User:Dr. Alastair

My father Dr. Alastair Rourke having then just completed his Doctorate of Dentistry at Toronto university visited the then Dentist to the stars in Los Angeles in 1936. The Dentists famous patient was a Miss Shirley Temple who could not complete her song in a big Hollywood production at that time as her upper left baby central incisor had naturally fallen out as she was 7 years old. He had made her an upper denture to replace the tooth but she was unable to talk or sing with it in as it was so bulky. Solution - her adjacent teeth were still tight so he trimmed tham down and constructed a 3 unit porcelain bridge for Shirley to wear- a revolutionary new procedure at the time. Result - film completed - Hollywood, producers happy. No loving parent would ever normally consent to such a procedure in a developing innocent child - but the show had to go on. Shirley made more films after this but this Dental watershed was her transition from babyhood to childhood and her career slowly declined- this child of the depression was not supposed to grow up.