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Jane Withers Height, Weight, Net Worth, Age, Birthday, Wikipedia, Who, Instagram, Biography

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James Bradley

Published Jan 06, 2026

Jane Wilts was an American entertainer and youngsters’ public broadcast have who lived from April 12, 1926, to August 7, 2021. During the 1930s and mid 1940s, she was one of Hollywood’s most well known kid stars, with her movies positioning in the main 10 for film industry gross in 1937 and 1938.

She started her profession in media outlets at three years old, and in her old neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, she had her own youngsters’ radio program during the Brilliant Time of Radio. She and her mom migrated to Hollywood in 1932, where she filled in as an extra in various movies until getting her advanced part in the 1934 picture Brilliant Eyes as the spoiled, horrendous Satisfaction Smythe inverse Shirley Sanctuary’s celestial vagrant Shirley Blake.

She chipped away at 38 movies until resigning in 1947 at 21 years old. During the 1950s, she got back to film and TV as a person entertainer. She played Josephine the Handyman in a progression of TV promotions for Comet cleaner from 1963 until 1974. She gave voice work to Disney enlivened films during the 1990s and mid 2000s. She was remembered for various Brilliant Time of Hollywood narrative reviews. She was additionally known for her huge doll assortment and good cause.

Jane Withers Bio/Wiki

Real NameJane Withers
NicknameJane Withers
Age95 years (1926–2021)
Date Of BirthApril 12, 1926
Birth PlaceAtlanta, Georgia
HeightNA
WeightNA
Eye ColourBrown
Hair ColourBrown
HometownGeorgia
FatherWalter Edward Withers
MotherLavinia Ruth
Marital StatusDied
HusbandKenneth Errair
NationalityAmerican
Zodiac SignAries
ReligionChristianity
EthnicityAmerican
ProfessionActress
Estimated Net Worth at the time of death (Approx)$5 million

Early Life
Jane Shrinks was born on April 12, 1926, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Walter Edward Shrivels and Lavinia Ruth (née Elble). She was the lone offspring of Walter Edward Shrinks and Lavinia Ruth (née Elble). Ruth’s own aspirations to be an entertainer had been crushed by her folks. She chose before Jane was born that she would have one girl who might seek after a lifelong in Broadway, and picked the name Jane on the grounds that “it would fit on a marquee even with a long last name like Withers.”In their nearby Presbyterian church, Ruth showed Sunday school and Walter showed Book of scriptures studies. All through Jane’s life, the family rehashed gifts at supper time and devoted themselves to helpful deeds.

The family would bring “six busloads of vagrant youths” to their home for lunch and evening amusement after chapel and Sunday school in both Atlanta and Hollywood. Ruth put Jane in a tap moving school when she was two years of age, and she likewise prepared her to sing. Jane started her profession in the stage at three years old, when she won a nearby beginner contest named Dixie’s Modest Dewdrop. She was projected in Auntie Sally’s Kiddie Revue, a Saturday morning youngsters’ program broadcast on WGST radio in Atlanta, in which she sang, moved, and imitated celebrities like W. C. Fields, ZaSu Pitts, Maurice Chevalier, Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, and Greta Garbo. She had her own public broadcast, Dixie’s Petite Dewdrop, at three years old and a half, when she talked with famous people who were visiting Atlanta.

Ruth moved Jane to Hollywood before her 6th birthday celebration in 1932, following two years of radio business, to research film possibilities. Walter remained in Atlanta and sent them $100 every month to get by. Jane cartooned voice-overs, displayed, and performed on youngsters’ shows on KFWB radio in Los Angeles. She got her most memorable film work as an additional when their nearby neighbor welcomed her to her girl’s Maneuver carefully tryout (1932). While different young people conversed with chief David Head servant, Wilts remained aside. The associate chief moved toward her and asked regarding the reason why she was not remaining with the remainder of the gathering. “Sir, I didn’t get a solicitation to the meeting. I went with a gathering of buddies “, she replied.

