1/12/2023 0 Comments Josephine the plumber![]() ![]() Withers was the only child star of her time to complete a seven-year contract.Īs Withers grew older, she expanded into writing, penning the screenplay for the film Small Town Deb under the pseudonym Jerrie Walters. Withers' credits from that time period include Paddy O'Day, Gentle Julia, Little Miss Nobody, Pepper, The Holy Terror, Angel's Holiday, Checkers, Rascals and Always in Trouble. She had become one of the most popular child stars of Hollywood's golden age. Withers then signed a seven-year contract with Fox Film Corporation and scored her first starring role in Ginger (1935).Ī gaggle of credits followed, with Withers starring in an average of three to five films per year during the 1930s. Withers played Joy Smythe, a spoiled, mean foil to Temple's sweet character. Withers' big break came in 1934 when she was cast opposite Shirley Temple in 1934's Bright Eyes. READ MORE: Markie Post, plucky TV favourite who became a star on Night Court, dies at 70 Just before Withers' sixth birthday, she travelled to Hollywood with her mother and began to book acting, voiceover and modelling gigs. After winning a local talent contest, Withers was cast on Aunt Sally's Kiddie Revue, a Saturday morning children's show, and was later given her own radio show at only three years old. Withers' mother was so determined to have her make it as a star that she named her Jane so that "even with a long last name like Withers, it would fit on a marquee." (Getty)īorn on April 12, 1926, in Atlanta, Withers was already a seasoned show business professional by the time she was six. But in the 2004 sale, a Shirley Temple doll dressed in her “Little Colonel” costume sold for $3,100 a Jane Withers doll sold for $5,600.Jane Withers, former child star known for Bright Eyes and Ginger, has died at 95. Withers auctioned several hundred dolls, many of them likenesses of film and radio stars and characters of the 1930s, including Sonja Henie, the Lone Ranger and Snow White. (Information on her survivors was not immediately available.) ![]() That same year she married Kenneth Errair, who had been a member of the singing group the Four Freshmen. They had three children and divorced in 1955, leaving Ms. Withers married a Texas oilman, William Moss Jr., in 1947. As her contract with Fox ended, she starred as a peasant girl in Samuel Goldwyn’s “The North Star” (1943). It was made into the movie “Small Town Deb” (1942). Withers wrote a story for herself, under the pseudonym Jerrie Walters. And sales of Jane Withers paper dolls, hair bows, socks and mystery novels similar to the Nancy Drew series earned her more money than her movies.Īs she entered her teenage years, Ms. Withers was in sixth place on theater owners’ list of the Top 10 box office stars, despite the fact that she performed only in B movies. In “45 Fathers” (1937), she was adopted by a group of old men.īy 1937, Ms. In “Paddy O’ Day” (1935), her rescuer was Rita Cansino - soon to be renamed Rita Hayworth - in her first leading role. Withers played an orphan in most of her films. After two years of department store modeling and bit parts, she was cast as Joy Smythe in “Bright Eyes.” When Jane was 6, the family moved to Hollywood. By the age of 4, the pudgy child with the Buster Brown haircut was singing, dancing and imitating Greta Garbo billed as “Dixie’s Dainty Dewdrop,” she had her own local radio program. Her mother, a movie fan, picked Jane as a name because she thought it would look good on a marquee. Jane Withers was born in Atlanta on April 12, 1926, to Walter and Lavinia Withers. “The minute they slapped me in ‘Bright Eyes,’ everybody just yelled and waved, they were so happy. Withers told Norman Zierold, the author of “The Child Stars” (1965). Withers starred said it all: “The Holy Terror” (1937), “Wild and Woolly” (1937), “Rascals” (1938), “Always in Trouble” (1938) and “The Arizona Wildcat” (1939).Īt the end of most of her movies, “just to satisfy everybody, I get a good spanking,” Ms. The titles of some of the films in which Ms. She was the antidote to the movie’s star, Shirley Temple, the always cheerful, always obedient, always smiling orphan. In her first major movie role, in Fox’s “Bright Eyes” (1934), the 8-year-old Jane played a spoiled rich kid who wanted a machine gun for Christmas and took a ghoulish delight in sending her dolls to the hospital. Her death was confirmed by her daughter Kendall Errair. Jane Withers, a top child star in the 1930s who played tough, tomboyish brats in more than two dozen B films and achieved a second burst of fame as an adult as Josephine the Plumber in commercials for Comet cleanser, died on Saturday in Burbank, Calif. ![]()
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