Shirley Temple (April 23, 1928 - February 10, 2014) was an actress who appeared in multiple films as a child. She was a notable consideration for the role of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939) which went to Judy Garland.
She had been under contract for Fox as the head of the company Darryl Zanuck declined the offer from MGM to give permission. Reportably he did not want her to be associated with teenage roles as she was 11 and could still play young child parts. Also it was suggested producers of the film were not impressed with her singing voice anyway. In 1940 she starred in a movie called The Blue Bird which was considered to be the studio's own fairy tale film to compete with Oz. As sort of an imitiation, the film started with black and white scenes before switching to color.
She later went on to play Tip/Ozma in an episode of her own television show called Shirley Temple's Storybook that was titled The Land of Oz as an adaptation of the 2nd Oz book. She was posed to provide the voice of Dorothy for a stop-motion puppet television series that was pitched by Rankin-Bass but it was scraped for unknown reasons.
In the final chapter of her 1988 autobiography Star Child she mentions helping with the production of a 1955 stage show based on the original book that was put on by a women’s organization she was a member of. Also in this book she alleged that the 1939 film’s associate producer Arthur Freed exposed himself to her and this was the reason why she only made one film with MGM.
She is discussed in an episode of The Wonderful Recap of Oz entitled “Shirley Temple in the Land of Oz” that was released on February 18, 2022.