She was also known for her philanthropy and her extensive doll collection. She was interviewed in numerous documentary retrospectives of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Withers’ daughter, Kendall Errair, confirmed her death to the New York Times. In the 1990s and early 2000s, she did voice work for Disney animated films. Jane Withers, an actress on both the silver screen and television commercials, died Aug. We specialize in commercial & residential plumbing services from basic faucet installation to sewer line replacement. From 1963 to 1974, she portrayed the character Josephine the Plumber in a series of television commercials for Comet cleanser. She returned to film and television as a character actor in the 1950s. She made 38 films before retiring at age 21 in 1947. In 1932, she and her mother moved to Hollywood, where she appeared as an extra in many films until landing her breakthrough role as the spoiled, obnoxious Joy Smythe opposite Shirley Temple's angelic orphan Shirley Blake in the 1934 film Bright Eyes. She began her entertainment career at the age of three and, during the Golden Age of Radio, hosted her own children's radio program in her home city of Atlanta, Georgia. 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.Young Artist Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award 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. From the 1970’s when we started installing sinks and toilets for the family plumbing business - to the 1990’s when the family business expanded into sub-surface plumbing - to today with our ongoing commercial projects. Withers told Norman Zierold, the author of “The Child Stars” (1965). 7183256000 Josephine The Plumber We have an extensive background in the plumbing industry. 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. Jane Withers: A look at the career of Jane Withers, from child star to her role in Giant and as Josephine, the plumber in the TV commercials for Commet. 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. Ad shows Josephine, the Lady Plumber who says, new extra strength Comet gets out stains far better than other. 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. It is a nice color ad from Comet Cleanser.
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