by Anne Edwards
Nine years Shirley’s senior, Charles Alden Black was born on March 6, 1919, in Alameda County, California, the second son of Katharine McElrath and James Byers Black, whose rise in the utility field had been spectacular. The senior Black had been born in Sycamore, Illinois, in 1890, and came to northern California with his parents when he was ten. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in mechanical engineering, he took a job as a service inspector for the Great Western Power Company. Within ten years, he had become vice-president and general manager. Moving quickly on the wheels of corporate takeovers, Black retained his position with Great Western, along with the vice-presidency of the North American Company, which had acquired it. When merged, these firms became the nation’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Black became its president.
The Blacks were wealthy and socially prominent. Their sons, Charles and James, Jr., as well as their daughter, Kathryn, had been brought up on San Francisco’s elegant Nob Hill and in a palatial summer home in Del Monte (an estate section of the seaside community of Monterey) and been given every advantage—education, travel and prestigious contacts.* Charles Black, with his tanned good looks, black hair, tall, aristocratic presence, monied position, social background, connections and his disinterest in films, embodied all the qualities Shirley desired in a man.
“When she fell in love with Johnny, Shirley thought he was everything that Charlie [Black] ended up being,” one friend comments. “I don’t think Johnny ever misrepresented himself. Shirley was an overly romantic kid and she saw what she wanted to see. Gertrude said you have to marry someone not interested in your fame or your money. But without that, she wouldn’t have been who or what she was. And when she met Johnny, she had just made a pretty sensational comeback [in Since You Went Away]. And Johnny’s family had known better times. Naturally, he was attracted to her success and all that went with it.
“Charlie? Well, he was the real thing where Johnny had been a facsimile—at least in Shirley’s eyes. . . . There was something Scott Fitzgeraldian about the whole thing. When Johnny entered Shirley’s life, he was kind of all-golden, but he didn’t know how to deal with the exigencies of fame. Lots of Shirley’s friends saw him as a tragic figure. He did not have a lot of personal resources. Charlie, on the other hand . . . was loaded with them. He was quite brilliant, decisive and, well—I guess you’d say—manly. Anyway, he had no trouble standing up against Gertrude. And maybe that’s what Shirley was looking for all along.”
Charles Alden Black had prepared at the select Hotchkiss School, received his B.A. from Stanford and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. He enlisted in 1941 in the navy as an apprentice seaman, but was sent directly to Officers’ Training School. He saw action in some of the toughest campaigns in the Solomons, New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies and China. Awarded the Silver Star and a presidential citation for bravery, he emerged from the war a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve. He spoke French, Malayan and several Tahitian dialects. A keen sportsman, he also enjoyed classical music. Shirley “was snagged,” as one friend put it. Black must also have been, for, two weeks after Shirley had returned with Susan to Los Angeles, he flew to meet her and the Temples in San Francisco to attend an annual society event, the Bachelors’ Dance (April 16, 1950).
The new romance was reported in the press. With her divorce not yet final, Black, who possessed a strong sense of propriety, was careful not to be seen with Shirley in public. Over the next few months, he was to fly to see Shirley several times, but their meetings were kept private—visits at the Brentwood house, drives to the beach, picnics on the sand. In what free time he had, he met with local television executives. In August, he resigned from Hawaiian Pineapple to join KTTV as an account executive, a job that had him commuting between their offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. “I couldn’t compete for her hand 3,000 miles away,” he later commented.
