Jane Withers, child actor turned commercial star, dies at 95
Source: AP
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.
Withers, also known as “Josephine the Plumber” from TV commercials in the 1960s and ’70s, died Saturday, her daughter Kendall Errair said. 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, 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,” 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!’ ”
FILE - In this May 20, 1985 file photo, former child actress Shirley Temple Black, left, is greeted by actress Jane Withers during a special tribute to Black presented by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Academy Foundation in Beverly Hills. Withers, the former child actor who bedeviled Temple on the screen and went on to star in a series of B movies that made her a box-office champion, died Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. She was 95. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-jane-withers-2df1ec0bef77686f4d0db15076e7899e
= new reply since forum marked as read
