She was a less than four years old when she made her first appearance-in diapers of all things. Less than two years later after her film debut in April 1932's "Runt Page," Shirley Temple became Hollywood's number one child actor, a distinction she held throughout the later half of the 1930s.
The third kid of a homemaker and a bank employee couple, Shirley lived in the Los Angeles area when her mother recognized an unusual innate acting personality in her daughter. At three and and half, Shirley was enrolled in Los Angeles' Meglin's Dance School in September 1931. Donning a ringlet hair style her mother applied, all 56 of them, Shirley was seen hiding underneath a piano by a film scout visiting the school. He asked her to drop by the Educational Pictures' studio for an audition. The company, begun in 1916 with the focus on instructional films for schools, was also producing short comedies to augment its teaching movies.
The scout felt Temple was perfect for its new series, 'Baby Burlesks,' which consisted of young childhood actors recreating popular movies and newsworthy events. The studio loved what they saw in Temple and scheduled her to play a minor part in "Runt Page," a takeoff of the 1931 film "The Front Page." The short was the first of eight movies she appeared in the 'Baby Burlesks" series. Shirley Temple was paid a $10 daily rate while her mother earned $5 a day as her chaperon, chauffeur and hair stylist.
"Runt Page" was the only short in the series where adult voices were dubbed in for the kids. The series' other 10-minute shorts had the children speaking. And when the children were too young to know English fluently they would speak phonetically. In her autobiography, Temple looked back at her first acting days and was unhappy with the way Educational Pictures presented the series, calling it "a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence," recalling one of the roles she played as a saloon singer imitating Mae West in 'Glad Rags to Riches.'
Just as "Baby Burlesks" was winding down, Shirley auditioned twice for the "Our Gang" series. She didn't make the cut the first time, but in the second, director Robert McGowan offered her a slot in the gang. He withdrew the offer, however, when Shirley's mother demanded star billing for the series.