In August, Shirley received a call from the offices of Peter Lawrence and Roger Stevens, the Broadway producers of Peter Pan. The revival of the James Barrie play with music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein, starring Jean Arthur, had been a huge success that year. Arthur had taken ill, and Shirley was asked if she would read for the role. Not since her early years had she had to audition for a part. But the idea of appearing on the stage intrigued her. Accompanied by Gertrude, she flew to New York on August 15 on the “hush-hush” expedition that could have marked her theater debut. The reading did not go as well as anyone had hoped. Jean Arthur possessed a fey quality that brought a fresh approach to the play. Shirley did not have the necessary lightness, and, dispirited, she returned to the Coast the following day. The turn-down on Peter Pan convinced her that her acting career was over.*
Once Black had entered the scene, however, the idea of remarrying became her prime consideration. Shirley carried Charles’s picture in her wallet next to Susan’s. They saw each other daily, and though it was not publicly announced, they planned to marry shortly after December 5, when her divorce from Agar would become final. In November, the adjoining houses on Rockingham Avenue were listed privately with a realtor. The couple did not want to live in the converted playhouse, and the Temples had decided the expense of maintaining the estate was too costly for them alone.
During this same year, Nancy Majors had fallen in love with Richard R. Gros, a public-relations executive from the San Francisco area, and the two childhood friends were once again drawn close together.* Nancy was married in the spring of 1950, and Charles, who knew Gros well, was best man. “Shirley wasn’t a bridesmaid because I only had my sister as attendant,” Nancy explained. When Shirley came to San Francisco to be with Black, she would stay in the apartment of the newly married Groses. “The reason for that,” Nancy comments, “was that the Black family was extremely conservative, and they did not think it proper for Shirley to stay with Charlie or even alone in a hotel. She arrived with these huge medical text books—each one of them must have weighed twenty pounds. Now, Shirley never did go to college, but she was always very interested in medicine. And she read these books with a great deal of attention—making notes, that sort of thing. She always had an intellectual curiosity and was attracted to the real and concrete.”
Another friend adds, “At Westlake, Shirley excelled in biology. When it came to dissecting frogs, ‘Lil Bug’ was a standout!” An unconfirmed story that circulated at Westlake had her donning a surgical gown to watch while a young veteran had his leg amputated shortly after she had visited his bedside on an army hospital tour. “Medicine, and especially surgery, always fascinated Shirley. And I don’t think she was morbidly curious either—just drawn to the professional skills of a surgeon. If the cards had fallen differently, I think she would have gone on to study medicine.”
During the year she had been separated from Agar, and as her feelings for Black deepened, her interest in medicine did intensify, and she considered the possibility of associating herself in some way with the medical profession. “I know now the kind of person I am,” she was quoted as saying in November 1950. “Normal home life appeals to me, the same as normal school life used to, with maybe a little medicine thrown in on the side, if there’s a hospital nearby.”
As a single parent, she had become closer to her daughter. With no work commitments, she spent her days watching over, entertaining and eating with the child, which meant having dinner at six.
Shirley owned three acetate records of songs she had sung at Fox. Every night before the child’s bedtime at eight, she would play them for her. Dreamland Choochoo, a lullabyish song, was the final number and meant lights out for Susan. Even when Black was with them, the routine seldom varied. Nightclubs were not to his liking. When they went out, it was usually to the home of friends.
“Charles was definitely part of San Francisco’s upper strata, but I don’t think he ever saw himself that way,” Nancy Majors Voorheis says. “He was not really social. He was stunningly handsome but very quiet . . .
and as far as I could see, he did not mix well with people. He was a solid person, a man of great integrity . . . but . . . he was not easy to get to know. Being as handsome as he was, it perhaps didn’t matter much. He cut a distinguished figure, and when he did enter into a conversation, you were struck by his tremendous intelligence.”
Another friend added, “He’s calm and conservative—a solid-citizen type.”
They were married in his parents’ Del Monte home in the high-beamed living room before a fireplace covered with pine boughs and flowers at 4:30 P.M. on Sunday, December 16, 1950. Superior Court Judge Henry G. Jorgensen of Salinas performed the ceremony in the presence of only the immediate families—the Blacks, the Temples, Jack and Mimsy, and the bridegroom’s brother James, Jr., and his wife and three children. Shirley wore a simple gray suit with matching hat, and Black a dark business suit. They left immediately following the ceremony, with Black at the wheel of his late-model gunmetal convertible. They managed to lose the reporters who were waiting outside for them by entering the vehicle in the attached garage while a member of the wedding party started the motor of a similar car parked out front. They remained sequestered at a family friend’s home, which had been loaned to them for their six-day honeymoon, while reporters searched the Monterey Peninsula for a sight of the bridegroom’s convertible.
