About This Stamp
With this 20th stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, the U.S. Postal Service® honors actress and diplomat Shirley Temple Black (1928–2014). The world’s most famous film star as a child, she went on to a distinguished career in public service and international affairs.
The stamp art is a painting by artist Tim O’Brien; it is based on a 1935 image from Curly Top, one of the child star's iconic movie roles. The selvage features a publicity photo from the 1933 short film Managed Money. The Shirley Temple artwork is based on photos © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. The pane’s selvage and verso include biographical text about her acting and diplomatic careers.
Shirley Temple began dance lessons when she was just three years old and was soon starring in full-length movies, including Little Miss Marker (1934), which featured her first starring role, and Bright Eyes (1934), which included what became one of her signature songs, “On the Good Ship Lollipop.”
Mired in the economic tribulations of the Great Depression, moviegoers found joy and escape from everyday cares in the child star’s bright smile, deep dimples, and irrepressible spirit. Simply put, Shirley Temple was the biggest star in Hollywood in the mid- to late 1930s.
During her years in Hollywood, the actress had been involved in public service, and that commitment never wavered. After her marriage in 1950, she became interested in politics and ran for Congress in 1967. President Richard Nixon appointed Mrs. Black a delegate to the United Nations in 1969. She later served as U.S. ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976 and Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992. In 1976, she became the first woman to be appointed U.S. Chief of Protocol.
Black’s career as a diplomat was eventful, but her earlier career as a movie star was not forgotten. In 1998, she was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, and a year later the American Film Institute included her as one of the 50 greatest screen legends. The Screen Actors Guild presented her with their Life Achievement Award in 2006.
Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp and sheet, with art by Tim O'Brien.
The Shirley Temple stamp was issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp is always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typograph
Ethel Kessler
Ethel Kessler is an award-winning designer and art director who has worked with corporations, museums, public and private institutions, professional service organizations, and now, the United States Postal Service.
After earning a B.F.A. in visual communications from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kessler worked as a graphic designer and project manager for the exhibits division of the United States Information Agency. Her work was distributed internationally on subjects such as Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Renovation of American Cities, and the Bicentennial of 1976. She was also responsible for exhibits in Morocco, Botswana, and El Salvador.
In 1981, she established Kessler Design, Inc., for which she is creative director and designer. Clients have included the Clinton Government reorganization, the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Television, the National Park Service, and the American Institute of Architects.
She has been an art director for the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp development program for more than 25 years. As an art director for USPS, Kessler has been responsible for creating more than 500 stamp designs, including the Breast Cancer Research stamp illustrated by Whitney Sherman. Issued in 1998, the stamp is still on sale and has raised more $98 million for breast cancer research. Other Kessler projects include the popular and highly regarded Nature of America 120 stamp series, a collaboration with nationally acclaimed nature illustrator John Dawson, the 12-year Lunar New Year series with Kam Mak, the American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes 10 stamps issued in 2003, a 2016 pane of stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and the 2023 stamp honoring Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And many, many others.
Stamp Artist
Tim O'Brien
A native of New Haven, Connecticut, Tim O’Brien earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Paier College of Art in Hamden, Connecticut, in 1987. He then embarked on a career in illustration and, today, creates intricately detailed illustrations and portraits from his Brooklyn, New York, studio.
O’Brien’s art has appeared numerous times on the cover of TIME and has been featured in Esquire, GQ, Der Spiegel, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and Playboy. Other clients include advertising agencies and book publishers, such as HarperCollins, Penguin, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster.
The 2009 winner of the prestigious Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators, which O’Brien currently serves as president, his work has also been recognized by Communication Arts, Graphis, Print, American Illustration, and the Society of Publication Designers. In 2003, O’Brien, an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute, received an honorary doctorate from Lyme Academy of Fine Art.
Numerous speaking engagements include appearances at the United Nations, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Society of Illustrators, Syracuse University, the School of Visual Arts, Pratt Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, California College of the Arts, Western Connecticut State University, and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
O’Brien, a former boxer whose new passion is running marathons, lives in the historic Flatbush section of Brooklyn with his wife, Elizabeth Parisi, and son.
The 2021 August Wilson stamp is O’Brien’s latest project for the Postal Service. Other stamps include Moss Hart (2004), Hattie McDaniel (2006), Judy Garland (2006), Danny Thomas (2012), Shirley Temple (2016), and Father Theodore Hesburgh (2017).