Shirley Temple: Sweet Costume Exhibit

The Santa Monica History Museum pays tribute to its beloved hometown girl.

Even if you were not a tot in the 1930s, chances are extremely good that a beloved polka dot-sporting curly-haired moppet was a cinematic friend to you during your youth.

As good as the likelihood of a cherry floating atop your fizzy Shirley Temple, another way the movie star made our youths just a little sweeter.

Thus the chance to spend an hour with the memory of the silver-screen icon, via the costumes she wore, various pieces of memorabilia associated with her stratospheric career, photographs, and correspondence might make one feel as though they might break out into a sudden sunny song.

Or tap dance or make a new friend or lend a hand or all of the above. Shirley Temple Black could do it all, and the Santa Monica History Museum will spend several weeks honoring the city's hometown girl with an artifact-tender, costume-cute retrospective.

"Shirley Temple: Santa Monica's Biggest Little Star" will run, with spunk and dimple-darling attitude, from Saturday, April 16 through the first day of July, 2016.

An exhibit preview and VIP soiree is scheduled for the evening of April 15.

Dresses, hats, toys, and other goods associated with the young actor will be on display, and you don't have to go re-watch 1934's "Stand Up and Cheer!" or "Bright Eyes," also of that year, to understand that little Shirley's can-do pluckiness did much to raise film goers' spirits during some very trying times. 

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Of course, you should re-watch, again and again, if you're one of the millions of fans who still revisit her films. Surely, then, you know that the famous Shirley Temple red-and-white polka dot dress was seen in "Stand Up and Cheer!" and that she sang "On the Good Ship Lollipop" in "Bright Eyes."

Mrs. Black, who passed away in 2014, went on to become a lauded ambassador and stateswoman, as well as one of the eternal titans of early Hollywood. Cheers to Santa Monica History Museum, for paying tribute to one of the most cherished figures born in the city, and cheers to the many fans who revisit the "Heidi" films and more each and every year.

See some of those movie memories, in the city Shirley Temple Black was born in, beginning in mid-April

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