Wednesday, dressed informally—Shirley in “a snug red turtleneck sweater and slacks, Black in sports trousers and a gray open-necked polo shirt”—they ventured out for a “mid-afternoon breakfast” on Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf and were spotted just as they were leaving.* “Acting as though his bride needed protection,” her bridegroom stepped in front of her as the reporters moved in. With Shirley laughing behind him, he met all questions with a tight-lipped “No comment.” The following day, a press conference was called in the San Francisco apartment of Charles’s parents, after the honeymooners escaped injury in a minor automobile collision. Shirley announced that her contract with David Selznick had just expired, and that she was quitting films after nineteen years.
“That’s long enough,” she said. “My only contract is to Mr. Black.” With that, she gave her new husband a hug, and the press a knowing wink. “And it’s ‘exclusive,’” she added. But her obvious happiness was not without an approaching cloud or two.
Throughout the spring of 1950, tensions had risen in the United States over the buildup of a threatening situation in Korea, a peninsula that sat between two stronger and belligerent countries, Japan and China. Historically the battlefield of invading armies, Korea was now divided into Communist-controlled North Korea and the anti-Communist government of South Korea. At the end of World War II, the United States signed an agreement with the United Nations to withdraw all American military forces. On June 25, the North Koreans crossed the boundary—the 38th parallel—of their province and swept the South Korean Army before them.
Political pundits believed President Truman would find a way to appease the North Koreans and the Russians and Chinese and that he would not risk World War III for the fate of South Korea. However, he surprised “them even more than he did on Election Day, 1948.”* His order, given at 12:07 P.M., Tuesday, June 27, “directed American forces to resist the North Korean attack by air, by sea, and on the ground.” Once again, the nation was at war.
Charles Black was a trained officer in the Naval Reserve. Unless the Communists were pushed back swiftly by the South Koreans, he most certainly would be recalled to active duty. In September, General Douglas MacArthur launched “a brilliantly successful” campaign that “caught the North Koreans by surprise.” By November, all South Korea had been regained, and since Black had not yet been put back in uniform, he and Shirley could be optimistic about their immediate future.
But on the same day as their marriage, December 16, a state of emergency had been proclaimed in the United States following a staggering reversal. Three hundred thousand Chinese soldiers had infiltrated deep into MacArthur’s rear forces. Had the Chinese been better equipped, they might have “turned the [resulting American] defeat into a rout.”
On January 4, 1951, North Korean and Chinese Communists took Seoul. The newlyweds, in Los Angeles with Susan, knew it was only a matter of weeks, at most months, before Black would be recalled.
This already bleak start to their marriage was given added stress when, on January 13, Agar was arrested on a charge of driving his car down the wrong side of Wilshire Boulevard while intoxicated. With him at the time was fashion model Loretta Barnett Combs. He requested a trial by jury, and it was set for February 5. Agar was already on probation on a reckless-driving charge from the previous April. With each of these offenses, Los Angeles newspaper headlines referred to him as “Shirley’s Ex.” Agar’s trial was postponed until March 16. A month before this date, he was again arrested for drunk driving, and after a night in jail (“This will ruin my life,” he told the judge) was released a second time on bail. He faced a maximum six-month prison sentence if found guilty. When the case was finally brought before the court, his attorney, standing up to question a police witness, fainted. A mistrial was declared, and a new date, July 20, set.
