Linda Susan Agar: The Quiet Life of Shirley Temple’s First Daughter

Linda Susan Agar was Shirley Temple’s first child, born into a level of fame most people can’t picture. Her mother was arguably the most famous child star in American history, and yet Susan grew up choosing something her mother never had the option of choosing: privacy. That contrast is the whole story here, and it’s worth understanding properly instead of relying on the recycled tabloid paragraphs that circulate every time Shirley Temple’s name trends.

This piece pulls together what’s documented across biographies, family interviews, and archival records, and it flags the spots where sources genuinely disagree.

Who Is Linda Susan Agar?

Linda Susan Agar was born on January 30, 1948, in Santa Monica, California. Her parents were Shirley Temple, then just 19 and already a Hollywood legend, and John Agar, an Army Air Corps sergeant turned actor. Temple and Agar had married on September 19, 1945, at Wilshire Methodist Church in Los Angeles when Temple was only 17. According to Encyclopedia.com’s biographical entry on Shirley Temple Black, the marriage struggled almost from the start, with a young husband still building a career and a teenage wife who was already one of the most recognizable women in the world.

John Agar transitioned into acting himself, and the couple actually appeared together on screen twice, in Fort Apache (1948) and Adventure in Baltimore (1949). Off screen, things weren’t going as smoothly. Multiple outlets, including The List, report that Temple cited mental cruelty when she filed for divorce, and that Agar struggled with alcohol and had affairs during the marriage.

The divorce was finalized in either late 1949 or 1950, depending on the source. Some accounts, including doyouremember.com, put the date at December 5, 1949. Others, like Encyclopedia.com, list 1950. Either way, Temple was granted custody of Susan.

Why She’s Also Known as Susan Black

This is where a lot of confusion comes from, so it’s worth clearing up directly. In 1950, Temple married her second husband, Charles Alden Black, a Stanford and Harvard educated Navy officer and the son of a Pacific Gas and Electric Company executive. The marriage lasted until Charles Black’s death in 2005, and by every account it was the stable, lasting partnership Temple’s first marriage wasn’t.

Following that second marriage, Linda Susan began going by Susan Black, adopting her stepfather’s surname. Some sources, including The Things, note that it’s never been fully confirmed whether Charles Black legally adopted her, but she’s been referred to as Susan Black in interviews for decades. Meanwhile, her IMDb credit for her brief acting appearance still lists her as Susan Agar, which is why you’ll see both names used interchangeably depending on where you look.

She grew up alongside two younger half siblings from her mother’s second marriage: Charles Alden Black Jr., born in 1952, and Lori Black, born in 1954. Lori went on to become the bassist for the rock band the Melvins, making her the one sibling who did end up with a public entertainment career.

The Shirley Temple Family, at a Glance

Did She Ever Act?

Briefly, and by choice, not really. IMDb credits her with one episode of Shirley Temple’s Storybook in 1958, the anthology series her mother hosted and occasionally starred in during the late 1950s. That’s the extent of her on screen career. By most accounts, she tried it, decided it wasn’t for her, and never pursued acting again. Given who her mother was, that decision alone says something about how deliberately she chose a different path.

Her Relationship With Shirley Temple

The two were reportedly close for Temple’s entire life. In comments given to Closer Weekly and referenced across several outlets covering Temple’s family, Susan described her mother warmly, recalling that they threw a lot of parties together and had fun decorating the dining room, and that being a wife and mother was the achievement Temple valued most. She also called her mother “devoted and generous,” while admitting Temple “could be a little stern” when the kids misbehaved, and described her as inventive and imaginative.

That’s a pretty consistent picture across sources: a mother who took parenting seriously and a daughter who genuinely liked spending time with her, shopping and traveling together as adults. It’s worth noting that this is different from her mother’s relationship with Lori, which multiple outlets describe as more strained at points due to Lori’s struggles with addiction in the early 1990s, though Temple reportedly helped her daughter get clean and the two later reconciled.

Shirley Temple died on February 10, 2014, at her home near San Francisco at age 85. Her death certificate listed pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as contributing causes, according to Biography.com.

Does Linda Susan Agar Have Children?

Yes. According to Fabiosa and referenced in coverage from The List, Susan had a daughter named Teresa Caltabiano, who Temple was reportedly close to as a grandmother. Caltabiano went on to have a daughter of her own, meaning Temple lived long enough to meet her great granddaughter before she passed in 2014. Beyond that, details about Susan’s own family, including whether she married and who her partner may have been, simply aren’t part of the public record. That’s consistent with how she’s lived the rest of her adult life.

Is Linda Susan Agar Still Alive?

As of mid-2026, reporting suggests Susan Agar is still living, based in California, and continuing to avoid public attention. It’s worth being honest here: this claim comes from lower profile lifestyle sites rather than a verified statement or major outlet confirmation, and there’s no obituary or official record indicating otherwise. Given how consistently private she’s been for over seventy years, the absence of news about her is arguably the most reliable evidence available. When she has surfaced publicly, it’s almost always been tied to honoring her mother’s legacy, like anniversary tributes or family retrospectives, rather than anything self promoted.

Why She Chose to Stay Private

You don’t need a quote to explain this one, the pattern speaks for itself. Susan Agar grew up in an era before social media, before 24 hour entertainment news, and before “personal brand” was a phrase anyone used. Privacy for her generation wasn’t a strategy, it was just the default unless you actively pursued fame, and she never did. Compare that to her mother, who was performing on camera by age three and never really got to choose whether the public knew her business.

Her decision to step away from acting after one appearance, to raise a family outside of Hollywood’s orbit, and to give interviews only when they served her mother’s memory rather than her own visibility, all point toward someone who watched what fame did to her parents and picked a different life on purpose.

FAQ

Is Linda Susan Agar the same person as Susan Black?
Yes. She was born Linda Susan Agar and later became known as Susan Black after her mother’s second marriage to Charles Alden Black. Both names refer to the same person.

Who was Linda Susan Agar’s father?
Actor John Agar, Shirley Temple’s first husband. They were married from 1945 until their divorce around 1949 or 1950.

Does Linda Susan Agar have any acting credits?
One. She appeared in a single 1958 episode of Shirley Temple’s Storybook before choosing not to pursue an acting career.

Are Charles Black Jr. and Lori Black her full siblings?
No, they’re her half siblings from Shirley Temple’s second marriage to Charles Alden Black.

The Bottom Line

Linda Susan Agar’s story isn’t really about what she did, it’s about what she deliberately didn’t do. She had the last name and the connections to chase a Hollywood career and chose family and privacy instead, and she’s kept that choice for over seven decades. In a media culture that documents every celebrity relative’s every move, that kind of consistency is rare enough to be its own kind of remarkable.

Read More About: Lexi Murphy