Children Don't Belong in Hollywood
The celebrity industrial complex keeps churning out troubling outcomes for child stars. We can keep calling each case “situational,” or we can recognize it as systemic.
It was the golden age of cinema. Hollywood glistened with a constellation of stars and starlets, whose talent and beauty brightened each new movie release. But none quite as bright as America’s sweetheart and national treasure, child star Shirley Temple. The adorable little Temple was so magnetic on screen that U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited her with lifting the nation’s spirits during the Great Depression. To this day, she’s the youngest actress to receive an Oscar, an honorary one she received at the age of six. For years, she was the top movie star in America, beating out all of the adults.