Agar’s escapades made frequent and somewhat sordid newspaper reading. He and Miss Combs eloped to Las Vegas on May 17, but the nuptials were delayed an hour because the county clerk believed Agar was not sober enough to know what he was doing. After downing six cups of black coffee in a nearby café, Agar led his bride-to-be back to the courthouse, where they were married. Found guilty on both charges of drunk driving at his trial in July, he received a six-month county jail sentence, thirty days of which were suspended. On the stand, he blamed his drinking on the failure of his first marriage and attributed some of his difficulties to unfavorable publicity instigated by Shirley at the divorce trial.
“Don’t blame this on Shirley Temple,” the judge warned, before sentencing him. When he later appeared before the court to shorten the time of his incarceration, the same judge complimented him “on taking his medicine like a man.”
His wife, his mother and many members of the industry stood by Agar. He had co-starring roles in several action pictures despite his drinking problem. Some producers apparently felt it toughened his image, and he seemed to drink between pictures, not during their production. But to Shirley, his behavior brought constant embarrassment and fear that Susan would somehow be adversely affected. During Agar’s troubled post-Temple years, father and daughter were mostly separated. Agar had lost more than a famous wife when Shirley divorced him. Without realizing it, he had relinquished his position in his daughter’s life. With the new Mrs. Agar’s dedicated help, medical assistance and a redefined belief in “God and religion,” he eventually pulled himself back up.*
In April, Black was ordered to report for duty in Washington, D.C. Shirley decided she would accompany him and remain there as long as was possible. The newlyweds set off with Susan on a cross-country car journey, stopping in Phoenix, Arizona, to leave her for a time with Jack and Mimsy and their sons while they continued on to find a home at their destination. They departed Phoenix early on Saturday morning, May 5. Late in the afternoon of the next day, while driving through Tulsa, Oklahoma, Shirley was stricken with an acute appendicitis attack. Black drove directly to Hillcrest Memorial Hospital in that city, where she was operated on three hours later in an emergency appendectomy. Gertrude arrived a short time later, while Black continued on alone to Washington, where he had been assigned to the Pentagon staff, an indication that he might remain in Washington and not be sent overseas.
Once Shirley had recovered and joined him, they purchased and settled into a comfortable forty-eight-thousand-dollar seven-room home situated on River Road in fashionable Bethesda, Maryland, near Chevy Chase, a fair commute to the Office of Naval Operations, where Black was stationed.* The house, small by her previous standards, was set on a rise and surrounded by slim dogwood trees, and Shirley set about decorating it with verve, scouring the local antique shops for items o
f interest. Two massive ship’s lanterns were mounted on the outside gateposts. The good-sized living room and the library had fireplaces back to back. But the master bedroom had just enough space for their double bed, the California sun lamp they both enjoyed using, and the hair dryer that occupied one corner—“mute testimony that Shirley does her own hair (no longer golden, but a surprising black).”† A barn in the back of the house had been built by the previous owner as a stable. The area was fox-hunting country, and Bradley Farms, the subdivision where the Blacks owned property, was surrounded by many large and imposing estates. Because they considered their house too close to the main road to keep a horse, they turned the barn into a small guest cottage. Shirley claimed she just wanted to be a housewife and mother. The excitement of Washington’s politically charged atmosphere, however, was soon to overtake her.
Black’s politics were conservative, and very much in accord with the principles of Republicanism to which Shirley and the Temples subscribed. As a young woman, Shirley had not taken an active interest in politics. Now, she stepped forward and publicly supported General Douglas MacArthur when, in April, shortly before the Blacks’ move to Washington, President Truman had dismissed the general because of his campaign to recoup his losses in Korea by a plan to attack China. Her statement to a reporter that “General MacArthur is a great man and would make a great president” does not seem too adventurous. Truman’s action in recalling MacArthur had thrown the country into “shocked indignation. Flags were flown at half-mast. The Los Angeles City Council adjourned, too sick at heart to conduct the city’s business that day.” The Michigan legislature passed a resolution that began, “Whereas, at one a.m. of this day, World Communism achieved its greatest victory of the decade in the dismissal of General MacArthur . . .” and polls showed that two-thirds of the nation believed Truman had made a grievous error.
