It's funny how time slips away.
Reading this AP article (Link) makes me think there are others (besides Willie Nelson, of course, and me and thee) who feel this way.
Shirley Temple's passing seems to mark the certain ending of something, the 20th century, perhaps.
She was as much a part of its essential fabric as Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill, who were, of course, born in the 1800s.
Margaret O'Brien's and June Lockhart's comments in the piece are touching and charming, but so, particularly, are the ones spoken by Shirley's fellow thespians George Clooney, Kevin Costner and Bob Balaban, and also those of Marc Grossman, Cesar Chavez's speechwriter. These gentlemen are all vocal political liberals, but Democratic/Republican differences did not cause them to withhold their praise (and express as best they could their awe) of Shirley Temple and her talent, achievement and good character. The actors' words are especially touching "pro"-to-"pro" (as Variety would say) send-offs.
It's good that former president George H.W. Bush weighed in and Nancy Reagan also.
Barack Obama, usually present and accounted for at showbiz celebrity death time, is notably absent. That doesn't surprise me one bit. I remember reading how this vain man thought that his speeches would soon wind up carved into stone pediments and pillars. I doubt that will happen anytime soon. In the meantime, there's this (Link). Bowdown yourself.
But Shirley Temple's work will endure. It even survived (and triumphed over) colorization.
Willie Nelson: Funny How Time Slips Away (Link)
[1] I am inclined to suggest
that the poet Ted Berrigan’s passing in 1983
also indicated the conclusion of the 20th century, and the time when
modernism, something I believe in and understand, transformed
(or so they say) into post-modernism, something I "disbelieve in." I was too busy,
foggy and fearful in 1983 to take stock of this. Il faut être absolument moderne.