Steward had seen her and believed that her should talk with also, as per the associate chief. Shrivels had her most memorable film appearance in Maneuver carefully, nonetheless, she and different youths were shot with their backs to the camera. Shrivels proceeded to partake in a number more movies as an uncredited extra, yet she did sporadically get a line of discourse. Her gander at tryouts put her aside from different young ladies: she had a Dutchboy haircut and favored fitted dress to fancy outfits. “Each interview I at any point went on, I was the only one wearing a fitted dress with straight bangs and a straight hair style, no twists or ruffles,” she described. Head servant was the person who at first saw anything odd about her.

He told her, “You’re not normal for some other adolescent in Hollywood that I’ve at any point seen. You have an exceptional quality, and one day you will be a popular little star “. W. C. Fields picked Shrinks from a gathering of adolescent additional items to do an emulate hopscotch succession with him when she was filling in as an extra on It’s a Gift (1934). Following that, he recognized her timing and brought Jane’s mom to salute her on her ability and estimate that she would go the distance. Wilts’ significant break came two years some other time when she got a supporting job in Steward’s Shirley Sanctuary picture Brilliant Eyes (likewise 1934).

Steward inquired as to whether she could imitate an automatic weapon during her meeting, and she concurred. Her pantomimes likewise spellbound the projecting chief. Her personality, Satisfaction Smythe, is special and disagreeable, making her the best offset for Sanctuary’s enchanting disposition. Shrinks was stressed that audiences would despise her for being so brutal to Sanctuary, yet the film was a film industry achievement. “You took the movie,” chief Head servant admitted in Shrivels, as per Shrinks.

Wilts got a seven-year manage Fox Film Organization after creation finished up. Her agreement gave her the position to pick the group individuals who might deal with her shows. Every last bit of her future movies were created by her staff, called the “Shrivels Family.” After Wilts marked her agreement with Fox, her mom put $10,000 into learning new abilities to help her become more flexible as an entertainer, fully intent on financial planning $20,000 over the course of the following eight years. “Ice skating classes, voice preparing, horseback, dance, French, Spanish, and swimming guidance” were among the exercises.

Jane Shrinks Individual Life
While Shrinks was known for playing a rascal onscreen, she was portrayed as “quite possibly of Hollywood’s generally lovely and polite juvenile” off-screen. Her folks watched out for her childhood to guarantee she didn’t become spoilt or entitled. Ruth featured how she and her better half encouraged Jane to foster a beneficent demeanor as opposed to capitulate to the vanity and narcissism that a kid superstar might obtain as the objective of cherishing fans and studio “puppets” in a 1942 news story. For instance, when Shrivels started getting dolls as gifts from admirers to add to her assortment, her folks asked that she offer one doll for each two she got.

Her folks demanded that she spend her remittance cash to purchase indistinguishable dolls for less lucky youngsters when she began purchasing dolls to grow the assortment. Notwithstanding her significant profit from film parts, the cash was placed in trust assets and annuities, and Shrinks needed to utilize her stipend cash to purchase things she needed, which much of the time required a long time of saving. Her week after week remittance was expressed to be $5 in 1938, it was multiplied to $10 in 1941. To assist Shrinks with adapting to the tensions of being a youngster big name, her folks ensured she had a great time while keeping her exercises checked and near and dear.

Wilts joined the Young lady Scouts and the gathering was held at her folks’ home. The Wilts’ home, a 4-section of land (1.6 ha) model home at 10731 Nightfall Street that they purchased in 1936, incorporated a pool, badminton court, and a 78-foot (24-meter)- long den that Shrinks and her kindred Hollywood youngster entertainers utilized frequently. Her midday pool parties endured far into her puberty, and she was highlighted in a few fan magazines. Her folks added a second-floor expansion with a stunner shop and soft drink wellspring for Wilts to engage her companions when she was a teen.

