Jane Withers

The stories were probably written for a young teenage audience and are reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. They are part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941-1947 that featured a film actress as heroine.

Withers kept working in the 1940s; she made 16 films for Fox, Columbia, and Republic Pictures. Her "sweet sixteen" birthday party was filmed by Paramount for the Hedda Hopper's Hollywood series. Withers received excellent notices for her dramatic performance in Lewis Milestone's The North Star. Read Less

They had two children, Ken and Kendall Jane. The same year, she earned a supporting role in the film classic, Giant.

In 1955, while filming the movie Giant Jane developed a friendship with James Dean. In the DVD special features she tells the story that Dean had a favorite pink cowboy shirt he wore all the time. He never let it go the laundry for fear it would be lost like the other shirts he had. Withers convinced him to let her wash it for him. She did this often and when he left to go to the race he gave her his shirt to wash and have ready for him when he came back. James Dean died that day in the fateful fatal car wreck in California. Withers still keeps his shirt and the fond memories of him.

By the mid-1960s, Withers gained fame again as "Josephine the Plumber," a character in a long-running and popular series of television commercials for Comet cleanser, and the veteran TV-ad pitchwoman's beloved character lasted into the 1970s, and even further in the '80s when her niece, JoAnn or Jo, would show her customers a picture of her Aunt Josephine. During this time, Withers also continued to do voice-over work and occasionally guest-starting appearances on television shows. A December 15, 2008, Advertising Age article about Flo, the Progressive Insurance TV commercial character played by Stephanie Courtney, said that Flo, "... is a weirdly sincere, post-modern Josephine the Plumber who just really wants to help. Read Less