Shirley was a very good dancer. Those ads which are on TV for her old films show how good she was. She had those "Shirley Temple curls", which my mother duplicated with a curling iron on my head. And I went to dancing school too. Lots of Shirleys at dancing school. It was the rage to have two names, so there were Shirley Jeanne, Shirley Mae, and Shirley Anne. I only had one name, same one as now. Dancing school had some of the crudities of the Baby Beauty Queen to it....dressing tiny tots up in incredible fabrics, and some of the costumes were risque. Not something I would do to a daughter if I had had one. We have a more professional dance academy here. My son and his wife met at a ballroom dance class--they are good dancers, and their kids have such good balance that they can walk along the tops of railings as if they were right on the ground.

Shirley Temple was like that--perfect rhythm, perfect coordination....divine grace.

I think having this weird training helped me cope with neurological imbalance when it came along. It was strange to have very good balance and then to be falling over toward the right, and not to even have a diagnosis for years, as if it were not even happening.