Child actor became TV commercial star
Jane Withers, the former child actor who bedeviled Shirley Temple on the screen and went on to star in a series of B movies that made her a box-office champion, has died, her daughter said. She was 95.
Ms. Withers, also known as “Josephine the Plumber” from TV commercials in the 1960s and ’70s, died Saturday, her daughter Kendall Errair said. Ms. Withers was one of the last remaining stars from the 1930s and 1940s, the height of Hollywood studio dominance.
After a series of minor roles as a child actress, Ms. Withers was cast by Twentieth Century-Fox in the 1934 “Bright Eyes,” as the nemesis of lovable Temple, then Hollywood’s most popular star.
“I had to play the meanest, creepiest little girl that God ever put on this planet,” Ms. Withers recalled in 2000. “I ran over Shirley with a tricycle, and a baby buggy. And I thought, ‘Oh dear, everybody’s going to hate me forever because I was so creepy mean to Shirley Temple!‘ ”
It didn’t turn out that way. Critics claimed that she stole the picture from Shirley. Children wrote fan letters admiring what she did to Shirley “because she’s so perfect.”
Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck figured there was room for another child actress at the studio, and she was signed to a contract.
She played the anti-Shirley, a bright, talky, mischief-prone girl with wide eyes, chubby cheeks and straight black hair that contrasted with Shirley’s blonde curly top.
For four years, Fox ground out three or four Withers films annually at budgets far lower than the Temple specials. Even though B pictures were aimed for the bottom half of double bills, a theater owners poll named Ms. Withers one of the top moneymaking stars in 1936 and 1937.
Ms. Withers proved less of a draw as a teenager, and her career dwindled.
As an adult she appeared in a few films and on television.
Her biggest prominence came from portraying “Josephine” in TV commercials for Comet cleanser for 12 years.
Fame started early for Ms. Withers. Born April 12, 1926, in Atlanta, she had appeared as Dixie’s Dainty Dewdrop on local radio by the age of 3.
Her mother had greater ambitions, and she persuaded her husband to move the family to Hollywood.
Ms. Withers’ film appearances as an adult were sporadic, partly because of three marriages and five children. Her most notable credits were “Giant” (1956) and “Captain Newman, M.D.” (1963).