She likewise had two ponies, three cats, “eight turtles, three child crocodiles, 24 white Leghorn chickens, 12 turkeys, 2 Chinese hens,” a chicken, six bantams, two ducks, seven frogs, and six canines when she was a youth. At the family’s Lake Sharpened stone bungalow, where they went through ends of the week and excursions.

The media covered Wilts’ birthday celebrations consistently, depicting them as “the get-together of the time for film town’s little fry.”Her guardians burned through $18,000 on a 21-seat freight plane to give party participants a low-elevation trip for her twelfth birthday. At Shrivels’ thirteenth birthday festivity, 60 youthful visitors spruced up and contended in an inflatable dance and jitterbug challenge; the occasion was highlighted in a two-page Life magazine story.

Shrivels’ “sweet sixteen” festival, which had 150 individuals and incorporated a hayride and horse shelter dance, was shot by Fundamental Pictures for the Hedda Container’s Hollywood series in 1942. During The Second Great War, the short was adjusted to 16 mm film and displayed to US troops positioned abroad. Shrinks welcomed U.S. troops and their dates to her eighteenth birthday festivity at Madison Square Nursery, which had a carnival subject. Shrinks’ twenty-first birthday festivity should be held in a club with 200 individuals, yet because of this season’s virus, she rather served cake and frozen yogurt and watched films with 12 dear companions in her own suite at home.

In her initial youngsters, Shrivels was permitted to go on escorted dates with folks her age; at 16 years old, she was permitted to continue solo dates. Starting around 1936, when she was compromised with abducting, she has forever been accompanied by nonstop watchmen. Ruth “took care of all discussions with makers, checked exposure, and totally dealt with Jane’s off-screen life” all through Shrivels’ initial 15 years in film.

Ruth, then again, was not your normal stage mother. She was oftentimes on the sound stage, however she didn’t watch Jane record her successions, and she gave no studio staff any headings or grievances. Walter Shrinks, then again, didn’t work in the entertainment world by any means, rather than functioning as a sales rep for a California discount furniture organization.

Jane Wilts Religion
Wilts was a devoted Christian in spite of her separation. She was an individual from the Presbyterian Church, very much like her folks. She co-showed Sunday school with entertainers Eleanor Powell and Gloria Hatrick McLean at the Beverly Slopes Presbyterian Church. She was a legal administrator of the Los Angeles Church of Strict Science.

Jane Wilts Proficient Profession
On her 10th birthday celebration, Wilts started shooting her most memorable driving job in Ginger (1935). On the set that day, she got two bunches of roses: one from Fields, who had expounded on her projecting in Splendid Eyes, and the other from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had seen her copy him on a newsreel. She had a little appearance in The Rancher Takes a Spouse and afterward highlighted in This Is the Existence the next year. Her day of creation in The Rancher Takes a Spouse harmonized with Henry Fonda’s realistic presentation, and she energized him and petitioned God for his prosperity, perceiving his fear.

Shrivels highlighted in three to five movies every year during the remainder of the 1930s. Paddy O’Day, Delicate Julia, Little Miss No one, and Pepper were among her 1936 movies. In 1937, she featured in The Heavenly Dread, Heavenly messenger’s Vacation, Wild and Wooly, Can This Be Dixie?, 45 Dads, and Checkers, among different comedies, shows, and Westerns. She featured in three Fox comedies in 1938: Miscreants, Continue To grin, and Consistently in a difficult situation. The Arizona Wildcat, Beau, Chicken Cart Family, and Get Together Your Difficulties were among her four comedic appearances in 1939. Considerably over other notable craftsmen, Shrivels was every now and again given first charging.

