Shirley Temple hosted a show that reenacted fairy tales. It was shown on Saturday nights. She would end the show with this song: "Dreams are made for children, and a dream is a fairy tale...."

Answer: It did indeed exist, Regi. Shirley Temple's Storybook started off as a run of ABC specials in 1958 but began airing more regularly the following year and then moved to NBC the next year as The Shirley Temple Show, a regular weekly series that went off the air in 1961.

The best news of all: Episodes featuring productions of Babes in To read more