Shirley Temple Black says a woman once tried to kill her and a producer attempted to seduce her during her years as a child actress.
Black, a former ambassador to Ghana, spoke to a news conference Sunday at the American Booksellers Association convention in Anaheim, Calif. Her autobiography, "Child Star," will be published in October by McGraw-Hill.The seduction attempt occurred when she was 12, shortly after she switched from 20th Century Fox to MGM, Black said.
She said she was alone in the office of a producer, whom she did not name.
"I had thought he was a producer, but he really was an exhibitor. The only person I had ever seen naked was me, and I thought he was pretty funny-looking so I laughed until I had tears in my eyes."
She was ordered out of the office, she said.
The attempt on her life occurred when she was 10, when a woman "pulled out a rather big gun and started to point it" at her while she sang during a live radio appearance at CBS in Hollywood.
Police grabbed the woman and removed her from the studio, Black recalled.