Wilts didn’t become familiar with her lines in exactly the same words, liking to ponder them and concentrate the “signifying” from them; she habitually ad libbed when she got derailed in a scene. She was a characteristic copy who did on-set and off-set pantomimes of celebrities. Darryl Zanuck, the studio manager at 20th Century Fox, supposedly banned her from playing out her Shirley Sanctuary pantomime in broad daylight. Wilts transparently imparted her considerations and insights with screenwriters and chiefs. She participated in creators’ gatherings since she was a youth, recommending modifications in a discourse that would be more reasonable for a youngster to say.

She likewise suggested Jackie Searl, whom she had met at tryouts, and 16-year-old Rita Cansino (later became Rita Hayworth), whom she had seen moving on a bordering sound stage and suggested for a supporting job in Paddy O’Day. By going about as a go between twentieth Century Fox studio president Joseph M. Schenck and Republic Pictures boss Herbert J. Yates at 13 years old, she stepped up to the plate and make an image with Quality Autry. However neither studio was prepared to loan its top player to the next, Wilts suggested that Fox move three other agreement entertainers to Republic Pictures in return for Autry, who was paid $25,000 to co-star in Shooting High with Shrinks (1940).

Wilts was the solitary youngster big name to sign a seven-year bargain. Most studio contracts included a progression of half year choice periods during which the organization could drop the agreement in the event that the entertainer’s movies were as of now not productive. Shrinks was held to a lesser norm than A-film entertainer whose movies would cost the studio undeniably more cash since everything except one of her movies were low-financial plan B motion pictures. Besides, Wilts’ B motion pictures had the option to be displayed in a lot more nearby performance centers because of the scaled down rental costs, which expanded her allure. Shrivels’ movies bested the movies gross incomes list in 1937 and 1938. Shrivels procured $5,000 each week for individual appearance visits notwithstanding her studio contract.

Wilts thinned down to 100 lb (45 kg) and a size 12 dress in 1938-1939 by following a reasonable diet and doing extending works out. In the 1939 picture Sweetheart, she encountered her most memorable on-screen kiss. She featured in the youngster flicks Secondary School, The Young lady from Road A, and Youth Will Be Served and co-featured with Quality Autry in the 1940 picture Shooting High. In any case, as she progressed in years, she and her fans became baffled with the juvenile parts that were being introduced to her. Shrivels wrote the screenplay for Humble community Deb (1941), in which she likewise showed up, under the false name Jerrie Walters.

“Her own encounters of not being permitted to grow up by the studio were moved into the story of a little kid whose mother isn’t allowing her to grow up, to act naturally, and to find herself,” Shrinks said in a 2003 meeting. Shrinks mentioned that the studio offers fifteen $1,500 grants for adolescents to seek after music and acting, as well as two upstanding pianos for her Sunday school gatherings, as installment for the content.

Wilts got her second seven-year manage twentieth Century Fox in 1941. In the principal year of the agreement, she was supposed to acquire $2,750 each week, ascending to $3,000 each week in the subsequent year. Brilliant Feet and An Exceptionally Young woman were her different comedies for twentieth Century Fox this year. Youthful America, a tactical show, and The Distraught Martindales, a satire, were her last pictures for Fox, both delivered in 1942. For Columbia Pictures, she additionally guided Her Most memorable Lover (1941).

Wilts marked a three-year, $225,000 manage Republic Pictures in 1942. Johnny Doughboy (1942), My Best Lady and Countenances in the Haze (every one of the 1944), and Undertakings of Geraldine (1945) were her Republic pictures (1946). Her different movies during the 1940s were RKO Pictures’ The North Star (1943) and Vital Pictures’ Peril Road (1947).

During the 1930s, Shrivels and Shirley Sanctuary were two of the most conspicuous youngster entertainers contracted to twentieth Century Fox. Not at all like Sanctuary’s sweet and charming jobs, Wilts was much of the time cast as an unruly young lady or “a spitfire maverick,” procuring her the moniker “America’s number one issue kid.” As per Zierold, Shrivels’ characters “are habitually in trouble, or fixes,’ and inclined to fights.” Shrinks was hailed as “a characteristic jokester” by Hollywood tattle columnist Louella Parsons. Sanctuary’s “plump yet sensitive” body and blonde curls stood out from Shrivels’ “stocky and solid” edge and straight dark hair as a baby. Wilts and Sanctuary were oftentimes given a role as vagrants, and their presence affected others around them.

