- Shirley Temple, Stand Up and Cheer! 1933. A sensation is born… Child star Jane Withers auditioned at age seven. Then… “in walked the most beautiful child I had ever seen. My heart sank to my toes. I knew she’d get the part, and I was right.” Songwwriter Jay Gprney insisted the five-year-old Temple be tested. He’d ran into her at a cinema screening of her short, Pardon My Pups. Jay was right, she was terrific. And on the second day of shooting her Baby Take A Bow routine, she was signed up by Fox. The premise had President Roosevelt (an impersonated voice off) appointing a Secretarty of Amusement to find ways to cheer up the depressed US. Shirley surely managed that. Variety hailed her as a “sure-fire potential kidlet star.”
- Shirley Temple, Heidi, 1937. Despite being called “Dixie’s Dainty Dewdrop,” Jane was tomboyish than Shirley (Baby Jane terrorised her in Bright Eyes, 1934), Withers made 50 B-movies at Fox. Veteran Hollywood icon George Stevens brought her back from her 40s retirement as Vashti Snythe in Giant, 1956, which led to various film and TV roles for then mother of five, including voice work for Disney’s 1995 Hunchback of Notre Dame and the 2002 sequel – her 71st and final screen role.
- Mary Lee, Three Little Sisters, 1943. The saga of the high-spirited Scottg sisters was put on hold when one of them – Ruth Terry – proved pregnant. Over the ensuing months, the project lost Dale Evans (Mrs Roy Rogers, 1947-1998) and Jane Withers to Cheryl Walker and Mary Lee – or America’s Little Sweetheartas Republic called Gene Autry’s main programmer squeeze.
- Gail Russell, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, 1943. Paramount went from Withers to Russell for the 1920s life of Cornelia Otis Skinner, the future author and Broadway actress. In the same year, COS made The Uninvited movie… opposite Russell!!
Birth year: 1926Death year: 2021Other name: Casting Calls: 4