Charles River Editors

Shirley Temple remains the most famous child star of all time, but even this designation fails to reflect the magnitude of her popularity during the era in which she worked. While it is true that she was not the first child actor to reach Hollywood fame, she was the first - and to this day, perhaps the only - star who rose to the very pinnacle of the Hollywood elite before she even turned 10 years old. For this reason, it is no exaggeration to view Shirley as the progenitor for all of the child actors that succeeded her. Not only was Shirley a film star, but she had a monumental impact on a generation of children who grew up during the Great Depression, with her plucky optimism emotionally uplifting an American public struggling both financially and emotionally. She was not only a young actress but also a brand name, someone who offered fathers and mothers hope for their children to achieve the same success as the famous child star. 

In many ways, Judy Garland’s rise to fame seems almost predestined. Not only was she a national sensation at a young age, but her parents and sisters were all vaudeville entertainers. However, Garland is better known today for her demise than anything else, and there’s no denying that one of the most fascinating (and tragic) aspects of her life story is the manner in which her downward spiral occurred with the same rapid progression as her meteoric ascent.

Alongside Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, with whom he acted in a series of films, Mickey Rooney was one of America’s most beloved child stars during the 1930s. Rooney had already made his mark in A Family Affair (1937), but he was the face of the incredibly successful Andy Hardy series, which produced several box office hits and featured Rooney in 13 movies, several alongside Judy Garland. At the same time, the fact that the peak of his success came when he was so young has helped obscure the fact that he acted in 10 different decades.