However, while Sanctuary was typically cared for by mentors, Wilts was generally taken care of by uncles, both genuine and envisioned; this, as per Pamela Wojcik, creator of Dreams of Disregard: Envisioning the Metropolitan Kid in American Film and Fiction, presented the account of eccentricity through elective family structures. Shrivels’ cheeky film character endured far into her puberty. Shrinks was “cast as the impolite, wise guy youth rather than Deanna Durbin’s or Judy Festoon’s energetic and beautiful young person,” as per Farley Granger.

Voice Work
Shrinks functioned as a voice entertainer for Disney enlivened films during the 1990s. She was mentioned in 1995 to keep specific lines of discourse in the style of Mary Wickes, who had kept the voice of Laverne the beast in The Hunchback of Notre Woman (1996) yet died during after creation. In The Hunchback of Notre Woman II, Shrivels repeated his job (2002). Wilts described book recordings, including an interpretation of Mary Pickford’s The reason Not Attempt God? for a Christian organization in Southern California.

She was evaluated on different TV narrative reviews of Hollywood’s Brilliant Age during the 1990s. She was the subject of a 45-minute A&E Biography that circulated in 2003. In 1990, Shrivels started to give indications of lupus. She was determined to have the condition at eleven years old and went into abatement following decade. In 2007, she started to encounter dizziness.

Stage Work
Shrinks made her dramatic presentation in Busby Berkeley’s melodic parody Delighted To See You in late 1944. Following seven weeks of tryouts in Philadelphia and Boston, the Broadway creation was dropped. Shrivels played out the Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn light ditty “Surmise I’ll Hang My Removes to Dry,” which was made explicitly for the creation and was in no time sung by Frank Sinatra and Kate Smith, and proceeded to turn into a jazz and pop norm.

In 1971, Shrinks highlighted close by Shirley Sanctuary Dark in the Broadway melodic parody Sure, Certain, Shirley, which coaxed her out of retirement. The show, which incorporated a tap moving everyday practice with 50 chorale artists, was placed on as an advantage for diabetes on premiere night.

Passing
Wilts died on August 7, 2021, in Burbank, California, at 95 years old.

Family
Following a two-year tease, Wilts reported her commitment to William (Bill) Greenery, a Texas business person and film maker, in May 1947. On September 20, 1947, they wedded. With their three youngsters, the couple lived on farms in Midland, Texas, and New Mexico. They separated from in July 1954, with Wilts guaranteeing her significant other’s “exorbitant drinking and betting” as the justification behind their detachment. [She was granted a $1 million property settlement, which included month to month provision and youngster support, a trust asset and protection store for the children, and a half-interest in Greenery’s Texas oil fields, as well as full guardianship of the children.

Wilts was hospitalized for quite some time in 1953 with extreme rheumatoid joint pain and acquired absolute loss of motion because of mental worry about the impending separation. She had the option to mend with practically no drawn out results.

On their big day in 1955, Wilts and Errair Shrivels married vocalist Kenneth Errair of The Four Green beans in October 1955, and they had two extra kids. Errair died in an airplane crash in Bass Lake, California, in June 1968. One of Shrivels’ children died of malignant growth sometime down the road.

Wilts and Errair on their big day, 1955
Shrivels and Errair on their big day, 1955

Jane Shrivels Total assets
Jane Shrivels was an entertainer from the US with a total assets of $5 million when she died.

She was known for depicting “Josephine the Handyman” in a progression of notices for Comet cleaner during the 1960s and 1970s, and for being one of the most famous kid film stars of the 1930s and 1940s. Jane Shrivels, who lived to be 95 years of age, died on August 7, 2021.