The ‘Black Box’ Punishment Was Used On Child Actors like Shirley Temple in the 1930s

Shirley Temple was a symbol of joy in her performances as a young actress, but coming up in Hollywood in the 1930s as a child actor had a dark side — one that her bouncy curls and infectious smile hid well.

One such example is the common child actor discipline method of the times that Temple called "the black box." Whenever children would misbehave on set, they'd be sent to a blacked-out room, measuring six feet by six feet, according to Far Out magazine, that had only a block of ice as a chair.

In the book, The Cultural Turn in U. S. History: Past, Present, and Future, author and historian John Kasson describes the old practice as it was used on the set of one of Temple's first acting roles at three years old, Baby Burlesks: "An offending child was locked within this dark, cramped interior and either stood uncomfortably in the cold, humid air or had to sit on the ice. Those who told their parents about this torture were threatened with further punishment."

Temple wrote about what she remembered from her experience with the black box in her 1988 autobiography, Child Star. "So far as I can tell, the black box did no lasting damage to my psyche," she wrote. "Its lesson of life, however, was profound and unforgettable. Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble."

Temple would not have been the only child star to experience the unfortunate punishment, but hers seems to be the only personal account on record.

Though the "black box" punishment is enough to show the infancy of Hollywood — and thus its lack of rules and regulations in the early 1930s — another eyebrow-raiser is the project that Temple cites as where the punishment was used.

Baby Burlesks was a black-and-white series of short comedy films, in which young children were dressed up like adults and portrayed promiscuous situations as they parodied popular movies of the time period.

Though the Hays Code (or officially, Motion Picture Production Code, which was a series of guidelines on the moral parameters of films for distribution) was introduced in 1930, it was not enforced until years later, which allowed for some questionable child representations — hence, Baby Burlesks.

To this day, there are still 17 states that have no particular rules for how to treat child actors on set.