Veteran film actress Jane Withers dies at 95
Jane Withers, a former child actor who went on to have a career spanning 70 years, has died at the age of 95, her daughter has said.
She passed away in Burbank, California on 7 August. No cause of death was revealed.
Her career began when she was around 6-years-old in 1932, where for a few years she had a series of minor roles before being cast as Joy Smythe in the 1934 film Bright Eyes alongside Shirley Temple.
Withers (right) starred alongside Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes. Pic: AP
Withers bagged her own lead in the 1935 film Ginger, which won her praise from then president, Franklin Roosevelt.
She went on to have an illustrious film career as a child star in the 30s and 40s, before announcing her retirement in 1947, when she was just 21.
However, she ended up continuing to work in film and TV, making appearances in productions such as Murder, She Wrote, The Love Boat and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
She also went to become a household name in the US in the adverts for Comet cleanser, where she played Josephine The Plumber.
Withers has her own star on Hollywood Boulevard, as well as having her handprints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
She also lends her voice to the 1996 Disney film Hunchback Of Notre Dame, where she was asked to help complete the role of gargoyle Laverne when the original actress Mary Wickes passed away during production – a role Withers reprised for the sequel.
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Her daughter, Kendall Errair said: “My mother was such a special lady. 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.”
She is survived by four of her five children.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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