Jane Withers, a Hollywood child actor of the 1930s and ’40s, has died at age 95. The veteran performer passed away on Saturday in Burbank, California, her daughter Kendall Errair confirmed to Deadline. No cause of death has been provided.
“My mother was such a special lady,” Errair said in a statement. “She lit up a room with her laughter, but she especially radiated joy and thankfulness when talking about the career she so loved and how lucky she was.”
Withers was seemingly destined for Hollywood from birth. Her first name was selected so that “even with a long last name like Withers, it would fit on a marquee,” Errair told the outlet. Born on April 12, 1926, in Atlanta, Withers began performing on local radio shows at the age of three. But it would be the 1934 Shirley Temple vehicle Bright Eyes, which Withers booked at eight years old, that would be her big break. She played the spoiled antagonist Joy Smythe to Temple’s sweet-natured orphan, Shirley Blake. The film earned Withers a seven-year contract with Fox Film Corporation and a string of roles as the saltier version of Temple’s onscreen persona.
After starring in Ginger, which began shooting on her ninth birthday, Withers led ’30s and ’40s films including Paddy O’Day, The Holy Terror, Pepper, Rascals, Little Miss Nobody, and Always in Trouble. Under the pseudonym Jerrie Walters, Withers penned the story for 1942’s Small Town Deb, which she also headlined. By age 21, Withers largely retired from Hollywood to focus on her personal life. She was married twice and had five children.
For her next chapter in Tinseltown, Withers enrolled in film school at the University of Southern California with the intent to direct. Instead, director George Stevens cast her alongside James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor in 1956’s Giant. That film led to various television guest spots on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote. In 1960, Withers was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also gained national prominence in the 1960s and ’70s for portraying Josephine the Plumber in a series of popular TV ads for Comet cleaner.
In her later years Withers took over voicing a character in the 1996 Disney animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its 2002 sequel—with the latter marking her final role. She also devoted decades to collecting Old Hollywood memorabilia with a dream of constructing “a learning center for children that would incorporate the performing arts.” She told the Los Angeles Times in 2004, “Time goes on and you have to move with it or else you’ll be stuck in the background, and I don’t ever intend on being stuck in the background.”
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