I watched a bio of Shirley Temple Black on Biography channel the other day. It was actually a re-run. I’d seen most of it before.
But not all. Or if I’d seen it, I spaced it. Because one thing I was shocked to learn was that Shirley Temple was a cancer survivor! In 1972 she found out she had breast cancer and ended up getting a mastectomy. Then she ended up talking publicly about it –during a time when it was still taboo to talk of such things.
When my mom got cancer she refused to talk about it. At least with me. (I was only 12 at the time though too.) But I do recall on several occasions her saying, “Cancer is not something people talk about.”
This was 1983. But my mom was 50 something by then. She was from that era when they didn’t talk about cancer in polite society –or any society really.
But Shirley did. And in the Biography profile of her they said it was because she did that other women went to go get checked out.
Shirley Temple’s been a lot of things, but she also might be remembered as a pioneer on the cancer awareness front.
(And once again I found myself counting my blessings that I live nowadays. I can’t even imagine bearing societal pressure to keep hush about my cancer. I’d never have made it!)
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