SHIRLEY TEMPLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1940, Page 9

SHIRLEY TEMPLE

STUDIO LOOKING FOR SUCCESSOR.

About Shirley Tompie's departure. Twentieth Century-Fox feels a good deal like the fond parent whose pampered baby grows up and up and finally steps out in the world on her own. Frankly, they admit it doesn’t seem quite right without a baby star on the big Beverley Hills lot. And while little Shirleys seldom come more than one to a generation, talent scouts for the studio are now concentrating on an intensive infantile hunt. They’re not reaching far afield, but feel that among all the babies of

Hollywood there's a longshot chance of pulling one more miracle child out of the bag.

A little excitement prevails among Shirley's ex-bosses over the dormant possibilities in ;:n eight-year-old named Ann Todd, who appeared in support of Shirley in "The Blue Bird." and more recently as one of four children under the care of Bette Davis, the governess of "All This and Heaven, Too,"

Anyway. Twentieth-Fox managed to beat out Warner Brothers in a race to sign the child and there are rumours she'll be pointed straight for starring roles —in a group of stories originally bought with Shirley in mind. Incidentally, this new TempleThrone aspirant knows a thing or two in spite of her tender years. In a recent test at the University of Southern California she was chalked up with a rating of 143 —eight points past the "genius” mark.