Jane Withers, a child actress turned commercial celebrity, died at the age of 95.

Jane Withers, the former child actress who played Shirley Temple and went on to appear in a string of B movies that catapulted her to box-office success, has died, according to her daughter. She was 95 years old.

Withers, also known as “Josephine the Plumber” in the 1960s and 1970s TV ads, died Saturday, according to her daughter Kendall Errair. Withers was one of the few remaining stars from the heyday of Hollywood studio domination in the 1930s and 1940s.

After a string of small parts as a child actor, Twentieth Century-Fox placed Withers as the adversary of Shirley Temple, then Hollywood's most famous performer, in 1934's "Bright Eyes."

In 2000, Withers recalled, "I had to portray the meanest, creepiest young kid that God ever created on this earth." “I ran Shirley over with a tricycle and a baby carriage. And I thought to myself, 'Oh my, everyone is going to hate me for the rest of their lives because I was so creepy nasty to Shirley Temple!' 

Critics said she stole the photograph from Shirley. Children received fan letters praising what she did to Shirley "because she's so wonderful,"

 Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck decided there was a place for another child actor at the company, so she signed a contract. She was the anti-Shirley, a bright, talkative, mischievous young lady with big eyes, chubby cheeks, and straight black hair that contrasted with Shirley’s blonde curly top.

For four years, Fox produced three or four Withers pictures per year on considerably smaller budgets than the Temple specials. Among the titles were "Ginger," "Paddy O'Day," "Little Miss Nobody," "Wild and Wooly," and "Arizona Wildcat."

Despite the fact that B movies were targeted at the lowest part of double bills, a theatre owners survey ranked Withers one of the top money-making performers in 1936 and 1937.

While Temple's pictures were shot on Fox's new Westwood lot, Withers' were made in the old Sunset Boulevard studio.

“I couldn't shoot in Westwood until Shirley left the studio,” she explained.

As a teenager, Withers' popularity waned, and her career suffered.

She featured in a few films and on television as an adult.

Her most notable role was as "Josephine" in Comet cleaner TV ads for 12 years.

In 1963, she told the Los Angeles Times, "Oh, the money is wonderful, all right." “I got paid five figures for eight of those ads, and I'm doing four more,”

she added, adding that the primary perk was that, unlike the Broadway offers she was receiving, the job did not interfere with her home life in Hollywood.

In a subsequent interview, she stated that she thought the original Josephine character was "too smart-alecky, too arrogant," but she believed that "any girl who was going to become a plumber" would take pleasure in her work and care about her customers.

Jane Withers rose to prominence at a young age. She was born on April 12, 1926, in Atlanta, and by the age of three, she had been featured on local radio as Dixie's Dainty Dewdrop.

Her mother had loftier goals and encouraged her husband to relocate the family to Hollywood.

Jane appeared in a few films and provided voices for the Willie Whopper and Looney Tunes animations.

Her encounter with W.C. Fields' performance in "It's a Gift" (1934) debunks the idea — fostered by Fields himself — that the comic despised children. Fields cast her in a scene in which she plays hopscotch in front of his business, preventing him from leaving. He counseled her and then complimented her on her professionalism.

When she landed her first major part, he gave her two huge flowers and a letter stating, "I know you're going to knock them dead in 'Ginger,' and you're going to have a wonderful career."

Her success led to Jane Withers dolls and other products. She earned $2,500 per week and $50,000 per year in sponsorships at her peak. Her profits did not vanish like those of other kid stars.

“Fortunately, my father had a great appreciation of California land,” she said in 1974. He dabbled in real estate in a wonderful way.”

She began collecting dolls and teddy bears as a youngster and continued to do so throughout her life. In 1988 she reported that she owned 12,000 dolls and 2,500 teddy bears which were boxed and crated in a 27,000-square-foot warehouse.

Because of three marriages and five children, Withers' film appearances as an adult were infrequent. Her most noteworthy films are "Giant" (1956) and "Captain Newman, M.D." (1963).

Withers left Hollywood in 1947 to reside in Midland, Texas, with her first husband, producer-oil man William Moss. The marriage lasted seven years and produced three children.

When she returned to Hollywood, she was crippled by arthritis. She recovered after five months in the hospital.

She had two additional children with her second husband, Kenneth Errair, a member of the singing group the Four Freshmen who died in 1968. She married Thomas Pierson, a travel agency CEO, in 1985.

In 1974, an interviewer asked Withers how she avoided the problems that beset many child stars in adulthood. “I always brought my concerns to the good Lord, and I never failed to obtain an answer,” she said, a longtime Presbyterian.