The cocktail may have been invented by a bartender at Chasen's, a restaurant in West Hollywood, California, to serve then-child actress Shirley Temple. However, other claims to its origin have been made. Temple herself was not a fan of the drink, as she told Scott Simon in an NPR interview in 1986: "The saccharine sweet, icky drink? Yes, well... those were created in the probably middle 1930s by the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood and I had nothing to do with it. But, all over the world, I am served that. People think it's funny. I hate them. Too sweet!" In 1988, Temple filed a lawsuit to prevent the sale of a bottled soda version using her name.
